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Hey folks. This is a big build for a new friend, who sent me a huge display model of a Challenger 604 that sits proudly in my office. In exchange, I am sending him a CF-18 demo Hornet, in the Battle of Britain scheme. I helped Dave Winter of Canuck Models with the French translations on his 1/72 BoB demo boxing. In exchange, he sent me a kit in 1/72, plus decals for a 1/48 and 1/32 version of the Bob scheme. I never thought I would use the 1/32 ones, but here we are.

 

Al is the person I am building this for. He is a very accomplished modeller, but not of plastic kits. He specializes in large display models of airliners and other aircraft, plus he has several combat aircraft that manufacturers often give away as gifts to military pilots, etc. Al often touches up his models and makes them look beautiful. Different medium, great skills. Hope he likes this one.

 

I am using the Academy F/A-18C kit as a basis. Here is the kit and the decals. Progress soon.

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ALF

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2 hours ago, phantom said:

That will be real nice when done. Built it myself a couple months ago. Takes up a lot of room and is nice and colourful.

Yes. Funny, when I saw yours, I remembered I had those decals, but never dreamed I would make it. Was saving the kit for a different purpose, but it looks like I'll have to shop for another 1/32 Hornet kit... maybe the Kinetic (Academy) one.

ALF

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On 27/11/2017 at 2:09 PM, AX 365 said:

Looking forward to this build.

So am I, buddy!

 

Finally some progress to show. This is about the 8th time I build this kit, so it is coming back as I put it together.

Cockpit and nose wheel well first. One sits atop the other. There is a lot of detail inside the wheel well, and for a kit cockpit, it also has a great amount of detail and a decent seat. Tamiya XF-19 grey background for the panels.

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There are two MIPs in this kit. This is the one to use for a Canadian aircraft, because it has the correct fuel panel in the lower left corner. It is not quite correct, though, because it does not have the upgraded displays present in this demo aircraft. Your choice, finally!

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The MIP was painted black nearly everywhere, then I dry-brushed some light grey. Looks like I had mustard in my Subway sandwich at lunch.

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Cockpit panels done in black as well.

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I used a green Lumocolor permanent marker to colour in the display faces. I was given a great tip by Emvar once, using some green sparkly translucent plastic, but decided not to use it this time. Looks OK for off displays.

A bit of yellow and red in approximately correct places, and it's done.

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Side panels dry-brushed.

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For kit seats, they have a nice amount of detail. This seat is fairly close to the current Canadian one. Not exactly right, but close enough.

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The landing gear are VERY complicated on this kit. Almost a kit in themselves. Here are the pieces that make up most of the nose gear. The metal part must be super-glued in place to give it strength. These parts do not show up until far later in the instructions, but I like to tackle them as other things dry.

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VERY IMPORTANT for those who like to leave the gear off until the late stages of the assembly. Make sure that the Drag Brace (the large part that sticks out to the right here) is free to pivot, as per the instructions. It will help you insert the gear into place after having closed up the fuselage.

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More in next post.

ALF

 

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Main landing gear now. Huge number of tiny parts, but they look fantastic when done.

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Sub-assembly number 1 in this drawing from the instructions must be installed upside-down on a Canadian Hornet. The piston portion of the oleo goes on the bottom on our aircraft. Of course, it is not exactly the right shape (ours has far less piston, and a longer outer casing to it), but inverting it like in the picture below the instructions makes it look pretty good.

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Here, the little piece that glues on top of the elbow joint must be allowed to dry before adding the planing link and its other link. The Planing Link is the thing that straightens out the gear when extended; if it breaks, the aircraft will veer violently to one side on landing. Never happened to me, but has to a few friends.

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First of two links installed.

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Time for some clean-up of the fuselage plastic. This is the F/A-18C kit, so it comes with bulges for a C model that must be removed. First, the mounting points for bulges above the nose formation (slime) lights have to be scraped off. One is gone; the other still present in this pic. The RWR bulge next to my thumb in this pic is present on Canadian aircraft.

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The bulge aft of the gun and ID light door is next to go, on both sides.

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Fuselage (forward portion) together. Timmies cup to prove I was properly inspired for the Canada 150 GB.

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This is the forward portion of the aft fuselage. I punched out these two little holes to allow installation of the centreline pylon. It was often left installed during shows, because the demo pilot would have a luggage carrier in place for transits here.

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Engines, wings, etc coming together. Note the landing gear parts at the back of the cutting mat.

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For the wings, don't be perturbed by the weird way things fit together at the roots. It all has a purpose.

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A few clamps, and things are setting.

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One thing I love about this kit (especially compared to the Big Planes Kits and other ones I just finished building) is that everything has a clear way of going together. Here, the engine/intake assembly fits beautifully into these two little pins in the lower fuselage parts. No ambiguity.

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More soon. Thanks for following along!

ALF

 

 

 

 

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Nice!  Taking some pointers from your build chum.  I have the big F/A-18A+ kit (USMC and RCAF decals included) with a set of Canuck decals.  I haven't looked inside the box yet so I'm not sure if it has the correct CF-18 shocks or other unique RCAF doo-dads.  Having said that, I see the kit you're building has the spot light that's probably covered with a blanking plate to make it an F-18C.  I think I may tackle it next year.  Look forward to the next update.

 

Mike 

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21 hours ago, Roundrobin said:

Pretty cool looking model!!! Thanks for the pictures.

You're quite welcome! Things are rolling right along, as you saw from the email I sent last night.

