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A-7E Corsair II - Hasegawa 1/48 (Twin build - Completed)


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Thanks for the info, guys!   I'll try to re-position the other A-7's flaps.

 

Spent a whole day looking for the Zactoman intake parts.  I thought I'd lost them, whew!   I regret not having gotten the seamless intakes when they were available.   Had to fix the seams of the kit part.

 

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I carved up a piece of styrene sheet and attached it to the end of a dowel.  

 

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I shaped it so that when I ran it along the bead of apoxie sculpt it would force the putty into the groove.

 

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I cut off the other end of the intake for easy access.

 

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Filled the grooves with Apoxie Sculpt and used the tool to level it down.

 

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Had to sand it down a little after it had dried.   It worked out pretty well.

 

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The Trumpeter's chin is a bit too straight compared to the Hasegawa's.

 

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But the Zacto part requires pinching the intake -- which makes the chin go lower...

 

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It will level with the edge of the lip but the chin will lose curvature(?).    Hmmm.....

 

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I'm thinking about cutting off some material here so that even if I pinch the intake the chin won't go down further.   But then I might have to trim down the lip to match it.   I might be digging myself into a hole : (       

 

By the way, surprise-surprise.   The cockpit, which was pretty much done with the pilot strapped comfortably in his seat, suffered a cat-tastrophe.   The cat helped himself onto the workbench in the middle of the night and swiped the cockpit over the edge with his paw (why I had strategically placed it close to the edge I may never figure out).   When I woke up the next morning I see the pilot had ejected, one of his arms broken and all the PE straps missing.  I found the straps eventually in a dilapidated state -- one buckle (with several folds) flattened like a pancake under my shoe.   When will I ever learn my lesson  ---- I have a cat and need to stow away anything I've completed safely out of view : (

Edited by crackerjazz
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Sorry to hear about the pilot.
If it is any consolation, I almost always do most things twice due to my own errors, ham-fistedness. 
Most recently, I melted a completed gear door with a hot air gun. Beer helps.

 

The intake tool is a great idea. Results look good.

The amount of work in this WIP is really impressive.

Thanks for sharing, warts and all.

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Hi CaptainObvious, thanks for the encouragement.    Yeah, it's so frustrating when you have to do things twice especially when you can't replicate the first one : (    I gave my all in that session.    Hi, John, thanks! I hope you can work on your A-7 again, soon : )

 

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Installed exactly the same internal setup for the mount as the 1/48, only scaled up.  Not too tidy for zooming into, so I stood back a bit, heheh : )  Everything will be hidden anyway.

 

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Filleted the edges of the vacuform gun fairing a little more with some apoxie sculpt.   It will need a little more sanding.    For the chin I ended up cutting a triangular section...

 

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which allows gluing the intake to the resin part without the lower edge bulging downwards.

 

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It also creates a slight slope somewhat similar to the Hasegawa chin.  Really raring to close up the fuse, just trying to figure out what to do with the squashed exhaust opening.

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Hi Peter, thanks!  yeah, my first instinct was to charge after the cat.  Couldn't blame him, though.  He couldn't tell between a model and a toy.  They're all playthings as far as he's concerned, meant for pushing about and chewing on.  It's really all on me. I got too lazy to put the thing away -- would've taken a couple seconds as opposed to the hours I need to spend now to try fixing it.  Still I'm glad it wasn't the head that broke off --- that's the hardest thing to position for a natural looking pose.   And that most of the PE parts are still there -- just in a mangled state.

 

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Still trying to figure out how to reshape the rear end.

 

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I'm leaning towards the boiling water dunk.

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Goodmorning Joe, 

You see my friend the problem here is that as you can see the height is almost the same the width is the one that needs to be shaped. But if you touch the width you are going to change the height also. What i did, was to try to keep the ratio the same....how you do it...well here are the dimension of the real thing...height 890mm and width 1080mm, divide with 32 and you are in scale!!! The ratio w/h is almost 1.2!

Hope that helps a little!!!

 

John

Edited by zaxos345
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Great info, John, thanks!   That's exactly the ratio I'm getting.

 

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Making something for the clamp to hold onto without sliding.

 

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Filled the void with Apoxie Sculpt

 

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Lined the insides with masking tape.

 

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Slowly adjusted the clamp, measuring constantly until I got the proper height and width.

 

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Covered the gap inside and filled with Hydrocal.  The hydrocal heats up as it hardens.  Hopefully the plastic would soften a bit and conform to it.  But I still might give it a hot water dunk then freeze the shape in ice water.

Edited by crackerjazz
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Very clever Joe, i still have not understand what is the hardened material you used....but very clever indeed!! Hope that works!!! I tried the hot / cold method but i think i managed little...i can leave with that....i think hahahahaha

 

John

Edited by zaxos345
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Crackerjazz,

  Just caught up with your builds. We also have a cat who thinks he's in charge not us. Of course he loves the model computer room because it's the warmest room in the house and he hangs out with me. So far he's never played with any models on my bench, but I've caught him stealing wires, and such, then I just get that look. 

 

 Nice work with all that blending in with apoxie sculpt, I just have to try some rather then Milliput. 

