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I talked to the client, who as usual provided some fantastic answers with some history:

"...a group of friends who were reworking the A6 that now sits in front of the Museum in Havelock NC outside of MCAS Cherry Point NC. The guy in the wheelchair is Charlie "Vulture" Carr Col USMC (ret). One of the most decorated Marine aviators. Leg amputated due to diabetes. 3 tours in Vietnam, was B/N on lead flight that mined Haipong Harbor and also flew some of the Intruder's last combat missions in Desert Storm. The mock up Mk 82 answers the question."

CD038DD5-842B-4AA8-BDCA-E2BECEB10FEA-6339-0000074D081D9C41.jpg

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More great background:

"Actually the fuse screwed into the tip of the bomb and controls the type of explosion. "Daisycutter" was a fuse extender that allowed the explosion above ground; good for troops or taking out trees to open a landing zone. Mines had a delayed fuse and bunker busters allowed greater penetration. They did have a prop on front held by a arming wire that connected to a solenoid on the rack. Part of per-flight was to insure there was a retaining clip on each bomb. If it was missing, one could have an armed bomb in flight. I actually had this happen as I looked out of the cockpit and noticed one of those props spinning on a bomb run; definitely disconcerting especially at low altitude. When the armed the bombs the switch closed the solenoid keeping the wire with the plane allowing the prop to turn a number of turn away from the aircraft. If you showed up back at the base without the wires meant you dropped duds which usually ended up as boobytraps."

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Great work on closing up the wing. Enjoying your progress.

Got this post confused with your thread:

Great progress thus far and thanks for taking time to share your work! I'm building the same kit - also for a client. I'm using the Wolfpack cockpit set and so far so good. I started the intakes last night and thankfully have not glued anything yet. I will try the method you explained as I can see how that might be the easiest solution.

My A-6E will be a high-viz bird from VA-52 Knightriders. I'm going to create the decals myself as they do not exist in the after-market world.

800px-A-6E_Intruder_VA-52.JPEG

Thanks again for the thread and I look forward to future updates as I'll be watching this very closely!

Jim

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Bombs. Got them all assembled at last. The resin ones actually went pretty well and I prefer them over the old parts bin plastic ones in halves:

7AC13C83-6221-49DF-8223-D4218787A372-5801-000006DA4C07264F.jpg

So would these 500 lb mk 82's have a single yellow stripe, 2 yellow stripes or simply a yellow nose?

Thermal coated(rough) Mk 80 series had two yellow stripes. Non thermal coated (smooth) had one.

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1349037943[/url]' post='2424119']

Jim - Looking good! Think something like this might help?...

VA52_A6E.jpg

brian

I think your looking for me! I'm building the same kit but with VA-52 markings and those decals would be sweet ( not to mention saving me a ton of time). Send me a PM

as I would love to know when those will be available.

Jim

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1349039910[/url]' post='2424130']

More great background:

"Actually the fuse screwed into the tip of the bomb and controls the type of explosion. "Daisycutter" was a fuse extender that allowed the explosion above ground; good for troops or taking out trees to open a landing zone. Mines had a delayed fuse and bunker busters allowed greater penetration. They did have a prop on front held by a arming wire that connected to a solenoid on the rack. Part of per-flight was to insure there was a retaining clip on each bomb. If it was missing, one could have an armed bomb in flight. I actually had this happen as I looked out of the cockpit and noticed one of those props spinning on a bomb run; definitely disconcerting especially at low altitude. When the armed the bombs the switch closed the solenoid keeping the wire with the plane allowing the prop to turn a number of turn away from the aircraft. If you showed up back at the base without the wires meant you dropped duds which usually ended up as boobytraps."

This is turning into a great build!!! Great work and attention to detail. Thanks for posting your progress and solutions. Big help to me on my current build. Looking forward to the next update!

Jim

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Yeah if your looking for accuracy I concur with Billabob. After the U.S.S. Forrestal fire they started to coat them with a rough surface that would make the "cookoff" time much longer so if there were a fire like on the Forrestal they would have more time to fight the fire. I dont know how you plan to do it, but if you would like one way that I did it on those same bombs I took some regular ole' Tamiya putty and mixed it with a little liquid cement, mix it to a consistancy that you are able to brush it on, but make sure you dont get big clumps, makes it harder to after its all cured sand down to look more realistic. HTH, and good luck cant wait to see them!

