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

[Crazy Snap Captain]

Hey Chuck,

Not sure if you saw this on the Jet Modelling page AFV Canopies. AFV are selling coatings for canopies that look pretty awesome. Might be something that interests you.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Crazy Snap Captain

[chuck540z3]

Hey Chuck,

Not sure if you saw this on the Jet Modelling page AFV Canopies. AFV are selling coatings for canopies that look pretty awesome. Might be something that interests you.

Thanks. Since I've already finished the canopy and windscreen, I have no interest in this product this time around, but I certainly would have given it a try a few months ago! In all my pics of the real deal, however, the windscreen is smoked and the canopy is pretty clear, so I'm not sure it's applicable to an A-10 anyway.

The Hog is in the paint booth and the jury is still out on the merits of pre-shading with the Tamiya panel line color. Right now, I think it's better than nothing, but not as good as I hoped. Stay tuned!

Edited February 13, 2014 by chuck540z3

[chuck540z3]

Feb 14/14

Hi Guys. Happy Valentine’s Day and may you all get lucky!……. with……. all your modeling efforts. :lol:

I must say, I’m having modeling fun again! Gone are the days of heavy lifting with panel line changes, crappy mating surfaces, poorly shaped parts and generally just fighting with this kit every day. I’m now playing with picky details, painting, weathering and all the little stuff that can really make a model stand out from the crowd- or at least that’s the plan. I love this part.

I applied Light Ghost Grey (FS 36375) to the areas that need this color and to a few of the areas that need two coats of paint on very dark or super light surfaces, prior to the application of Dark Ghost Grey (FS 36320), which will be applied later as a “camo” scheme. The goal here is to only have a minimal amount of paint, which fills panel line and rivet detail. You need the color, not the thick paint, so I spray it on with a few coats of very thinned paint, with just enough saturation to hide the plastic grey. With this in mind, I don’t spray two colors of paint on the same surface, because there’s no need to. If you prepare your model with enough care through sanding and the removal of every blemish you can find, you will never need Mr. Surfacer or any of the other filling aids to remove tiny flaws. If tiny flaws are filled, so is rivet detail, so I have never used the stuff- and I don’t use a primer either. One area that does need a primer, however, is the areas that will be painted with Alclad, which requires a lacquer base to stick properly to the plastic. As I’ve done with my F-4E and Mustang builds, I use Krylon Gloss Black lacquer decanted from the spray can. It is very smooth, dries quickly and it’s even made for plastic if you buy the right kind. Now that I know I have enough nose weight, I can glue in this panel permanently, which required a bit of putty at the base to seal a gap.

The refueling door on the nose of the A-10 can have many different configurations of metal vs. painted fuselage. The entire rectangular door can be bare metal or, in the case of my subject, a nice combination of dark metal and grey. Before I painted anything, I painted this door so that it could dry a few days before the application of masking tape. If you paint it after the grey enamel paint, the surface will be a bit rough, even with light sanding. Legacy panel lines still show through the CA glue.

Before I paint the wings, I need to attach the Cutting Edge wing fences into the slots I cut before. Besides creating a strong bond, the glue holding the fence is within the groove and virtually invisible. I also squared off the actuators for the leading edge slats with LS, which is taped back in this pic….

With the actuators squared off, they are now at the correct angle, with the gap at the front about the same as the back on top of the wing. That legacy seam on the sponson does not really exist as you will see later. Again, note how the inner surface of the wing has been sanded down to create a tighter fit with the fuselage

The Cutting Edge kit also supplies some stall strips to replace the crude kit ones. According to pics of the real deal, this strip should be cut in half at the front wing panel join, with a taper also cut to the inner top surface as shown. As is, the CE strip is square and in one piece.

From the front. Something I should have made a big deal about before, is that the pylons need to be angled down to compensate for the dihedral of the wing, which is why the pylons appear to be angled to the left….

After painting the front of the wings, I found the stall strips to be clunky and I didn’t think they belonged with the many other modifications I’ve made to this kit, so I replaced them with thin brass ones made from scratch.

Much better- and way more to scale!.....

