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


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Actually there not rivets on the windscreen, they're philips head screws and you have to be very care full you follow the T.O. as they're various lengths depending on what hole it is , and you don't want to put in a short screw in the hole that's designed for a long one!! Also there should be little blobs of windshield sealant thats squeezed out when the windshield is assembled!! :-) !!!!

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Thank you Gents!

One thing I forgot to elaborate on was the use of Future on the canopy and the tinting. Besides the usual role of providing clarity to the clear plastic, it thickened it as well, which is something these very thin vacu-formed parts need. This is why I usually avoid using Future, because I think it can make many kit canopies look too thick and unrealistic looking. Second, the Future provided a seal to the new decal rivets to make them stronger and it helped bond the styrene strips to the windscreen and third, the Future provided a medium to add the tinting.

The tinting of canopies using Future is well documented and I've done it myself a number of times, but I've learned some new tricks along the way. Using food coloring works great and it easily mixes with the Future and you can get almost any color imaginable using the various colors available. However, I've found that it fades over time and is almost absent after 1-2 years, so it is very short lived.

Your Future solution must be dust and crap free, so I recommend using a bottle of the stuff that never has any excess Future poured back into the container. You also need a perfectly clean plastic or glass container to begin with.

I found that just dumping some Tamiya acrylic Smoke into the Future created a coagulated mess as the Smoke paint sort of curdled up into small lumps and would not mix properly. To get around this problem, I wound up mixing some Smoke with about 50% Windex, then slowly poured it into the Future stirring constantly, then I shook the mixture vigorously for a minute or two in a sealed container. If you do this you will create thousands of tiny bubbles that will form on your canopy, so you need to let the solution sit for an hour or so for the bubbles to pop at the surface and eventually disappear before you begin.

To get a tinted canopy, you need a solution MUCH darker than what you want to wind up with, since the very thin layer that sticks to the plastic will not hold very much of the pigment. Several dips of the canopy into the tinted Future will help darken it, but you walk a fine line of getting good saturation and too much Future. Additionally, there is ALWAYS a tiny hair or other crap that will stick to each coat, so I have a microbrush handy to rub it off the plastic while the Future is still very wet. If the Future has dried out too much and the dust removal leaves a mark, I stick the canopy back into the Future and try again. Finally- and this is an important one I just learned- I have a container with straight Windex handy right beside the Future solution if I want to remove some or all of the Future due to it getting too thick or to remove crap. This is an iterative process where I might dip the canopy in the Future 4-5 times with 10 minutes between coats, but I'm also dipping it into the Windex maybe once or twice to level things out, remove debris or thin the Future. Doing this is also walking a fine line when you use the decal rivets like I did, because just soaking the canopy in Windex will remove the new decal detail and I'd have to start all over again.

For the windscreen above, I had some very lumpy globs of Future dried in the corners after several coats to get the tint just right, so I soaked the part in Windex for maybe 5 seconds, then used a microbrush to rub off the glob, occasionally re-wetting the microbrush in Windex so that it would attack the Future. This left a chunk of Future missing with a sharp edge of course, but after using the microbrush to soften the edges, redipping the part in Windex followed by more Future, everything came out very smooth and ridge free. This will often leave an unsightly whitish residue on the plastic, but with drying time, this phenomenon disappears.

One other thing that helps is to use a lint-free cloth or paper towel to wick the Future away from the edges where it tries to pool, before it becomes a lump, as you would with water under a decal. I have a box of lens cleaning tissues that do just that without leaving any fibers behind.

I hope this helps (and makes sense)!

Edited by chuck540z3
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Wow Chuck, that is really something.... a true work of art :worship:/> I know this kit must be a real PITA, but it's a great build because we get to see more of your detailing and scratch building skills :thumbsup:/> Friggin great work on everything, especially the antenna ;)/> and thanks for the tutorial on canopy dunking, it's really gonna help me out next time... offending dust particles just love it when I use the floor polish :(

/Jesse

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AMAZING SKILLS AND CRAFTMANSHIP !! Spent 17 1/2 years loading on the A-10. I have been following this build from the beginning and I am truly impressed. Looking forward to the finished product Chuck, keep up the great work.

