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


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Thanks guys. I'm sure many of you are sick and tired of seeing the front fuselage pieces over and over and, quite frankly, so am I. I have learned the hard way, however, that if I move onto the next stage of a build without finishing the details of the one before it, I always regret it later, so bear with me as I continue to do picky little crap like the above. Right now I'm not happy with the rearward facing vents because although they were way too thick and high on the fuselage to begin with, I've got the bases of them too flat now, so I still need to tweak them a bit.

With spring now finally starting to show up and the summer just around the corner, don't expect a quick build here. My last 3 models averaged about 10 months each, so I'm shooting for a January, 2014 completion! The good news, is that I will complete this beast, even if it kills me, which it just might. ^_^

Edited by chuck540z3
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Hey Chuck,

This may not interest you at all, but I went on my weekly trip to the LHS today and picked up a copy of the September 2012 Tamiya Model magazine. In it they have an article on a 1/48 Monogram A-10. It has a shark mouth nose, but the interesting thing was the camo scheme. It was Med Green/Euro Dark Green/Dark Gray. It was really neat looking, so if you haven't decided on a paint scheme yet, you may want to take a look at it.

Stephen

Edited by stephencraig
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I agree with you on the CE cockpit, I know the person who mastered the set. He gave me two free cockpits. They are awesome.

Wait until you see it painted Gary! I just hope my work does it justice.

Hey Chuck,

This may not interest you at all, but I went on my weekly trip to the LHS today and picked up a copy of the September 2012 Tamiya Model magazine. In it they have an article on a 1/48 Monogram A-10. It has a shark mouth nose, but the interesting thing was the camo scheme. It was Med Green/Euro Dark Green/Dark Gray. It was really neat looking, so if you haven't decided on a paint scheme yet, you may want to take a look at it.

Stephen

Hi Stephen,

If I was doing a pre-LASTE bird, the camo-scheme of some kind is pretty much mandatory, but I think it has been way overdone and I can do a better job of painting and weathering if I use a boring grey paint scheme to start with. Besides, my F-4E was camo with a shark mouth, so I'd like to try something a bit different. This Hog will still look like a bad boy. Trust me!

Hey Chuck! Been out of pocket for a couple of weeks and just now catching up. I really love your attention to all the little details. This will for sure be another masterpiece!

Thanks for the inspiration.

Skinny Mike

Thanks for the kind words Mike. I haven't done much modeling lately and I'm just diving into the cockpit painting now. To do a decent job of painting and detailing takes a lot of time, so I'm not sure how long it will be before my next progress report. I just did the instrument panel and I'm VERY happy with it, but there's not enough to post right now.

One other thing. My last 4 models CONSUMED me and therefore ruled a bit of my life. This time I'm going to try and make this build a hobby that I play with when it's convenient, rather than push more important things in life aside so that I can model.

Yeah, I know. I don't think it will work either! :woot.gif:

Edited by chuck540z3
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If anybody is considering the purchase of the Cutting Edge Cockpit or Exterior set, there is one of each on ebay that is expiring in 3 hours for real good prices for these OOP resin kits. I have NO affiliation with the seller- I'm just trying to help out one or two of you guys here:

Cockpit set

Exterior Detail Set

Each kit often sells for $60-$100 for reference prices. Also, the cockpit set is the best I've ever worked with, with results of same coming soon.

Update: I put in the minimum bid to just make sure this cockpit doesn't get away without a bid. If I win, it's yours for cost if you contact me. If I lose, hopefully it's one of you guys!

Update- II: I bid $39.99 an hour ago (only bid) for the cockpit and it went for $83, 5 bids later, so that tells you what the demand is for these OOP resin kits. The Exterior Set went for a really good price of $40.99. I think I bought both of my kits for about $50 each and they do come up every now and then, so keep your eyes peeled if you're interested. I've seen an exterior set go for $29.99, so you can get lucky now and then.

If anybody here bought the cockpit set, you paid a good price but you won't be sorry.

Here's a teaser pic of the IP. Remember, this thing is 3/4 the height of a quarter, so the instrument resolution is outstanding.

IP1.jpg

Edited by chuck540z3
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Wow Chuck. IP is looking great. The dials really are pin sharp for the scale.

You really are a man of the people too. Next time my wife is looking at some new shoes maybe I can employ you to watch ebay for me? ;P

Cheers,

Jim.

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Hey Chuck, what time frame are you making your hog?? Just to let you know those side vents would be gone post LASTE mod, and to be honest although my memory is failing they may have been removed when they got the INS/AIM-9 upgrade.

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Hello Chuck,

Been reading and following this gigantic build of yours.

From watching your last amazing build , this is quite an exceptional build too. :worship:

With your fine tuning to details and other Extraordinary workmanship, this HOG is gonna 'hog' the limelight. :yahoo:

Keep on rocking ..as they say ..YOU DA MAN,!! :punk: :punk:

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Hey Chuck, what time frame are you making your hog?? Just to let you know those side vents would be gone post LASTE mod, and to be honest although my memory is failing they may have been removed when they got the INS/AIM-9 upgrade.