Now the moment of truth! Cementing the wings to the fuselage. As I’ve been warned before by Erik, alignment of wings, vertical stabilizers and landing gear is a major problem with this kit, mostly due to the fact that nothing fits properly. It turns out that with my modifications and the attachment of the vertical strakes on the sides of the front fuselage, I have the perfect “jig” for wing alignment on a flat surface. Using small levels to check the surface of my desk and the wings, everything is just about perfectly level. Despite my attempts to make the wing root flush, I will need a little filler…..

Note the pylons are angled so that they are vertical. Just plugged into the wings, they often are not, so adjustments need to be made.

Edited February 15, 2014 by chuck540z3

[chuck540z3]

Nothing is glued in yet, because painting the individual parts is much easier than if the whole model was assembled. The front to back fuselage join is really, really good and will not need any filler at all. Once fully assembled, I can then apply the Dark Ghost Grey to the front fuselage and the other areas of the wings and engines at the top. I will show the gluing sequence later, which has a few twists from the instructions and normal modeling. The interior of the engines have already been painted, hence the masking tape and filler to protect them.

Remember that old legacy seam on the sponson? All gone now- and the front "nose cone" will be painted semi-gloss black later to create a sharper panel line at the back.

As mentioned earlier, the jury is still out on whether or not the Tamiya panel line color was useful as pre-shading, rather than after a coat of Future. I will show later how I think it was a definite benefit, but the results are not as striking as I hoped for and I will still need quite a bit of a weathering wash after painting. It did, however, identify a lot of flaws that I didn’t know that I had without this "wash", which were easily fixed before paint. You might also note that I did none of the usual pre-shading of every panel line with black paint and my airbrush. This time around, I think I can do a better job of post-shading dirt and other grime after Future and avoid the "zig-zag grid look" dark seams . Time will tell- and thanks again for checking in. We’re reaching the 1 year mark for this build and over 100,000 thread views. Somebody must like Warthogs after all!

Edited February 16, 2014 by chuck540z3

[Honza K.]

Really good job Chuck!

[Crazy Snap Captain]

Looking tight Chuck. Awesome work with the wing alignment.

[Peterpools]

Chuck

The Hog sure looks mighty pretty all together waiting for her lipstick, even if only a final test fit.

Bring on the paint, decals and weathering

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[JohnS]

Looking good Chuck!

What are the overall dimensions of your hog - length of the fuselage & wingspan?

[JesniF-16]

Wow 100,000 views! You've come a long ways on this build Chuck... Can't wait to see the Black Snakes decals on her! I like how the panel lines look... I think I will borrow this idea for my Mudhen :whistle:/>

/Jesse

[NavyF4s]

Chuck

Your diligence and hard work are paying huge dividends with this build. She (he) is looking fantastic with the little bit of paint that you have applied. I agree with your point of view in regards to the amount of paint used, and how it can obscure details.

Your sharing with us these in progress shots are a great help, and maybe an unfair competition advantage. Patience seems to be your strong point with the modelling and I am learning from you how to do the same with my build. Thank you.

Looking forward to the completion of this A-10 with mixed feelings as it has been an epic build to follow, like a great book you just don't want to finish but can't stop reading. I am a huge fan of your builds and look forward to your P-38 build.

Sincerely

Anthony

[chuck540z3]

See below. Stupid iphone!

Edited February 16, 2014 by chuck540z3

[kike]

Since English is not my language It gets really hard to say something different than wow! I'm looking forward to see the painting process cause, if It keeps going as to present, I'm gonna learn lots!!!

Thanks for posting you work Chuck and more for taking the time to explain it! so we can see it's possible!

[chuck540z3]

Anthony and many others. Thank you for your kind comments. I try very hard and sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't. I promise you this, however, this Hog will look as good as possible with my current skill set, which improves (I hope) over time. I really like what I see so far and this crappy kit just might turn out looking as good as a Tamiya kit! Ok, maybe not that good, but close. As I said before, stay tuned.

Edited February 16, 2014 by chuck540z3

[chuck540z3]

Looking good Chuck! :thumbsup:/>

What are the overall dimensions of your hog - length of the fuselage & wingspan?

Hey John, this pig is very big. 20 inches or so for the length, which is sort of normal for a big 1/32 kit, but the wing span is 23"! My F-4E was big, about 23 inches long, but the wing span was only 16 inches, so it was easy to fit it on my modeling desk. Not this time!