Steve

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Please do not make it a obvious tint!! the windshield is very clear but it takes on a tinted look as its over a inch thick of laminated glass. Actually the side panel which are "plexiglas" have a yellowish tinge to them. Please be subtle.

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Thanks Guys.

Please do not make it a obvious tint!! the windshield is very clear but it takes on a tinted look as its over a inch thick of laminated glass. Actually the side panel which are "plexiglas" have a yellowish tinge to them. Please be subtle.

No problem Craig. As a matter of fact, I was worried that the tint wasn't dark enough until I compared it to the untouched clear canopy. I considered adding a bit of yellow to the tinting mix, but I didn't want to take a chance with the Smoke once I got it to mix properly with the Future.

I know this kit must be a real PITA, but it's a great build because we get to see more of your detailing and scratch building skills- and thanks for the tutorial on canopy dunking, it's really gonna help me out next time... offending dust particles just love it when I use the floor polish.

/Jesse

Thanks for the tip on tinting the wind screen! Very helpful.

I love this build, my favorite of your builds so far. It is always so inspirational to watch a master turn a rough kit into a masterpiece. Thanks for sharing.

Mike

I know that dunking a canopy in Future is pretty standard and everybody has tried it before, but in order to get a real clean, uniform and dust-free coat of Future, I find the above technique works wonders. The back and forth routine between the Future and straight Windex really smooths things out- and you can accomplish a lot of "saves" with glob marks and dust removal before everything has dried too much.

As mentioned earlier, I am now finally enjoying this build, because each step is a challenge and I can see how a little extra work can get this kit looking much better than what you get OOB. However, the Squadron canopy, Eduard PE brass and Cutting Edge resin is a must. Without this aftermarket help, I'd be very lost and this kit would be no fun at all.

Spent 17 1/2 years loading on the A-10. I have been following this build from the beginning and I am truly impressed. Looking forward to the finished product Chuck, keep up the great work.

Steve

If I can keep a Hog expert happy, that is a huge compliment, so if you, Craig or anybody else who knows all about the A-10 find that I'm screwing something up, please speak up! I need all the help I can get, but I think that now that the front fuselage is almost done, I'm over the big hump of work and the rest should be easier. I wasn't too thrilled with the A-10 before I started this kit, but the more I learn about it, the more I am starting to love it.

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Hey Chuck

Great job!!!! man, I'm drooling...... :jaw-dropping: :jaw-dropping: :thumbsup:

Btw, I too have sciatica and you are right, it hurts like he!!, mine is on the left side and it hurts all the way down my feet. the darn pain has kept me from modelling for awhile now.

Keep up this great build :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Ken

Edited by Rdrunner
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As I reviewed the pics above, it occurred to me that a lot of the panel lines and rivets are confusing. One particularly messy area is near the front of the windscreen, so I've used red lines to show what should be panel lines and what should be filled in. Since I used some oil wash to show details previously that have since been removed, they look like they are still there, because the CA glue I filled them with is perfectly clear. These new panel lines are not perfect either, but the best compromise without re-doing every panel line and rivet on the kit. The kit "tab" that sits forward of the new one I scribed is just plain wrong in size, position and number of screws (3), when there should be 4 screws and the tab should be aft of the front of the windscreen.

Looking at pics of the real deal again, I'm going to be making a slight change to one panel line, which will soon follow the pink alignment instead:

HUD12.jpg

There, now I can sleep at night. I hope this helps, because even I'm confused at times!

Edited by chuck540z3
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Chuck, just love your work on this build!I'm still marvelling at your winscreen framing, very crisp work. HUD looks perfect and really nice work on the antenna, especially the riveting.

Thanks for the step-by-step on winscreen tinting... a usually very painful process, I find. BTW I usually add Future to the Tamiya clear colors (i.e. not the other way around) to avoid the clogging, trick is also to keep stirring while doing so. I also get the inevitable bubble-trouble from mixing the solution but if you retrieve the clear part from the solution very slowly the bubbles will tend to run down. I found the whole affair to be disappointing on my Typhoon since all the effort is hardly visible.

:thumbsup:

Marcel

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Chuck, just love your work on this build!I'm still marveling at your windscreen framing, very crisp work. HUD looks perfect and really nice work on the antenna, especially the riveting.

