Crazy Snap Captain Posted June 27, 2014 Share Posted June 27, 2014 Hey all, For this GB I'm planning on doing a VFA-143 bird using Hasegawa's 1/48 F/A-18E kit: AM sourced so far, Fightertown decals and Wolfpack cockpit set: AM in transit: * Rhino Models seamless intakes * Quickboost ECS Pipes (late) * SAC metal landing gear. I've been trying to find a set of the Olimp resin exhaust cans but no luck thus far. Can't wait to start building this. The last 4 months have been taken up by a God awful Eduard Flanker which has killed me. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Crazy Snap Captain Posted July 1, 2014 Author Share Posted July 1, 2014 Just got my Rhino Model intakes. These things are amazing. Also received my Quick Boost ECS pipes. Now just waiting on the SAC landing gear. Have the day off from work today so I'm making some nice progress. I'll post some updates tonight. First thoughts on Hasegawa kit are positive. Been dry fitting this morning and the fit is tres nice. Looking forward to this build! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Crazy Snap Captain Posted July 7, 2014 Author Share Posted July 7, 2014 Got all my resin bits washed and sorted: I'm not that thrilled with the details on the IP and cockpit. They are marginally better than the kit offering. IP is only slightly better: Ejection seat is tops: Sidewalls and the rest of the parts are much better than the Hasegawa parts, and they fit well so far on dry fit runs. Front fuselage halves attached and puttied. Also attached PE and painted up rear bulkhead bit. Going to start some ordnance tonight. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Crazy Snap Captain Posted July 11, 2014 Author Share Posted July 11, 2014 Finished painting up the cockpit...excuse the crappy photos...damn I need to buy a decent camera! and the bangseat The cockpit isn't really doing it for me. Details aren't crisp and are only a slight improvement on OOB parts. Next I chopped up the kit intake parts to accommodate the Rhino intakes... The Rhino bits are spot on and save so much time in sanding. I attached them to the lower fuselage... I used Tamiya's Panel Accent stuff to bring out the details and panel lines. This helped a lot when I was cutting and sanding the intakes as it got a bit tough to see where I had to stop when sanding. This will also help with my preshading as well. Good stuff and highly recommended. I also attached the wings to the upper fuselage. Fit was right on... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
plasticWerks_JL Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Those intakes came together really well, but you're right about those cockpit details. Aside from the rudder pedals, they look almost identical, but the after paint they look solid. I'll be watching with interest! -JL Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bdt13 Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 With that Tamiya panel line stuff - does it show through the final coat a little so you can avoid a post-clear-coat wash? Sounds like it could be a time-saver there. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Crazy Snap Captain Posted July 11, 2014 Author Share Posted July 11, 2014 With that Tamiya panel line stuff - does it show through the final coat a little so you can avoid a post-clear-coat wash? Sounds like it could be a time-saver there. I'm hoping it does. I've never tried it before. I'm assuming if I don't go heavy on the paint job it will show through and avoid the post wash. I'll keep you updated. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
task force 58 Posted July 12, 2014 Share Posted July 12, 2014 Looks good so far. Which jet will it be? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bravosierra001 Posted July 12, 2014 Share Posted July 12, 2014 Never seen that panel line accentor before. I may have to try it sometime. Good start!! Brandon Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Neo Posted July 12, 2014 Share Posted July 12, 2014 (edited) Ivw just used the same technique on my skyraires. Works great and much faster than preshading Great start. Edited July 12, 2014 by Neo Quote Link to post Share on other sites
B2Blain Posted July 13, 2014 Share Posted July 13, 2014 Curious about the intakes. How are you do you plan to paint the front of the intakes? The gray goes kind of deep. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Crazy Snap Captain Posted July 13, 2014 Author Share Posted July 13, 2014 (edited) Curious about the intakes. How are you do you plan to paint the front of the intakes? The gray goes kind of deep. Hmmm...didn't think of that. I thought they were white? A few of the ref pics I've seen show them a sort of dirty white? Is that right? If not its going to pose a bit of a challenge painting them. Would appreciate a bit of guidance on the colour if someone can confirm. Many thanks for your kind words so far! Edit: ok, so I checked out some pics in Prime Portal and they are indeed gray then white. This will be an interesting masking exercise! Help! Edited July 13, 2014 by Crazy Snap Captain Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Crazy Snap Captain Posted July 13, 2014 Author Share Posted July 13, 2014 Looks good so far. Which jet will it be? :cheers:/> The Fightertown decals have some nice CAG options but I usually like the dirty look of operational lo-viz birds...still pondering this one. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
falcon20driver Posted July 13, 2014 Share Posted July 13, 2014 Looking great CSC! I used the panel line shading ahead of my painting on the F-18F I recently finished, and it absolutely shows through as long as the paint isn't dumped on. I'm really excited to watch this build come together. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
task force 58 Posted July 13, 2014 Share Posted July 13, 2014 Cool can`t wait for more progress, and I know what you mean by not being able to pick markings. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
B2Blain Posted July 14, 2014 Share Posted July 14, 2014 (edited) Hmmm...didn't think of that. I thought they were white? A few of the ref pics I've seen show them a sort of dirty white? Is that right? If not its going to pose a bit of a challenge painting them. Would appreciate a bit of guidance on the colour if someone can confirm. Many thanks for your kind words so far! Edit: ok, so I checked out some pics in Prime Portal and they are indeed gray then white. This will be an interesting masking exercise! Help! I typically don't buy aftermarket intakes. I was thinking about purchasing this Rhino ones as I have a number of Super Hornet/Growlers and would like to reduce the build times. I guess there are several options. You could make a plug out of styrene. Maybe use the Has intakes as a template, assuming they fit. But I don't know.... Edited July 15, 2014 by B2Blain Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Crazy Snap Captain Posted July 22, 2014 Author Share Posted July 22, 2014 Hello again chaps. Back from a business trip in Sigapore and right back into the Super Hornet! A week and a half without and modelling really gets the juices flowing again. My next area of concern...the Quick Boost resin late type ECS pipes. Great bit of kit but I was unsure of how to approach it. In ref pics that I have seen they sit pretty much flish with the fuelage, but to get that with the resin, you would have to sand them down to within a micrometer of their lives and I wasn't about to do that. So I asked the question on the forums and as usual an idea was presented that would solve my problem. ChippyWho suggested drilling out the old pipes and setting the resin replacements in the gap thus getting them flush with the main fuselage. Here's the old style pipes. I had to sand down the tabs that are on either side of the old pipes first... For some reaon I felt compelled to rescribe the old panel lines...OCD I guess. Then I began drilling out holes around and inside of the markings I made with the resin as a template Cut out the holes with a razor saw and then began the long process of sand/dryfit/sand dry fit etc etc etc... Till I got to this... And attached the resin with cyano. Some filling to do, but they now sit nice and flush (ish)... Going to do the other one tomorrow night. I've also started the weapons...more on that later. and am still trying to work out a way to mask off those intakes! Thanks for stopping by Quote Link to post Share on other sites
falcon20driver Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 You did a great job on those pipes. They look really great. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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