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Yup... I just can't have enough of Hornets! This time I'll build three Academy Hornets. An A from VMFA-115 using Superscale decals, a C from VMFA-312 using Authentic Decals, and anoter C from VFA-146 using Print Scale decals. Hope I'll manage to finish them before the deadline is up.

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A bunch of parts. I love unwraping them :D

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and decals: VMFA-115

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VMFA-312

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VFA-146

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First cuts were done, I've started by adding some braces to the lower aft part. Hopefully it'll ensure beter fit.

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Working on a wingfold. This is a little more difficult than Hasegawa Legacy Hornets.

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Most of the major parts were cut from the sprues and bagged.

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What remains now is to cut the flaps and wingtips from the other two Hornets. Perhaps tomorrow I'll manage to do some more work.

Did I ever say I like this Group Build? ;)

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ahh, fresh pics ;) I've finished the fuselage assembly, just have to putty some joints and I'll attach the wings. They're starting to look like Hornets. Oh... and I guess I should've used the spreader instead of the braces. Oh well ... ;)

I've fitted the cockpits to upper fuselage, since I've had experienced problems fitting the lowest part of the nose subassembly.

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From left to right, VMFA-115's A, VFA-146's C and VMFA-312's C :) I've decided to go with the colourfull schemes. I just hope that VMFA-312's checkerboard fits Academy fins!

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This is pretty much what it looks like in all 3 pits. From afar, with eyes slightly closed they do look nice ;) Oh... and You are just imagining those sink marks. :wasntme:

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Oh... and I've started one more Hornet... I know I shouldn't have, but I just could not resist!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, I got my building mojo back. I've sanded and polished the seams on the canopies. I've also attached tails, filled some smaller seams and masked the canopies.

This was today morning...

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this is now.

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I've also added some strips of plastic to at least show some impression of the wingfold mechanism. They are far from perfect, but will work for me.

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I still have to address the seams between the wing and that part that goes between the wing and flap. A slot of some sort I guess.

Hope to paint them some time next week.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Along with Hasegawa F, I've painted my Academy Bugs :) They're also gloss coated. From top, USMC -115, USN -146, USMC -312. Can't wait to decal those beasts :)

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I've also aquired my old friend - and Italeri Hornet. I've thought of attaching Italeri Hornet's MLG to Academy Kit. It will probably look better, but I'd have to cast those in resin, so I'd have more. Or I'll just bite the bullet and go with kit legs. I'll have to think more of that. I just never casted anything... I can imagine the catastrophy :D

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I'll do some more pics some time later, because that may actually work! Credit goes to Yufei Mao and his wonderfull Academy Hornet done somewhere here on ARC!

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I took some pics of my Hornets with temporarily attached MLG's from Italeri and Academy.

Here's Italeri - notice the angle of wheels. That hopefully can be corrected. The angle of the gears is still wrong...

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... still better than Academys

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Very bad pic... but it shows that Italeris MLG is practically the same height as Academys.

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And here's the back to back pic:

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Italeri:

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Academy: Sorry for the out of focus pic, but again, it shows what I wanted to show.

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Close ups on the gear itself:

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I guess I'll have to learn how to cast in resin... ;)

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In the meantime, I've continued work. Since Marines are the first ones to go:

Superscale decals are awesome to work with. They were sized to fit the Hasegawa Hornet, so some adjustment was necessary.

The walkways were too short so I've cut them and added the parts from second scheme - no real problem here.

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What was annoying was the decal with "VMFA-115" it was too long to fit the model! I've had to cut some parts so it would fit.

I've done quite a few Hasegawa Hornets, and it wouldn't have fitted it either. Not without a fuselage extension ;)

Still my modification left me with very large unit designation... other than cutting up every letter and reassembling them, there's not much that I could do, so I left it as it is. Aww...

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The worst part, as expected, were the vertical stabilizer decals. I've had to cut them up and reassemble so they would fit. Guess I should have painted the red and white stripes...

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The false canopy was incorrect on the Superscale sheet. I've replaced it with one from the Leading Edge CF-188 decal sheet.

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I've riscontred some problem with the spine markings on my build,I'll explainn in my next update.

Great progress,one of the most flamboyant scheme in a Hornet!

Gianni

Can't wait for Your update, as usual ;) Silver Eagles Hornet is almost done, awiaits landing gear and final assembly. Luckily, contrary to the name, there was no silvering :lol:

I modified the academy gear slightly and they look much better. Cheaper easier solution perhaps?

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Bad pic but shows the new angle of the legs.

All kit parts were used just made some modification with a razor saw. :)/>

Glad You've posted that pic! Your gear looks awesome! And You've kind of reminded me that I was going to do something about these Academy parts.

Whatever I'll end up doing I'll have to repeat on my next builds, so that's going to be an important factor in my decision. There are about 60 or so Legacy Hornets planned so far. Plus I might want to redo my previous builds at some point. Ah well, we shall see :)

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All I did was notch with a saw where the rectangular attachment connects to the legs. Bent the leg outward, smothered in liquid cement to hopefully hold that position. Then I had to shorten the wheel stubs significantly so the wheels could go on at the right angle.

Very simple took about 5 min.

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I've made some progress. The -115 bird is almost done - and I use this term very loosely in this context. I've decaled, weathered, and matt coated it. All that remains is to assemble and paint the landing gear.

