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1/32 Trumpeter A-10C Hog- "Putting Lipstick on a Pig of a Kit"


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Nosejob1.jpg

Nosejob13.jpg

Yikee Schnikee....One would think that for the kind of moolah some folks are laying out for this kit that Trumpy would have as good or better detail than smaller scaled kits. Good luck on the changes you're gonna need to make to get it right Chuck. The dry fit looks like rubber bands and clamps will be needed for proper alignment. However with your skills that won't be a problem, that you have to is the real bugger in this. I was considering purchasing their "Harrier" in this scale, but seeing this I'm going to go deep getting all the skinny on that one. If it has flaws like these it'll ahhhh...NO!!.

Edited by #1 Greywolf
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Already have the kit and all of the goodies for this build in the stash, just waiting on the next addition of that mandatory out of print book we keep needing to build models any more.......Hint-Hint to a certain author ..........and some time.

Since you are going to open her up, do you want that cannon I have here for you? Actually, I am finally getting back to the bench for the first time this year. Hope to finish the Geasel by summer, and then I have a 1/24 harrier to build next. By that time you will have all the hard work figured out on this one. I already have 4 pages of notes just in preparation for building the Hog, and the list just keeps growing. You are definitely headed in the right direction with the nose, and look at it this way, it is these kinds of errors that make us modelers and craftsman, not just parts assemblers. Let me know on the cannon.

Gary

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Already have the kit and all of the goodies for this build in the stash, just waiting on the next addition of that mandatory out of print book we keep needing to build models any more.......Hint-Hint to a certain author ..........and some time.

Yeah, yeah. I know. :rolleyes: I am slowly working on the Hog Guide 2nd Edition, but there is another project I have to finish first.

Jake

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Since you are going to open her up, do you want that cannon I have here for you?

Gary

Hi Gary,

Right now I don't think so for these reasons:

1) That gun is super expensive and you won't really see anything but the front and a bit from underneath with the Verlinden kit door open. It's a bit of a waste for what I'm showing.

2) I have the Cutting Edge resin for the gun front, which looks pretty good, although out of production.

3) The Verlinden kit also has a gun front that looks much better than the kit parts, although not as good as the CE one, and it is readily available.

4) I want to build this model as sort of a reference, so that whatever I do can be replicated easily by others. Using your beautiful brass gun puts it into another hard to achieve level.

Now if somebody wants to get adventuresome and totally open up the bottom, THAT is when the gun would shine! Right now, that isn't me, but I'm ALWAYS changing my mind as I dig through a build. If I do, I'll let you know and thanks again for the offer.

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Wow, huge challenge. The closest match to this kit (the one I think they copied from) seems to be the old 1/48 Tamiya A-10A. For instance, the pudgy nose, the bulbous main gear pylons. Only two days left on listing, but you can see the Sierra Hotel resin engine photos compared to the kit ones here;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290890573918?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Edited by phasephantomphixer
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Here is a belly view of an A-10 with a green nosegear door:

http://i55.tinypic.com/671c2b.jpg

edit: another belly view:

http://airforcelive.dodlive.mil/files/2011/12/111202-F-ZU607-074.jpg

Jari

That second one is money! Thanks again.

Nice work on the nose, Chuck.

BTW, have you seen this article?

http://www.largescaleplanes.com/Marketplace/Tweaks/A-10.pdf

Yes I have and I even have it printed somewhere, but like any man putting a BBQ together without instructions, only to find left over parts, I haven't read it yet. Thanks for the reminder, although I suspect I won't do half of the corrections, because I'd like to finish this bird in under a year!

Only two days left on listing, but you can see the Sierra Hotel resin engine photos compared to the kit ones here;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290890573918?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Thanks for the tip, but I have the Cutting edge engines already and with some modifications, I think I can make them look just as good. Also, I would really hate to win the bid because then I'd be stuck with another one of these crappy kits!

After grinding and sanding down the nose, all the panel line and rivet detail was lost. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, because about half of it is wrong anyway!

My very favorite scribing tool is, very ironically, made by Trumpeter. I own every single scribing tool available including Hasegawa, UMM, Squadron and even a new one recommended to me by RB Productions. They all work and none of them are bad, but this baby works best for me. I have two of them, one for fine and one for wider cuts, so I mark the fine one with masking tape since they both look identical. I do the same thing with two #11 knives, with one having a new blade and one with a bit older one, for cutting tough stuff like Photo-etch brass. When the sharp blade gets a bit dull, I insert a new blade and move the old blade to the other knife, so that the other knife gets refreshed at the same time.

Everybody uses Dymo tape as a guiding edge to make scribing marks, but I recently started to just use Tamiya tape. It's a lot more flexible, will go around curves when cut into thin strips and you can make almost any pattern with it. The key when using ordinary tape is to make your first cut very, very light and to push the tool, not pull it, along the new seam line. Once you've made a bit of an impression, you can then carefully pull the blade along the seam, progressively getting deeper and deeper according to what you're trying to accomplish.