[tomfomes]

Hi Chuck, beautiful work on everything. Another masterpiece from your bench. Thank you for lot of useful tips. I am enjoying watching your posts.

[A-10 LOADER]

STELLAR WORK Chuck, she's finally starting to look like something now !! Once all the pylons are full this will really be a thing of beauty. Keep up the great work and I'm looking forward to your next update.

Steve

[Shaka HI]

Hmm...I stand corrected...But, I still think it's a technique that should be sparingly used.

BTW, I love the pre-shading of panel lines with a wash before paint technique. Love the subtle effects it provide without overly exaggerating panel lines that I see way too often. Makes the panel lines more in scale.

Thanks. While I generally agree with you, there are sometimes exceptions. Here are two different CF-18's I took pics of a few years ago. While most panel lines are just that, panel lines, there are some instances where there is a smeared dark panel demarcation that can be replicated by pre-shading...

[...Images Deleted...]

You could of course post-shade, but I don't think it would be as easy to do or as effective unless you were a real expert with the airbrush.

[boom175]

Looking Good Chuck!!!!

[chuck540z3]

Again Gents. Thanks again for all your nice words of encouragement!

Before I show any further pics, a few things to keep in mind. With this Hog fully assembled, it is too big for BOTH my paint-booth and photo-booth! Painting it is still not too much of a problem, but without making a really big deal of the photo setup, the photographs will suffer a bit going forward until I get to the end of this build. When that happens, I’ll make the effort to take final pics properly, which is actually a big deal all on its own. Right now my focus is modeling and finishing this project, so white balance, composition and exact color matching is a crap shoot with my many lighting sources. Yes, I try to adjust the white balance and I have a fairly sophisticated camera that can measure it quite well, but I need to change it for every pic depending on angle, lighting source and shadows, so there is too much variability and I’d rather model, than play with my camera, so please bear with me.

As mentioned earlier, the wing to fuselage fit is quite bad and with a lot of sanding and tweaking, you can get it pretty close, but there are usually still some gaps to deal with. When you get the fit as good as possible, glue the wings to the front fuselage first, after making sure that the wings will fit with the rear fuselage attached through dry fitting. The reason to do it this way is because you gain access to the wing tabs from the rear of the front fuselage. This join needs to be rock solid, because the wings are heavy and with all the nose weight, the whole dang model is heavy, so there is a lot of stress here with the landing gear attached to the wings. Here’s a view from the back. After using regular model cement to fuse the wing tab to the fuselage insert, I used a generous supply of CA glue to weld this join together.

Here’s a fun peek inside, which shows all the crap I’ve thrown in here before. At the front is the nose gear well I modified, at the top is the resin cockpit and on either side and at the front is the tubular lead I used for nose weight. Whatever nose weight I used was perfect and the model is now nicely balanced. I also smeared CA glue along every interior fuselage join for added strength as well.

Even if you get the wing to fit tight against the fuselage sides, there is another big gap at the rear where it meshes with the rear fuselage, which has now been cemented in for support. To fix the front gap, I used an old trick using thin styrene sheet. Do not use simple putty, because the wings will flex and crack the join- likely as you place it down on the table at a model contest!

In this pic I stuck the sheet into the gap, drew a pencil line, then removed the sheet and cut out the wing shim with scissors, re-inserted the shim, followed by the application of Tamiya thin cement. On later shims, both top and bottom, I eventually just cut the styrene sheet at the wing join with my knife and left out the pencil step, which is much quicker and makes for a more accurate cut. The cut was slightly below being flush, for reasons you’ll see next.

The rear wing to rear fuselage join was not as easy to do with styrene, because there are a lot of obstructions beneath the wing surface and the gap was not uniform. I still need to fill the gap and I still need a lot of strength in the join. To fill a gap like this with ordinary putty, an old trick is to mask off the gap, fill the gap with putty, then use a Q-Tip soaked in Tamiya lacquer thinner (or nail polish remover) and run it along the join. Once the tape is removed, you are left with a nice thin bead of putty that is easily sanded later.