Thanks for the step-by-step on windscreen tinting... a usually very painful process, I find. BTW I usually add Future to the Tamiya clear colors (i.e. not the other way around) to avoid the clogging, trick is also to keep stirring while doing so. I also get the inevitable bubble-trouble from mixing the solution but if you retrieve the clear part from the solution very slowly the bubbles will tend to run down. I found the whole affair to be disappointing on my Typhoon since all the effort is hardly visible.

Marcel

Thanks Buddy! I can hardly wait to paint the windscreen and canopy to see just how good those new rivets look. With some black paint and white styrene on the inside, you can't see much of this detail with my camera, but I think it will look very good when finished.

I'm in a bit of a quandary now, because I'm now editing picky little panel lines and to tell you the truth, there's some biggies underneath I left alone because, well, I guess I was lazy at the time and overwhelmed by the errors on this kit. A little bird gave me an email last night with some panel line suggestions I already knew about, ignored and now I think I'll suck it up and redo the stupid things. It would be a shame to correct some things and leaves others alone when I'm so close to finishing the front fuselage. I'll show an update on this when I'm done, along with the full canopy details.

Since I'll be filling more panel lines and rivets with CA glue, here's a quicky tutorial for those who don't normally use CA glue as a filler. I use this glue almost everywhere one might need putty because:

1) It does not shrink or crack

2) It is strong and can be re-scribed without chipping (like putty does)

3) It dries immediately with accelerator

4) It is easy to sand, IF you do it almost right away. 24 hours later, it can be a bear

5) Since it is a glue to begin with, it adds adhesion to joins in the plastic

1. To fill a panel line or rivet, I simply dip a toothpick-like object (I use an old plastic microbrush handle with the brush part yanked off) into some fairly thin CA glue and carefully smear a thin bead of glue into the panel line, trying not to get too much on either side. Make sure the bead is higher than the area to be filled. If the glue is too thin, it will dry too quickly and won't build up within the panel line or gap. If it's too thick, it will not get into the panel line as smoothly and it will give you a lot more glue to sand off later. The right viscosity is just something you'll learn over time- sort of half way between thin and medium.

2. I then fill another microbrush with some accelerator and smear it beside the panel line, then use gravity so that the accelerator drips into the CA glue, eventually making it hard after about 30 seconds or so. If you let the accelerator touch the glue, the brush will instantly adhere to it and it can be a bit messy. Using the right amount of accelerator is tricky, because if you use too much, the glue will dry too quickly, creating air pockets. If you want to avoid air pockets and you might actually want or need the CA glue to remain as clear as possible (like repairing a windshield), don't use accelerator at all and wait about 1/2 hour for the glue to dry on it's own.

3. Sand right away, ideally within an hour of the glue drying. CA glue is very soft at first and it gets much harder over time, so you want to get at sanding early. For this reason I only apply glue to what I can sand now, rather than later, so I only add glue to small parts at a time. I use 600 grit wet and dry sandpaper as a first cut to get the "shine off". When CA glue is higher than the join, it always leaves a shiny reflection when you tilt the part under an overhead light. Imperfections, like bubbles or air pockets, also shine, so keep sanding until almost all of this shine is gone.

4. I then follow up the first cut of sanding with 1000 grit to remove all the scratches from the surrounding plastic, followed by 1500 to 2000 grit sandpaper to smooth things out before painting. If you have a divot or other imperfection, clean out the sanding dust with a microbrush, then just add more CA glue and accelerator and do that part over.

Here's an example from my F-4E project. The nose cone is a fairly big piece with a big seam line at the rear where it joins the rest of the fuselage. I added a few more rivets to the top area for reference....

Gun11.jpg

Not a great pic of the side, but you can see where the top of the join was filled with CA glue and sanded, while the panel line beneath it is the actual join, which was also filled with CA glue, sanded and then re-scribed to make the join look more natural. You will often see F-4E builds with this panel line going all the way to the top, which is wrong....

Windscreenmask1.jpg

After a first primer coat, everything looks fairly smooth and seam free...

Firstpaint14.jpg

Gratuitous pic of the final product...