 

As for reshaping the exhaust, I'm still concerned that as you press the sides in while using Hydrocal, the top/bottom will slightly bulge as well. Since you're not removing any plastic it has to go somewhere. Sure hope that it works and I'm wrong, which wouldn't be the 1st time by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Joel

 


 

Edited by Joel_W
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Hi Joel, thanks!  No, you're absolutely right the height does change when the sides are squeezed together but it's not an undesired effect and is actually what I'm after.  The ellipse on the kit currently measures 34.9 (w) x 26.2 (h)   but needs to be 33.75 (w) x 27.8 (h) for a 1/32 exhaust.    The bottom tends to push out more compared to the top because a portion of the tail fin is in the way.  Perhaps cutting this off might help, but even without doing so the general effect of the modified opening largely achieves the target shape.  

 

Actually now that I think of it, it might be beneficial to cut off the tail part.  Last night I boiled some water and tried the experiment.  I held the exhaust end of the fuselage underwater for 4 seconds -- seems like it's not enough because the shape springs back.  I could probaby hold it down a bit longer with that part cut off and out of the way.  Additionally, I'm thinking about cutting a piece of styrene into the required ellipse shape and plugging the end with it. 

 

Hi, John, to answer your question about the plaster material it's called Hydrocal.  I like it because it sets in less than 10 minutes.   By the way, I thought the heat generated by the curing Hydrocal would be enough to soften the plastic --- I was wrong.   The heat wasn't enough.  Boiling water is still the best way to go.

Incidentally, I came across this interesting article about reshaping plastic.  There's a point called glass transition where where the molecules re-arrange and the plastic won't spring back.   I want to know what that temperature is for the Trumpeter A-7 material - maybe I should pick up a kitchen thermometer to monitor the water temperature. 

 

http://www.austinsms.org/Straightening-Warped-Plastic-Parts.php

 

What I'd like to know, too, is if there is a point where the plastic would turn into a gooey mess and if there's any danger of that occurring.   I know that holding it underwater for too long can distort the shape -- I already have the hardened plaster to counter any buckling and the tape to keep bumps from happening but I won't be able to do anything if the plastic melts.

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Take 2:

 

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I cut off a portion of the tail to give me more room for dunking and will reattach it later.

 

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Adjusted the clamp to reshape the exhaust and filled it up with hydrocal.

 

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I plan on dunking it for 20 seconds.   Hopefully nothing untoward happens.

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That last one didn't work either, probably because of the tape?   So this morning I took all the tape off, clamped the opening to the right proportions again, poured the Hydrocal and boiled the water.    I just said to myself that I'll dunk it in for 20 seconds -- if the experiment fails, so be it.   I did boil the back end for 20 seconds, examined it for any warpage, then boiled for 20 more.  Then I just ran it under the tap and prised the hull halves open.

 

Here it was before the big reveal:

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And third time's a charm!   Success!  There's hope for this Trumpy!  :rolleyes:

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Hi John, right now it's 33.5 (w) x 27.5 (h).   I'm glad that step is over so I could close up the fuselage soon.  

 

Rebuilt the cockpit.   Couldn't replicate the way I initially did the harness before the crash : (  Oh, well.

 

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Had to make a new firing handle, re-assemble the canopy breakers, reconnect the left arm, glue the pilot on, and replace lost straps with Tamiya tape.

 

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Used some decals for the side console gauges. 

 

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That's Ted Danson as an A-7 pilot : )

 

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Edited by crackerjazz
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Impressive to say the least. just your fortitude to get the exhaust correctly shaped is way more then I'd done. Most likely I would have accepted it as is, but your efforts surely paid off in Spades. And the cockpit with the pilot really looks good, and I'm not a figure guy, yet yours works.

 

Joel

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Steve, Joel, thanks for the encouragement, guys!

 

Been doing some work on the Trumpeter intake.  I discovered that when I squeeze the intake sides together (to glue them onto the resin "former"), the sides of the canopy sills extend outwards  :(    So I took another route by filling the inner walls with putty and sanding down the outside of the intake to shape.     

 

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Wrapped the inner tube to protect it from the putty.

 

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Filled the inner walls with putty...

 

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Also wanted to sand down the canopy as the bump on top is too high.    I wanted to shape it like the Hasegawa canopy.

 

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Filled it with putty..

 

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Ready for sanding to shape and vacuforming later.   No pics  but the sanding didn't  go too well....setting the canopy aside for later.   

 

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Sanded down the sides of the intake.

 

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All in all I don't like my Trumpeter A7 anymore and I feel like tossing it out the window  : (

 

Going back to my 1/48s:

 

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Had to re-do the HUDs because they forward canopy didn't fit with them installed (because the coaming of the kit was too high :(    The windscreens fits better now; just having a bit of trouble aligning the HUD glass.

 

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Edited by crackerjazz
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Thanks, Janne!  :rolleyes:

 

Broke out the Holdit for masking off the helmets.

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I used several thin layers of Tamiya white primer for the helmets.  I had to cut the legs off and graft Hasegawa heads onto Tamiya bodies; had to remove the oxygen hoses for replacing with wire.

 

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Found the wire breaks easily when creases form from stripping with a cutter so I had to burn off the cladding instead from one side..

 

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And easily peel off the sheathing.

 

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Could use a little flat coat.

 

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And the colors aren't quite right but didn't want to mix : ( 

Edited by crackerjazz
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Hi Ikon, thanks!   Thanks, A10-Loader -- I tried hand-brushing but couldn't get the white to cover properly : (    I find Tamiya white primer provides great coverage, a nice hard shell and a subtle sheen that looks really good.    

 

The kit's control stick looked bare and didn't have the top part where the switches are -- reshaped it with putty and some tiny bits of styrene.

 

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  • crackerjazz changed the title to A-7E Corsair II - Hasegawa 1/48 (Twin build - Completed)

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