I learned a new trick! If this works with putty, why not CA glue? Using fairly thick CA glue that dries relatively slowly, I applied the glue to the taped off gap with a micro-brush, jamming it into the gap so that it leaked down into the wing join. Moving quickly, I then applied a liberal amount of CA glue de-bonder to a Q-Tip and ran it along the seam, then removed the tape before the glue had a chance to dry. It turned out perfect! The CA glue filled the gap very uniformly and there was almost no leakage to the sides. After you let it dry for 10 minutes or so, you can then sand it perfectly smooth with very little effort. I don’t recommend using CA glue accelerator, because it often makes the glue “crinkle” as it dries too fast, leaving a rough join. Here’s a pic with the front part of the wing already filled with styrene and CA glue, with the rear masked off and ready for more glue.

Unfortunately, sanding the wing join removed some of the nice rough walkways I made earlier with Rustoleum textured paint. I simply decanted a little more Rustoleum into a small jar and brushed it on, since smoothness is not a priority.

After painting, Voila! No gap and a very strong wing root. That small imperfection at the front of the wing will be hidden under the inner wing slats when they are installed later.

The above pic shows some of the new Dark Ghost Grey (DGG) camo paint, so here’s how I did it, again with an old tried and true trick I used successfully on my camo-schemed Phantom. Using “poster putty” (there are so many kinds available), I ran the putty along the demarcation line I wanted to paint according to reference pics. Like the walkway patterns, the two tone Light Ghost Grey (FS 36375) used on the bottom and some of the sides and DGG (FS 36320) for much of the top, can be found to be painted on A-10’s in a variety of patterns that are very,very similar, but no two Hogs will be identical. This is likely because it is all done freehand, like it was for the SEA camo of my F-4E. The pattern I chose is roughly the one for my Blacksnakes subject and there is a really good overhead shot of it on Page 133 of Neil Dunridge’s book. Here’s a close-up of the first application of the poster putty. Since the paint is applied freehand without masks on the real deal, you want a slightly fuzzy demarcation line that the rounded putty supplies by creating paint shadows while spraying.

The entire model. Note that the outer surfaces of the vertical stabilizers should be also be painted DGG.

The results, after removal of the putty and a few touch ups. Again, exact colors and saturation mean nothing in these pics. To my naked eye, the colors are just about perfect. On most Hogs, the sponsons are also painted DGG, but for some reason the Blacksnakes are not. Also, the inner rear flaps are not painted DGG, so there is a jog in the camo pattern here.

[chuck540z3]

I’m not showing close-ups yet, until I fully sand the paint with 2000# sandpaper and fix a few small boo-boos. Even thinned heavily and sprayed at low pressure, Model Master flat enamels are still a bit rough, so they hide all the details until you sand the paint and lightly re-scribe a few panel lines here and there. I’ve experimented a bit on one side and I’m very optimistic that things will look really, really good when done. REALLY good! If I do say so myself, I nailed those bulging side vents and the front windscreen, which is pretty exciting after all the work I did to replace or improve them months ago. A good coat of paint says that the work was all worth it.

The other side. I’m not happy with the curve of the demarcation line on this side, because it should match the starboard side which is much more accurate and flows better. Two minutes with the airbrush will fix that!

I should be making bombs and missiles and playing with the landing gear while the paint dries, but I’m a very focused guy and I can’t chew gum and walk at the same time. When I get the grey paint right, I still need to paint the black "nosecone" on the starboard sponson and the false canopy on the bottom front of the fuselage. Thanks for your continued patience!

Edited February 21, 2014 by chuck540z3

[karl h]

unbelievably clean work! it really looks the part!

[kike]

Outstanding as usual Chuck! magic is getting done!!

[A-10 LOADER]

Looking good man, looking really good !! Looking forward to seeing the ordnance.

Steve

[JesniF-16]

Looking REALLY REALLY sharp sir! Model Master definitely has its ups and downs, but you can't beat the durability and coverage! Another ingenious "Chuck" idea with the CA glue, thanks for sharing... This is gonna look awesome sitting next to those other masterpieces (Mustang, Hornet, Tomcat, Phantom etc. etc....) :woot.gif:/>

/Jesse

[NavyF4s]

Oh Chuck

Your hog is just too clean :whistle:/> I know you're going to dirty it up though. My question is this, you say, and have done before, that you will polish with 2000 grit paper, how do you get around the raised rivets and other details that are small and raise? I too like to use MM enamels, and have found that the flats fuzz up very quickly if you're not paying attention, and can really mess up a great build. Thanks for any and all help.

Sincerely

Anthony