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Since I finished my Tamiya B339 Buffalo last night, I figured I might as well pull out this kit and work on it alongside my 1/72 A-4M Skyhawk.

I've built the Tamiya 262A-1 version but this is the dedicated attack version of the plane...with two of the four 30mm canons deleted in order to increase the weight of the bomb load it could carry. I think it doubled the weight of bombs.

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:cheers:

Mike

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Only a little progress last night. Mainly I spent time getting things sorted out in my mind in terms of how I wanted to start.

There are a lot of interior areas that need to be painted sliver/aluminum, so I decided to *not* start with the cockpit. The wheel wells are one such place, so I started there...

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:cheers:

Mike

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Tamiya provides a metal nose gear well, which serves as weight to prevent tail-sitting. I primed it with Tamiya surface primer to make it ready for painting.

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I recently bought several bottles from that (relatively) new Vallejo Metal Color line, as well as the black metal color primer. I spent a few minutes at the spray booth this morning giving the primer a try. It was a bit thick coming out of the bottle, so I added a few drops of Vallejo Game Color thinner (it's the only Vallejo thinner I have at the moment). It handled very well on both bare plastic and the barely-dried surface primer on the nose well. I sprayed it at about 18 psi.

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:cheers:

Mike

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A quick airbrush session to do the exhaust areas of the jets. This is the Vallejo Metal Color "Jet Exhaust". The paint performed very well; easy to spray (19 psi) and required no thinner straight from the bottle.

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:cheers:

Mike

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This is the kit that launched Tamiya's 1/48 armor line. For this it should be enshrined in the annals of the modeling hall of fame.

Hey, that should be a thing!

I didn't know that! I wasn't planning on building the Kettenkraftrad but maybe I'll reconsider!

Mike

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A lot of work today to finish up the interior subassemblies.

Parts of the cockpit and wheel wells before installation.

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Cockpit assembled...

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Cockpit with bulkheads that form the main wheel wells, and the gun installation. I'm building the the kit buttoned up, so the guns won't be seen, but the parts are important to install anyway since they ensure positive alignment of the nose well and provide structural support for the front fuselage.

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I deviated from the instructions for the nose gear. They have you install the whole thing at this point, gear leg, doors, everything. The only thing that needs to be installed at this point is the retractor arm. It sandwiches between the metal nose well and the gun assembly so that it swings freely. Handy when the nose gear leg is installed eventually!

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:cheers:

Mike

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Interior sub-assemblies installed in fuselage. Everything fits snugly and with perfect alignment.

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Fuselage closed up! I deviated from the instructions here too, and installed the rear cockpit deck while closing up the fuselage. I'm not sure why they have you wait until much later in the build. Much easier to install it now while you have a chance to make an adjustment if it doesn't quite fit.

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From underneath, you can see how the main gear well is formed.

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:cheers:/>

Mike

Edited by mlicari
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  • 1 month later...

I finished this one too while the forums were down!  Here's the rest of the build!

Wings needed a bit of clamping but fit to the fuselage very nicely.

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The nose panels fit poorly.  I'm positive the kit was engineered to have these open as this is the only trouble spot, and I've read other build reports that said there were issues here too.

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Engines...

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Ready for paint!

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RLM 76 underside...

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RLM 83 top

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RLM 82 spots!

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Gloss coat and decals, ready for weathering!

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Mike

 

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Here's the finished build!

I wanted to weather it just a bit, so I tried to be light with the effects, and I like how it turned out.  Weathering is still by far my weakest area and it intimidates me.

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Final run-down

Paint: Model Master Acryl (except wheel wells, which were painted with Vallejo Metal Color) with Aztek airbrush

Decals: Kit

Build: OOB

Weathering: MM Acryl Black and Brown washes, Tamiya weathering kits, graphite/pencil, and silver Prismacolor pencil

Hope you like it!

Mike

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Thanks!  Yes the camo was done free hand.

 

I deliberately went light on the weathering for the reasons you state.  I just did a wash on the landing gear and gear bays, along with some other areas...aside from the underside, I tried to just leave it mostly in the panel lines.

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