Cockpit25.jpg

Edited by chuck540z3
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Super impressed by how methodical you are able to remain throughout the modelling process. Everything that you do is so well thought out, and executed fantastically well.

I wish I could be as precise, but that would require not drinking beer and listening to loud music at the workbench :D

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Super impressed by how methodical you are able to remain throughout the modelling process. Everything that you do is so well thought out, and executed fantastically well.

I wish I could be as precise, but that would require not drinking beer and listening to loud music at the workbench

Thanks Jim!

As mentioned earlier, since I’m now starting to get picky about some panel line details, it may be time to re-think some other panel lines I previously ignored when I was overwhelmed with the difficulty of the kit. With this in the back of my mind, Chris Wilson (Zactomodels) was kind enough to email me a few suggestions, one of which I was aware of and another I was not. The horizontal panel line on the port side of the front fuselage should come up to the base of the new gun vent panel to approximately the base of the circular nose antenna. I knew about this one and dreaded moving all the details that go with it upwards. The gun shroud at the front should also be slightly angled backwards- a detail I had missed…

Panelline1-1.jpg

Here is a pic of the real deal A-10C I took at Nellis a few years ago. The lighting is harsh, but you can see many of the details I have tried to replicate- and that panel line…

Panelline2-1.jpg

Soooo, I sucked it up and moved the panel line up to where it’s supposed to go, along with the adjacent details and I sanded the gun shroud at an angle. Confused by all the new and old lines? Me too!

Panelline3-1.jpg

While I was at it, I noticed that on the starboard side near the wing root, there is a small access panel missing and a couple of reinforcement plates that stick out quite prominently around the larger forward access panel, so I scribed a new panel and added the plates with styrene in the location and shape I derived from pics….

Panelline4-1.jpg

When checking out what the gun shroud should look like, I discovered the lips of the upper and lower shroud that screw together on each side should go all the way back to the fuselage and not stop half way like the kit parts. Much of the detail you see was heavily reworked with new scribed lines and rivets, because the kit had almost none of it. That thick overlapping seam just under the antenna is supposed to be there.

Panelline5-1.jpg

Rather than just add a thin plastic strip to the back of the lip, I carefully cut out the old one, being careful to not remove the raised rivet detail on the shroud, scribed a groove and then glued in a brass strip from a spare formation light frame, folded over on itself. This gives a double lip and even raised rivet detail like the real deal…

Panelline6-1.jpg

The only way to find out what panel lines were removed and which ones survived is to give the plastic a coat of paint, in this case Dark Ghost Grey, which will be the color for the top. Unfortunately my paint mixture was a bit too thick for the dry hot conditions in my garage where I paint, so the paint came out a bit rough. No worries, because I will just remove it with solvent and do it over again when I’m ready to paint everything. This pic shows the final result and I’ve noted in red the many detail changes I’ve made to the side of the fuselage, AFTER I sanded the entire nose section down dramatically to thin it down quite a bit. I need to thin that rear panel a bit to make it look more flush, while the front one can stay high like it is on the real jet…

Panelline7.jpg

The new scribed panel line and tab at the front of the windscreen looks good now. Note that the fuel door at the front is only dry fitted at this stage, hence the big gap, so that I can jamb in more weight if required later….

Panelline8-1.jpg

The raised reinforcement plates on the other side look OK, but those vents are TERRIBLE! The main reason for this is that the kit parts are brutal to begin with, so I need to do something better than just re-scribe the line around the vent…

Panelline9-1.jpg

On the port side, the vents look a bit better, but they can still be improved. The other bits at the top look OK too, at least from this angle….

Panelline10.jpg

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You can see a bit of the new rivet detail on the “Winnebago antenna”, which should show a bit more with smoother paint and a wash…..

Panelline11.jpg

Looking from the top, however, I still have some seam and detail work to do. BTW, if you think my rivets on the GPS dome are a bit scattered, check out pics of the real deal. One benefit of building a crude kit is that the real jet is fairly crude in many areas to begin with. They don't call these jets "Hogs" for nothing!

