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Monogram A-6E TRAM 1/48


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6 hours ago, wardog said:

Hello Ta,

 

I assume you're talking about the rings and connectors on the rear deck? If so, most are made of either plastic rod or hex shaped rod with a hole drilled through the center; see link below. I'll sometimes create a sleeve for a tube by drilling a hole through tubing that is larger than the original and slip fit it over. I've also used chrome colored tape cut into strips to represent clamps and at times, have used decals of the right color for the same purpose. If you don't have the right color decal, paint the decal while still on the sheet; works just as good.

 

If I didn't answer your question, let me know. Thanks for looking.

 

https://plastruct.com/page/1/?s=hex&post_type=product
 

 

-Elmo

 

 

Great work done, great information too....

 

I am eagerly waiting to see this one being built.

There is a lot to learn from this one.

 

Many many thanks 🙂

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  • 3 months later...

Once again, It's time for a small update. Now that the kids are back in school I've been able to put in a little bench time; however, I only build a little at a time since I'm not the fastest builder. I went back and added the doubler over the vent on the R/S of the cockpit. I really wish I would have done this prior to opening the hole for the vent....would have been easier than later. I also added the scoop just aft of the doubler. I think It's a bit small but it may have to do.

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The scribing on the forward/inboard wing leading edge is also complete. Scribing the detail tested my patience and skill. There is also a few strips, a doubler and some other detail elements to complete the area.

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The above picture also shows the half round panel I scribed on the hump just aft of the canopy.

 

I also finished the fuel dump vent area. I will upload these pics in the next few hours.

 

Enjoy

-Elmo

 

Edited by wardog
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DNL42 and DIO,

 

Thanks for letting me know; I forgot to move the pics to the shared album prior to copying the link. I went back and fixed the issue so hopefully the previous and following pics are now displayed.

 

On to the fuel dump vent area. I decided long ago that I was going to scratch build the vent and make the area in general a bit more accurate. That said, I removed most of the detail in the immediate area and just left the aft-most panel. However, when I started to rebuild the area, it gave me a bit more trouble than expected and I wasn't getting the results I wanted. I eventually decided to cut off the last panel and graft in a new section from a donor A-6 in my stash. After closer examination, I conceded to the fact that the detail Monogram provided wasn't all that bad, except for the vent tube itself which needed to be hollowed. 

 

On to the pics. First, a pic of my failed attempt to rebuild the area prior to cutting off the aft-most panel.

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The following pics show's the area I cut out as I wasn't satisfied with it. The other pics show the section I cut off from the donor A-6 which was then slotted to accept the vent tube I made out of brass sheet.

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On to the vent tube. I had a few options here. I could have used styrene strip and shaped it accordingly,  however, hollowing the half inch long vent while trying to maintain a constant wall thickness around the circumference of the vent would have been difficult, not to mention flimsy once complete. Instead I decided to use .001 brass sheet shaped over a mold of the vent made from styrene strip. Using brass sheet would mean I get a constant wall thickness even though at .001, not very strong. Now that the vent is done, the folds and super glue have helped make it stronger than I anticipated. I would have used .002 brass sheet, however, even adding .001 to the thickness made it very hard to get sharp folds over the vent mold. Once the vent is installed, I'll have to protect it somehow to mitigate the risk of damage caused my an inadvertent slip of the hand or contact with an object.

 

Here is a pic of the vent mold shaped out of styrene strip. The vent had already been made when I took this pic as evidenced by the angle cut on the end. The small rectangular strip next to the vent tube on the left side of the pic fits inside of it to represent the split vent design.

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A pic with the vent over mold.

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This pic shows the small piece of brass sheet I glued inside to represent the split vent design.

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Finally, the completed vent. It took a lot of work for such a simple piece. Now I just have to glue on the assembly.

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As always, thanks for looking. Now It's on to reworking the grossly oversized Verlinden boarding ladder bay hand-holds. I had already glued these in place but now that I have good reference photos, I can't help but to re-do them. Hopefully I'll have those done by the end of this week.

 

Cheers

-Elmo

Edited by wardog
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Excellent!

 

You’re a world class “scribe” - those engraved panel lines, fasteners and other surface details are so extremely realistic. Great job on the fuel vent too - lots of ingenuity on display here.

 

Thanks for sharing.

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Thank you all for looking and the positive feedback.

 

Acuity, thank you as well for looking; unfortunately, the A-6 is the only build I have posted on any of the model building sites so this is pretty much it.

 

As I stated previously, I'm now going to focus a bit on reworking the hand-holds in the boarding ladder well. I started that effort today and so far have completed one hand-hold. I'm including a pic of the real thing and as well as the piece provided in the Verlinden kit for comparison. As is the case with most of the other items on the photoetch fret, It's grossly oversized and not very accurate. I'm hoping to have the other three hand-holds complete by tomorrow so I can have the wells all finished up by Thursday. Both wells are actually nearly complete minus the new hand-holds and a few other bits and pieces. With some luck I can post a few more pics before the weekend.

 

First, the real thing. I noticed that the Verlinden hand-holds and the one I made look a bit off in comparison to the real thing. The Verlinden piece and mine are wider in appearance and shallower than I think they should be. Looking at the wells on my kit, It's obvious they're too wide and not as deep as they should be, hence the issue with appearance.