I know Craig, but thanks for letting me know just in case I didn't! :thumbsup: As I have mentioned many times before, I am not worrying about accuracy too much with this build, partly because I want the fantastic pre-LASTE CE cockpit (with an A-10C exterior no less), but mostly because no matter what I do to this kit, it will never be accurate anyway. Just about every panel line is in the wrong place, rivet placement is mostly wrong and a lot of the parts don't even look like they belong to an A-10. By your signature, you obviously know a lot about this Hog, so please hang around and keep me moving in the right general direction as I modify just about everything. I need all the help I can get!

Thanks to everyone else for the words of encouragement. I've got the cockpit and seat almost completed after about 15 hours of work on these tiny "mini-models", so I'll have some new pics up soon. I think you'll really like it!

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Wow Chuck,

follow one of your build is always a joy and a source of inspiration! :worship:/>/>/>/>/>/>

Take a look at my build in the Phantom GB and you can see something of familiar...

Gianni

Hey Gianni, that sure looks familiar. Great job! :thumbsup:

Finally an update. I've been slow with this build lately, partly due to spring cleanup chores around the house, but also because I wanted to do a good job painting the Cutting Edge cockpit, which takes many hours. Before I get to that, here's how I did the Instrument Panel (IP). You have two choices with this resin IP- just painted or use plastic film from behind as the gauges.

IP2.jpg

Since I had great luck with film on my Mustang build, I decided to sand the resin gauge detail off from behind, using an ordinary sanding block....

IP3.jpg

As you sand the rear of the IP, the gauges peel away, so that you can trim the circular openings for the new film gauges. I then painted the rear of the film a greenish white to replicate phosphorescent gauges, then glued the film to the back, using the blank resin piece to hold everything in place. Here's the preliminary pic I showed before of the results...

IP1.jpg

One other thing I did was to modify the canopy strut on the right, with the explosive canopy jettison canister in the middle and the control stick on the left.

Cockpit12.jpg

The best way to replicate a stainless steel rod in the strut, is to use a real stainless steel rod, in this case a sewing needle. After cutting off the resin rod, I drilled out the strut, painted it gloss black lacquer and placed a pin inside. I used this same method on the canopies of my F-4E and the landing gear of the Mustang....

Cockpit13.jpg

I find painting cockpits to be very tough, because you need so much control with your paint brush and all the detail is so tiny. I decided that maybe a good coat of Future over everything would help, because it would allow me to make lots of mistakes that can easily be corrected with solvent, so I used one brush for paint and one for solvent as I moved along from black panel to black panel. The thin grey partitions between the black panels are often lost, but this method gave me the control to retain them- or at least most of them.

Cockpit14.jpg

I used some scratch built brass for the clamps that hold the side vents to the sides of the fuselage and spare bits of IP decals from my Mustang to replicate as much of the larger lettering as possible. Yes, I know this cockpit is pre-Laste, but there's no way I was going to cut off those vents and look at that nice quilted detail on the sides...

Cockpit15.jpg

For the foot pedals and floor beneath them, I used Eduard PE which have some nice detail. In Jake's book it looks like the floor wear goes from painted grey, to chromate green to black and then metal, so I painted the floor boards all of these colors, then used a microbrush with solvent to create the worn look...

Cockpit16.jpg

Another angle...

Cockpit17.jpg

The seat can be either sage green when new, or black sheepskin, likely as replacements, so I went with a bit of both, thinking that the seat area would wear quicker than the seat back. I can hear Jake groaning already, but hey- I like the contrasting look!

Cockpit18.jpg

Edited by chuck540z3
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The beauty of this cockpit is that the ACES-II seat slides directly into the seat rails like the real deal- and the fit is fantastic, so there's no need to glue it in. I used some spare decals to replicate labels, etc, but I could not find any decals to replicate the ACES-II label on the side of the seat (red/silver badge), so I made up my own with brush paint. Not bad for a hack brush painter like me! The ejection handles should have 3 stripes on the sides with nothing on top (maybe due to wear), while the rear one on the right should have 4 stripes on the top

Cockpit19.jpg

With the seat installed, it starts to look like the real deal. For the canopy hinge behind the seat, I again drilled holes and used thin rod as hinges, in this case tiny #80 drill bits. I left some of the rod sticking out so that I can remove the hinge when I play with the canopy installation later. I also used steel rod for the yellow handle, which is the "Internal Emergency Canopy Actuator Release Handle", according to Jake's book.

Cockpit20.jpg

A view from behind, showing the canopy strut sewing pin and the ejection canister I painted with Alclad brass. I also added a tiny yellow panel on the left side of the IP with a red switch, which is the downlock override attached to the landing gear....

Cockpit21.jpg

For the gauges on the right side of the cockpit, I put a little Future in each of them to give them a glassy look...

Cockpit22.jpg

A better shot of the floor wear. This greeny/black/metal look is very similar to the pic on Page 74 of Jake's book.

Cockpit23.jpg

This is how the canopy hinge attaches to the lower canopy frame. Everything moves and is adjustable until I get the canopy on- and likely afterwards too, since none of it is glued by using pins instead...

Cockpit24.jpg

A view from the front. If you see some shine, it's due to the strong lighting I'm using, because everything is very flat to the naked eye...

Cockpit25.jpg

Next up, I think, will be the big gun, before I bother with the IP glare shield and windscreen. I need to figure out the gun placement before I can open the lower gun door and add weight to the front. I also need to detail the front gear well while the fuselage halves are still apart.

Thanks for checking in!

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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