Portside2.jpg

In the pic below, at the front of the triangular panel is a handle-like vertical vent, that isn't covered with mesh like the ones to the rear. This panel houses the AC power inverter and battery relay and it often has a horizontal vent just to the rear of it as this kit tried to replicate (sort of) before I sanded everything off. In this pic there's a quick release panel instead, so I just re-created the front vent and scribed a small panel behind it in the pic above. If it's "wrong", I don't care because EVERYTHING is wrong! :lol: Behind this panel is the battery with the "lightening bolt" sign and behind it the main panel I really want to fix.

Portside1.jpg

Remember this? Besides the fact that A-10's don't have these fairings any more, the small vertical vents are too fat and all over the place. Check the pic of the real deal above.

Nosejob13.jpg

While I re-scribed panels and added new rivets, I filled in the depressions for the fairings with putty and added another small panel that houses the external battery master switch. I also moved the forward circle on the battery panel slightly forward according to pics, by filling in the old one a creating a new one....

Portside3.jpg

So, how do you fix this? Cutting new vents right through the plastic for the bigger ones is possible, but how do you replicate those tiny vertical ones- and how do you add mesh so that it's close to the surface? Checking many reference pics in Jake's book, this panel is often slightly raised, so I decided after a bit of trial and error to go with thin (0.3 mm) styrene card. Cutting the tiny vents was tricky using my #11 knife and I tried to replicate the shape of the panel and the small one just forward of it. If you check the pic above, the bottom of the larger panel is supposed to slope downwards towards the rear.

Portside4.jpg

For the mesh behind the vents, I glued some very thin plastic mesh you can find in reusable coffee filters to the back and I cut holes behind the larger two vents so that I could cut them out completely...

Portside5.jpg

I didn't worry about the small vertical vents, because even on the real deal, seeing through them is almost impossible and a dark wash will make the new mesh show up later...

Portside6.jpg

Results!? I added some paint to check for flaws, but the only thing that stands out is that they are still a little bit too thick.

Portside7.jpg

Not perfect, but it still looks a lot better than this...

Nosejob13.jpg

I'll sand down the panels a bit more later when I glue on the bottom- and fix that old panel line remnant at the bottom of the larger panel.

Portside8.jpg

Thanks for checking in!

Edited by chuck540z3
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Great work, Chuck! that's how I have tackled the new vents on the kits that I've built, but mine didn't look this good. Those tiny vertical vents kicked my butt!

In this pic there's a quick release panel instead, so I just re-created the front vent and scribed a small panel behind it in the pic above. If it's "wrong", I don't care because EVERYTHING is wrong! :lol:/>

That is only found on the A-10C, Chuck. It was a mod that was performed only about 3 years ago.

Jake

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Thanks guys. It's not a work of art or anything special, but it's easy to do and will make the final product a lot more presentable.

That is only found on the A-10C, Chuck. It was a mod that was performed only about 3 years ago.

Jake

That's sort of what I thought since I didn't see it very often, but it will still look OK when I'm done. Trust me! :P

Edited by chuck540z3
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Nice scratch building Chuck.

I especially like the mesh. What brand of coffee filter did you use? I can can only find the paper filters, so I might not be looking in the right place. Thanks.

I don't know John, so I took a pic of it on the left which is made of fine nylon. Usually, they come in brass like the one on the right, which works well too, but I wanted something super thin because the styrene sheet was thick enough. What made it work even better was that it glued securely to the styrene using ordinary Tamiya Extra Thin cement so there was no glue mess. The styrene melted a bit and oozed through the mesh creating a strong bond, so this might work on the brass as well.

Rather than trash coffee filters, however, you might consider brass mesh readily available from The Model Car Garage, which I found when I was looking for pipe clamps for my Mustang build. It appears to be as good or better than the coffee filters.

CoffeeMesh1.jpg

Since I had my camera out anyway, I thought I would take some pics of some new additions to the after-market collection, sort of the lipstick I'm putting on this pig. Here's all the Eduard PE detail, with the exterior set on the left and the interior on the right. I likely won't use much of the interior since I'm using the Cutting Edge cockpit, but there are quite a few little do-dads that will dress up the canopy and cockpit sill areas....

Eduard1.jpg

Speaking of canopy, I have the new one from Squadron. It is super thin, so I'll need to be careful cutting it off the block and I'm hopeful that the Eduard and Cutting Edge parts will thicken up the edges with good detail, even though they were made for the kit parts. More mods on the way and notice the width of the windscreen compared to the kit part on the right.....

Squadron1.jpg

I also recently received the Verlinden kit I've been yakking about, which has the gun door I wanted (upper right), some interior detail for the boarding ladder door and some brass to create the shell feeder assembly missing on the kit. Without the shell feeder, there was no use exposing the gun, but now I have no excuses!