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Bombs

Mk 82 Bombs

Lots of them. How to paint the yellow rings on the nose? I prepainted them yellow and than planned on masking them but hadn't solved how I would mask around that tiny nose diameter. I looked for small hardware washers but didn't find any that were just right. I looked for small O-rings and tried a wire wrapped around the diameter but this still didn't work well. I could try tape but tape tends to lift too easily. So I did this: Cut the PVC insulation off an old mobile device power cord and effectively used it as a small rubber band. Worked pretty well on the test part, I'll have to maybe do some small touch-up.

The PVC stretches pretty well and can be re-used. I got a unlimited supply. Problem is, there are about 24 bombs with 2 rings each, so its still a lot of finger work. I'll just have to throw in a movie on the Desktop PC and do 8 or so at a time.

E7D1B6D6-A6F4-4F46-AB6D-D2225CC7E7AB-3423-00000443C9262C13.jpg

I used Tamiya XF-51 Khaki drab for the olive bomb color as I read someone else suggesting it on another forum. I like it and it looks good compared to the snakeye bomb in the background, which I think was Testors MM Olive Drab from a long time ago. EDIT- color difference doesn't show up well in the phot.

Edited by toadwbg
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Slightly modified. It's too difficult getting on the second ring with the PVC cut tube section. Instead I did cut thin strips of Yellow Tamiya tape for that ring but kept the PVC ring/plug for the nose. This seemed to be the best of both worlds and things went along faster. The Tamiya tape can unravel, so I think doing 4 at a time and airbrushing right away is the best process.

E3E283EE-BC7B-4611-8230-8DF84E4832F1-3423-00000447CC110533.jpg

Other notes: You can see just a little paint in the gravity-fed airbrush cup. Literally one drop of thinner and 1 drop of paint is as little as I do at a time.

Bombs away!

Edited by toadwbg
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Nice build, bare in mind the Kinetic's kit is pretty good but has some flaws ie. the wings are all wrong the root area is of a prowler also dont worry to much about the config of the wing we had had both composite and metal wings during the gulf war in fact we didnt change them all out when the squadron decommisioned in 94, the A-6 is still dear to me spent 12 years working on it. Great build cant wait to see her finnished makes me want to dig on out of the stash.

Scott

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Nice build, bare in mind the Kinetic's kit is pretty good but has some flaws ie. the wings are all wrong the root area is of a prowler also dont worry to much about the config of the wing we had had both composite and metal wings during the gulf war in fact we didnt change them all out when the squadron decommisioned in 94, the A-6 is still dear to me spent 12 years working on it. Great build cant wait to see her finnished makes me want to dig on out of the stash.

Scott

Thanks for the history, I continue to learn a lot about A-6's on this build from the client and people like yourself. This particular airframe is from Vietnam but I have to accept there are some fine inaccuracies on the wings and move on. As you can see, I'm trying to correct some of the more obvious ones. I think I already have spent more time on the wings than the rest of the airframe!

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Finishing up the Bombs. Man, that is a lot of work! I just do a few every other night not to get burnt out.

Back the the wings. I couldn't live with the outer pylon, which is unique for the composite wing and fold. So I ordered replacement outer pylons from Revel. GOD BLESS REVEL! Because I was on disability during most of September for reason's we wont get into, I was also on some strong medicine. So strong in fact, it took me 4 TRIES TRYING TO ORDER THE CORRECT OUTER PYLONS! The fault was all mine as I kept ordering the wrong parts. No kidding, I would look at the Revel instructions, and type in the parts I needed into Revel's online replacement part order form but did that wrong 3 times! :bandhead2: I couldn't even do that right I was hopped up on so many pain killers (aka happy medicine) :banana: Now I know why they didn't want me driving on the stuff. Like I said, God Bless Revel for sending me parts 4 different times. Great customer service.

Time to scribe the wing fold mechanism, which was different on the old wing. It's hard to find good photos because of the curved surface they are on. So I just whipped out my Revel kit and transposed them to the Kinetic kit by sketching. This is just a trail. Once I get them how I want I will scribe them.

DFACDD70-803F-4BEE-A18F-0B2A31F7F34B-9383-00000BAE7667DD70.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Still chugging away on the 28 bombs and 5 MERs- This is a LOT of work! Not bad work just time consuming and I've been watching/listening to "classic albums" on Netflix while I'm working.

WINGS- I've been also priming, filling, sanding, cleaning them up. I've been rather dreading the wing-fold, which I will have to re-scribe. It's been difficult finding good photo references of the wing-fold "tooth" line to scribe, the Revel instruction top view isn't that good and most pictures of this are at a low angle. I tried sketching my eyeball a couple of times with a pencil but this never turned out satisfactory- but EUREKA!