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I've touched up the area where there was no decal with Insignia Blue. It looked really good until I took a pic of it :)

I don't know if I'm going to fix it. Without flash it doesnt show... I'll have to think about it.

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In the meantime, I've decaled the -312. Authentic decals really need a liquid decal film coat. They break very easily, and the red and orange decals are quite thick. Plus, they're sligtly out of register and not nearly opaque enough. Still far from the worst decals I've ever used. I'm going to get one more sheet to make a Low Visibility option from the sheet.

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Compare the air wing letter code on both sides. Port ones opacity and register:

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Starboard:

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Oh... and they silver like it's nobodys business!

No worries though - I'll manage (somehow) ;)

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Thanks Gianni. I don't really have the patience to even try to develop scratchbuilding skills You have, and all those details You're adding to Your Hornet make up for at least 7 of my Hornets :)

What I mean about decal problems was that vertical stab decals, the ones with modex, stars and white/red stripe were sized to Hasegawa Hornet - too small for the Academy part. The white/red stripes were easy to strech by adding some white and red decals. On the sides of the blue part of the decal I've painted MM Insignia Blue, which looked ok to me. Under the camera flash it looks much darker though.

The lazy part of me would really like to leave it as it is. You know... better is the enemy of good.

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YES! YES! YEEEES! Times of a sh!tty Academy MLGs are OVER!

Granted, I've had to look for a proper way to do this...

At first, I figured I'd shorten the forward strut by cutting a piece of about 1mm from it. Then I've assembled the lower strut at a slight angle. The mid-strut with the shock-absorber was supposed to be cut off and shortened. A quite difficult and hard to repeat process, yet I've attempted it. Well, long story short - It's not worth it! It doesn't fix an issue with the angle of forward strut.

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What does work, and is really very easy, is to cut off the shock absorber at its base, or somewhere near it, and make a small cut where the forward strut meets the lower one. Also, to fix the angle, You will have to make smaller cuts near the part that goes inside of the fuselage.

Here's the first version, slightly misguided. Don't cutt of the shock absorber with from the lower strut!

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And just to post more pics

Kit part

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Italeri (ok, this one looks best)

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My modification, I did not extend the oleo strut on that pic.

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Kit part:

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Italeri (again, the best one)

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My modification:

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My mod to the left, Italeri to the right:

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My mod to the left, kit part to the right:

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end of part I

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part II:

so, I've taken two different approaches to the problem:

1) cut out a part of the oleo strut - this way I have produce a new oleo, 6 mm long, 1,5 mm wide, but it has larger glueing surface.

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2) cut out entire oleo strut - new oleo is built from scratch and is 8 mm long. This seems a better idea for the future.

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I've detailed the oleo strut with layers of tamiya masking tape, CA glue was used to fill the gaps created by the bending of the gear.

The whole process takes no more than 10 minutes per model... I'm quite excited about it really. You can also try this with 1,5 and 2 mm platic beams.

I'm off to build my Hornets then! Hopefully there will be no big problems with aligning the landing gear later.

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With main obstacle out of the way, two Bugs are ready to splash the windshield ;)

First one, the VMFA-115:

I've replaced kit seat with Aires SJU-5. It's too small, but looks better than what's in the box. Initially I was going to leave it as it is, but I could not help myself. This one got the spare Italeri MLG.

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VMFA-312:

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I've added more of the light gray wash on this one, plus a little brown pastel dust.

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There's my landing gear modification right there! It's pretty much all You can see - well worth the effort :)

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Unless You go from behind ;)

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There's both of 'em with some deck thingies ;)

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And with another CVW-3 jet I have

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I do have a slight problem... I don't have enough shelf space... And I've really tried to look. Guess some more old models are going to be deployed with operation "trash can". Quite sad actually :(

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Thank You for the kind words! It means a lot coming from You.

I wanted to share something quite funny. I've discovered few inaccuracies with the Print Scale sheet, so far nothing that major.

This is the image of the decal sheet taken from manufacturers site.

Image of the decal sheet from manufacturers site

There is only one set of modex numbers for every scheme. That's a shame actually, I did not notice this earlier, I'll just have to buy one more decal sheet.

Somewhat annoying is the lack of crew names, but I can understand it, and I can live with it.

Well, the unit name that goes on the spine is too small. It's noticable, unfortunatly. So is the size of the white band around numbers and other writings.

However, my biggest issue is this:

What the...!!!!!

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Seriously, this is going to cause biggest problems for me. Obviously, as this image from Wikimedia Commons shows, the carrier name should be black, not blue. Perhaps I'll be able to source out the carrier name from my spares. As usual, we shall see.

I'm hoping to have this one finished by the end of the week.

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I guess its the last one for me in this GB, and the last one in 2014.

Print Scale decals were quite good - the flag on the nose caused only minimal problems to align perfectly. I've had to paint small white spot just for from the gun muzzle. Other than lack of one set of modex numbers (I've had to buy another sheet for them), no crew names and renaming the carrier as USS John C Stehng they were quite good. I've modified the carrier name to look more like it should but it did not came out too good. I've also used Pavla resin SJU-17.

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I guess there's still time for me to pop one out, but I simply don't have any more ideas for the builds. Ok... I do have them, but there are other GB that I plan on entering them with :)

Thanks for watching guys!

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