 

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The pic below shows the Verlinden hand-hold on the left and mine on the right. As you can see, the hand slot is much smaller on mine, maybe even too small. I may have to enlarge it a bit.

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One last pic. In the pic of the real thing you can clearly see that the metal where the holes are is much thinner than the other end where the hand slot is. I tried representing this by simply adding another piece of styrene to the outboard side without covering the holes.

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That's it for now. Thanks again for looking.

 

 

-Elmo

 

Edited by wardog
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Thanks again to all that have left comments and those that have stuck with this build over the past hundred years.

 

I managed to finish the R/S boarding ladder well so I figured I'd post a few pics. Nothing really spectacular here other than for me, one small step forward towards the finish line. The left side is complete as well minus gluing in the hand-holds. I don't plan on doing nothing else in this area other than attaching the boarding ladder and the two guide rail looking things on either side of the boarding ladder that attach to the sides of the well.

 

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Once the L/S is complete I'll move on to beefing up the attachment points for the horizontal stabilizers. I decided to cut off the horrible locating tabs on the stabs and insert stainless steel tube to take their place. The fuselage slots for the tabs were filled and a corresponding hole of the right diameter was drilled to fit the stab SS tube. However, over time, the holes in the fuselage have grown a bit and now the stabs fit loose and sag a bit. I found some SS tube in my stash that fits snugly over the tube in the stabs and should eliminate the sag once I insert a piece into the fuselage.

 

Once I complete that I'll move onto figuring out how to re-create the frames for the lights on the vertical tail which I had to sand off due them being misaligned. When I glued the fuselage halves together, I did not pay close enough attention to alignment and one half was literally higher than the other. This little mistake manifested into a lot of rework in certain areas, one being the tail light frames. When viewed from the front and looking aft, one light frame sat higher than the other and hence had to be sanded off. Now I have to somehow recreate the frames by hand. As an option, I cut off the frames from my donor A-6 but getting them to fit is another story. Getting the backside of the frames to match the curved contour of the tail is anything but easy. Well we'll see how this adventure goes.

 

 

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And last but not least, one of the tail light frames. At this time, getting these to fit is my best option.

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Cheers

-Elmo

 

Edited by wardog
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I m on this forum since 2010. I dont know how I missed this marvelous build thread. 

 

Even if I m born again, I will not acquire these outstanding modeling skills and the patience that comes to get them as a prerequisite. Absolutely fantastic work. And going through this thread made me realize how useless I m at making models if this is the pinnacle of skills once could strive for! :)

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Chuck,

 

Thanks for checking in and the feedback. Yes, I have been very patient with this build and It's most likely because model building is about the only thing I have patience for. This build has been going on forever primarily because It's not a priority. In fact, It's not even on the priority list. My day to day activities and priorities center around work, fixing something around the house or managing some aspect related to my kids. For those of us that have young kids, you know how much time is left at the end of the day after homework, sports, etc..............not much!

 

Cheers

-Elmo

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  • 2 months later...

Time for a mini update. As I had stated before, the mistake I made of not lining up the fuselage halves correctly when gluing manifested in ways I never imagined as the build progressed. One of those areas was the misalignment of the lights towards the top of the vertical tail leading edge. Each fuselage half has Its own corresponding light section which must be lined up together when glued. The result was one light section located higher than the other which necessitated I sand away both sections and eventually make new ones. I knew the task wouldn't be easy as I would need to somehow try to represent the curve on the leading edge of the tail to the bottom of the mating side of each light section to eliminate major gaps. I had a few ideas but neither worked as I hoped. One was to cut out the light sections from my donor A-6, trim and sand the back side to fit on my model. The other was to start off with a block of styrene and also trim/sand to fit. Both methods proved too difficult to match the mating side of the lights to the curve of the tail....at least with good results.  Finally, my bulb turned on. Enter Tamiya Light Curing Putty and some Seran Wrap. The pics below should be pretty self explanatory.

 

In essence, the idea was to cut some tape in the shape of the lights and locate in the corresponding area followed by tracing around the tape with a pencil. The tape was then removed (but saved for later) and the clear Seran Wrap draped over the area and secured with tape. I then used the putty to build up each light making sure to stay within the traced lines. Once exposed to light and removed from the plastic, I had two light sections with the mating sides perfectly represented. I then sanded the outer edges of each light section using the original pieces of tape as a guide.

 

Here is a pic of one of the light sections I cut out from the donor model. Not only is it out of scale but It's supposed to fit within the scribed lines. What this pic does not show is how the mating surface is nowhere close to fitting good.

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Here is the small tape sections cut to represent the shape of the light and then traced with pencil.

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Plastic, tape and the putty applied, making sure to stay within the traced lines as much as possible.

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Back side of one of the lights showing the curve of the tail to good effect.

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And a front view.....now I just have to glue them in place and It's on to the windscreen.....I actually feel like I'm getting closer to the finish line.

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If none of you have ever tried this method, maybe it will come in handy at some point!

 

Cheers

-Elmo

 

Edited by wardog
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