I burnished a piece of Tamiya tape over my Revel Kit's wings, traced it with a mechanical pencil, and now I have a perfect analog template. I'll transfer this to the Kinetic kit, retrace hard enough with the pencil to see thru the tape and scribe the line. I love it when a good plan comes together

34391A5F-6EA4-45DB-9D76-548F87EC114D-17930-000015F3AF686055.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

No thanks to the new Photo-bucket interface- I've been frustrated trying to upload and share new photos! What is Photo-bucket thinking?

Anyway, Progress on wings is slow but is getting there. Here you can see me scribing with my tape template traced from the Revell kit with the original wing fold. Not a prefect match-up but I wonder if anyone will notice when done. Lay down tape template, scribe right over the lines with my handy scriber.

1AB9EFBE-64B9-4693-84BE-DA961C7A3A25-1007-000000CDEC8D11A5.jpg

worked pretty well, there will be a little clean-up yet.

Next challenge, nose-cone/random. It is at least 1mm smaller in profile than the fuselage at the mating line. If I had been really smart ahead of time, I would have shaved some off each fuselage side along the center line and reduced that gap. got some sanding to do.

CB12CFF1-ACAF-4574-8BC4-5A0F0EA244AB-1007-000000CDE660D61E.jpg

Oh yeah- I did add weight to the nose with some fishing sinkers. I can add more yet to before I finish up the cockpit if necessary

Edited by toadwbg
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Get out a fine saw and... well... saw along the fuselage join, perhaps the resulting gap will be enough to reduce the diameter enough when you squeeze the fuselage halves back together.

I had the same problem with my HB F-14A with the nose being slightly larger compared to the fuselage.

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  • 4 weeks later...

No Forum updates for a wile, but I have been working steadily but slowly.

First off- a little mishap of the floor jumping up to meet my model... fortunately this wasn't too bad to fix.

5B2CB70A-17A1-4316-94B0-3AF782DCDD71-13114-00000FA0D885E11B.jpg

I got everything back together and re-organized my workbench a bit:

DDA34D5A-2A5D-40BE-A208-54B61396168A-582-0000004FB1A3ACEF.jpg

Other work you can see here is some white priming of the wings, metal landing gear, gear bays, ejection seats on a stick ready to paint, exhaust tubes and TERs primed on clothes pins.

I think I spent as long on these wings as I spend assembling some kits with the conversion back to the original metal wing from the composite wing.

Edited by toadwbg
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Started painting the Ejection Seats- the flash makes them pretty light in this photo. I need to add Ejection Pull rings and some decals yet. You can also see the exhaust rings cut from Brass tube.

317561CC-1DC1-4AF2-AF9C-AC8A900FD903-13097-00000F9E252C5C65.jpg

Wings are on! A lot of work to get this far. some minor blending and filling/sanding needed in various areas:

AA1A0684-899A-48DA-91C4-BC70E2F3F3A2-13097-00000F9E1FA11189.jpg

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Did I mention I was using the Verlinden set? This set is intended for the Monogram kit and I'm using a few bits and pieces here and there. The Ejection seats are from this set.

I thought to to some sub-assembly on the boarding ladders and didn't like what i saw- the Verlinden ones are HUGE! They look almost 1/32 scale compared to the 1/48th kit parts and can't be adopted due to that size differential. Major bummer as I love the structured sidewall members with holes in them and the steps. I did try dry fitting some of the Verlinden parts and they are definitely a PITA to assemble. I might try detailing the kit parts a little more instead.

97CB8F4F-CFBD-462E-AE6E-F8CB07E2B0EC-13097-00000F9E123BAE6B.jpg

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Did I mention I was using the Verlinden set? This set is intended for the Monogram kit and I'm using a few bits and pieces here and there. The Ejection seats are from this set.

I thought to to some sub-assembly on the boarding ladders and didn't like what i saw- the Verlinden ones are HUGE! They look almost 1/32 scale compared to the 1/48th kit parts and can't be adopted due to that size differential. Major bummer as I love the structured sidewall members with holes in them and the steps. I did try dry fitting some of the Verlinden parts and they are definitely a PITA to assemble. I might try detailing the kit parts a little more instead.

97CB8F4F-CFBD-462E-AE6E-F8CB07E2B0EC-13097-00000F9E123BAE6B.jpg

Coming along real nice. I too tried using the Verlinden boarding ladders but I didn't want to deal with gluing the pieces together and the subsequent glue residue. Actually a lot of the pieces on the photo etch fret seem a bit over sized and somewhat thick. Keep up the good work.

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