You can see that there's also some nice resin to open two doors on the starboard side (left) and the battery door (middle), as well as another gun front that is way better than the kit parts, but not as good as the Cutting Edge one. I won't be using any of this stuff, because I like the clean lines of a model without all sorts of doors open everywhere. OK, so I opened up just about everything on my Mustang build, but I need an excuse and I'm sticking with it!

Verlinden1.jpg

Of course I still have all the parts of the Cutting Edge cockpit set....

Start-6.jpg

And the Cutting Edge exterior set.....

Start-10.jpg

The more kit parts I replace, the better this model will be!- or at least that's the plan. Time will tell.

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Chuck, neat work on the vents... I esp like your creative thinking with the coffee filters.

Marcel

Actually, I've used a coffee filter before on the gun vent screen of the F-4E....

Gun1.jpg

..... And the very first time was for carburetor intake screens a few years (& 3 builds) ago on my Lancaster....

Carbintake4.jpg

Engine9.jpg

This screen material is really easy to work with and it's very effective, especially on larger 1/32 scale models.

Edited by chuck540z3
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Hi Chuck,

You are a real model-building machine. :) Nice start on the Hog.

Have mine in the stash with lots of aftermarket stuff. Hope to put my hands on it some day...

I will be following with much interest.

Cheers and happy modeling!

Alexander

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Hi Chuck,

You are a real model-building machine. :) Nice start on the Hog.

Have mine in the stash with lots of aftermarket stuff. Hope to put my hands on it some day...

I will be following with much interest.

Cheers and happy modeling!

Alexander

Hi Alexander, it's always nice to hear from you. One thing I have heard over and over is that many other modelers following this thread have the kit in the stash and are hesitant to start it or, in a few other cases, they started it and then put it away. I think I know why! :rolleyes:

Nothing to report today other than it will be a while before my next update, so give me another week or two. It's tax time up here in the Great White North and I have several family tax returns to do over the next week or so. What a pain... :bandhead2:

After that, I'll be painting up and detailing the cockpit, which always takes a week or more, so that I can install it prior to fooling around with the canopy and windscreen. I suspect that I might have fit issues since both aftermarket parts are made for the kit and not each other, which has happened to me before. Once that is done, I'll be doing the gun- and don't let me forget to add some big weight to the nose area! I've heard this kit needs a small Volkswagen up front to keep it from being a tail sitter, but I need to install the cockpit, gun and a few other parts to figure out where to jamb in all this weight.

Also, for those who don't want to read every post, I date every new update in the title to save you the click.

Until the next update, Cheers,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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The scratch-built panel turned out fantastic Chuck!!! Looks like you will have a modification on every square inch of this beast... but at least the front fuselage isn't peppered with rivets dry.gif like Trumpeter did on their big Cat's!!!! I think this kit is gonna keep you busy for a long while, but thank goodness we will have a great reference for our future A-10 builds :thumbsup:/>

/Jesse

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Well, now I've got all my taxes done FINALLY, I had a chance to do a little modeling tonight. I was going to get going on the Cutting Edge cockpit, which is a real gem right OOB with a little cleanup. This cockpit is pre-LASTE and the rest of this Hog will be pure A-10+ or maybe even a C, but there isn't a LASTE cockpit out there that can touch this one for pure, clean detail. The fantastic seat even slides into the seat rail, just like the real deal, so I can slide it in and out without gluing it in later

Cockpit11.jpg

As I was looking at the cockpit, however, the front fuselage was still bugging me. The nose looks better now, but those panel lines and access door detail really stink. Note the flawed panel line at the top, which looks like a scriber miss and the plastic is kind of rough too.

Panelline1.jpg

And then of course there are divots all over the place from poor casting....

Start-5.jpg

Soooooo, I put the cockpit aside and started sanding and sanding and sanding the panel lines and rivet detail down....

Panelline4.jpg

And drilled holes in the many vents so that I could open them up....

Panelline2.jpg

The vent covers suck too. They are way too thick and they have molding depressions all over the place, so I sanded them down too, both before and after installation....

Panelline3.jpg

After sanding, I re-scribed every panel line and re-punched every rivet, then added an oil wash to expose any flaws. Much better- and those little access doors are now much sharper and crisper than before. That circular panel in the middle holds the AOA vane, which was cut off and will be replaced later with a CE resin part that looks 10X better.....

Panelline5.jpg

Check the depressions in the third pic above to see the difference in the starboard side now...

Panelline6.jpg

The front vents were carefully cut out with a #11 knife....

Panelline8.jpg

As were the rear vents with covers. Note how smooth the plastic is now- almost "Tamiya"

Panelline9.jpg

NOW I can sleep- and get back to painting that cockpit! I can worry about more cleanup issues later, when I glue the fuselage halves together and then go over the entire assembly once more.

Thanks for checking in.

Edited by chuck540z3
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