Panelline12.jpg

The raised rivets on the new gun shroud lip will show up more with smoother paint as well. I had to sand off some of the remnants of the old nose antenna, hence the mark on the nose…

Panelline13.jpg

Back to the drawing board! :bandhead2: - and thanks for checking in.

Edited by chuck540z3
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thats a lot of work Chuck.

I dont think I would have the patience for that. if/when I get around to building mine, it is just going to be OOB and stuck on the shelf.

I always love watching your builds.

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i'm just geeting tired looking at all these fabulous details. cant imagine doing all this when its my turn to try out the trumpeter a10. I hope your model will be loaded with weapons and armed to the teeth. cant wait to see it completed.

thanks for the inspiration

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O my god. This is what you call minor work. I have build this kit to, but if i look at your work i am going to learn my pig to fly out of my window.

very much respect from my side. :worship:/>

Rogier

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Looking great, Chuck! You're really beating this one into submission!

I've been unable to check your progress for the past few weeks because my computer's antivirus software wouldn't let me open ARC due to malware. Yours is the only WIP to which I'm subscribed, so all the notification emails were driving me crazy because I couldn't check out the updates!

Keep up the great work!

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thats a lot of work Chuck.

I dont think I would have the patience for that. if/when I get around to building mine, it is just going to be OOB and stuck on the shelf.

I always love watching your builds.

Thanks Dylan,

While sometimes my work can be quite picky and some people no doubt wonder why I bother with certain things, I can't see why some guys like to just bang them out one after another with almost no modifications. To each their own!

i'm just geeting tired looking at all these fabulous details. cant imagine doing all this when its my turn to try out the trumpeter a10. I hope your model will be loaded with weapons and armed to the teeth. cant wait to see it completed.

thanks for the inspiration

O my god. This is what you call minor work. I have build this kit to, but if i look at your work i am going to learn my pig to fly out of my window.

very much respect from my side.

Rogier

Thanks guys. This is one of the things I find really interesting about ARC- Greetings from Holland and Singapore- and just about everywhere else on the planet now and then. Most of my aftermarket kits come from all over the world as well, so this really is an international hobby. For example, my F-4E build was a Japanese kit, with Czech PE brass and seats, Russian intakes, American resin (which I bought on ebay from England), Belgian bomb dispensers, an Israeli pod, and both German and Chinese decals. This kit is Chinese with Czech PE brass, canopy from New Zealand, resin from the USA and lots of Canadian sweat. Now how cool is that!?

Looking great, Chuck! You're really beating this one into submission!

I've been unable to check your progress for the past few weeks because my computer's antivirus software wouldn't let me open ARC due to malware. Yours is the only WIP to which I'm subscribed, so all the notification emails were driving me crazy because I couldn't check out the updates!

Keep up the great work!

Hey Man, you must be referring to "Avast"? I complained to Avast as well a few times and I think we now have things sorted out. There's a link discussing it here:

Avast

If I recall correctly, didn't you start your Trumpeter kit and then set it aside? What stage did you get to? I seem to be going backwards as much as forwards these days!

Not much progress the last few days, but I have fixed the seam line flaws (I think), a few panel line flubs and I have removed all the crappy and rough paint. My next challenge is to fix those poorly molded vents, which come off the sprues like the pic below. Does Trumpeter really expect the modeler to glue them in like this?

Panelline3.jpg

and after tons of work, they still look like this! I'm embarrassed to even show them again...

Panelline9-1.jpg

I've tried a few things to make them look better- and they do now- but I have some new ideas brewing where I recast the vent parts and recreate them wider and with a very slightly raised lip around the edges, like they should be in the first place. This is one area of modeling I enjoy as much as painting, which is still my favorite stage of each build. To face a problem and to try and think outside the box to solve it is a lot of fun. Sometimes I win and sometimes I crash and burn, but scheming about it in between building sessions keeps me "modeling" throughout the day and keeps me interested when the subject matter at hand might be a bit boring. "What are you thinking about", my wife will often says as I look off into distant space as she tells me another story about one of her friends who I've never met. "Oh not much, I was just thinking about blah, blah, blah", I lie. :whistle: I think she really knows the truth as she squints at my response. She knows I'm a very sick man with a plastic problem- and I'm in full denial! :D

Edited by chuck540z3
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