 

5 hours ago, AX 365 said:

Nice!  Taking some pointers from your build chum.  I have the big F/A-18A+ kit (USMC and RCAF decals included) with a set of Canuck decals.  I haven't looked inside the box yet so I'm not sure if it has the correct CF-18 shocks or other unique RCAF doo-dads.  Having said that, I see the kit you're building has the spot light that's probably covered with a blanking plate to make it an F-18C.  I think I may tackle it next year.  Look forward to the next update.

 

Mike 

My continuing mission in life, Mike, is to allow others to benefit from my experience - whether it be correct, mistaken, or just plain lucky. It's all valid, isn't it?

This kit has both a blanking plate (USN/USMC) and a cut-out door for the spotlight. No need to make a jagged free-hand cut.

 

More progress. One thing I always do on this kit is attach the engine intakes to the side fuselage pieces before gluing them in place. The instructions have you glue the intakes to the fuselage, then install the fuselage side piece. I find this tends to leave a gap between the fuselage and the intakes. The gap that does end up showing is under the intakes; that is far less noticeable when it sits on a shelf, and can be filled fairly easily.

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Fore and aft fuselage sections mated. Timmies cup for more motivation.

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Before installing the intakes, I need to glue the LEX (Leading Edge eXtensions) into place. They fit nicely, with small gaps that will need filling.

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Intakes going into place. See the gaps; they are easily filled.

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Now time for the TEF (Trailing Edge Flaps). They are a bit complex to assemble. First, I glue all the angled actuators in place, and let them dry. I am using the full down position (45 degrees). This kit is wonderful; it includes 3 full sets of actuators for up, half (30 degrees) and full.

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All the actuators except this inboard aileron one are able to go on either wing. These two must be installed correctly. The little indentation on the forward portion goes outboard; that is one of the navigation lights. I'll likely be using a bit of clear glue to replace the transparent part. It is SO TINY, I almost never get it glued in place without dropping it a thousand times.

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I then glued these bits in place, and let them set. Turns out the angle was a bit off, so I had to reapply Tamiya extra-thin glue to get them to swivel slightly. In retrospect, I should have just attached them to the flap/aileron parts, and when partially dry install the flap/aileron, to allow the angle to be adjusted more easily.

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After installing the long segments between the main wing surface and the flap/aileron, the wing is done at the rear.

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ALF

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When I first discussed this build with Al, he said it was not important to get the tail bulges correct. Well, Al, my AMS (Advanced Modelling Syndrome) has kicked in. I have some after-market resin tails that I will be using. They are done by David Winter (Canuck Models). I just couldn't bear to build a CF-18 with too many bulges on the tails, and I have too many memories of hacking off the offending extra bulges for past builds, so I will be using the resin tails.

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Kit part on the right. Resin (white) has the correct number of bulges.

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LEF (Leading Edge Flaps) installed. Next step is to paint the landing gear parts. I have drooped the LEF by 12 degrees (approximately). That is where they sit in either half or full flap position. We have been parking aircraft with flaps drooped since the beginning of the CF-18 program. If you shut down with flaps up, then start the aircraft and do a flight controls reset (especially in cold weather), the LEF can easily lock up if they bump slightly up instead of down as the reset button is pressed. This causes the flaps to fail, and the pilot has to go through about a 5-minute reset routine to fix them, involving maintenance modes and sub-sub-menus in the flight controls system.

jAX7E7C.jpg

 

More updates tomorrow. Thanks for following along, folks!

ALF

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Thanks ALF. I kind of thought you would make everything the way it should be. It is going to be one awesome mode. PS: Bought a 1:32nd CF-104 kit from ITALERI and will be taking the plunge on that pretty soon. I have gone through it and it looks pretty high quality. Insertion pins etc..... Time has almost come to glue my fingers together :-) Need to finish my Challenger first.

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56 minutes ago, Roundrobin said:

Thanks ALF. I kind of thought you would make everything the way it should be. It is going to be one awesome mode. PS: Bought a 1:32nd CF-104 kit from ITALERI and will be taking the plunge on that pretty soon. I have gone through it and it looks pretty high quality. Insertion pins etc..... Time has almost come to glue my fingers together :-) Need to finish my Challenger first.

That 104 kit is AWESOME. My two favourite CF-104 kits are the Hasegawa in 1/48, and the Italeri in 1/32. The big Italeri one is right up there with this one for quality. Let me know if you would like any hints on pitfalls in building it. I built one, and have two more in my stash.

ALF

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37 minutes ago, ALF18 said:

That 104 kit is AWESOME. My two favourite CF-104 kits are the Hasegawa in 1/48, and the Italeri in 1/32. The big Italeri one is right up there with this one for quality. Let me know if you would like any hints on pitfalls in building it. I built one, and have two more in my stash.

ALF

 

 

I'll certainly will ask for your guidance along the way. For those who don't know me here, is that I have been refinishing "Museum" quality models for 25 years. Mainly old Metal Douglas, Raise Up, Verkuyl etc..... Airliners in 1:50th scale. Some models as big as 3.5 feet long.  I am pretty good at painting and applying decals, but assembling a kit will be totally new to me (did some when a young boy. That was a little while ago :-)

So this will be a fun change for me. I am really looking forward to it. Just have to finish a couple of promised projects first. As for the Italeri, it looks awesome. I couldn't believe it when I went through it. I picked it up for $100 and I think that was a good price for this kind of quality. I also have one of their Hercs that I picked up a very long time ago and just filed it away.

Cheers

Al

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  • 2 weeks later...

Lots of progress made, very few posts. Things have been very busy around the ALF household the last two weeks.

 

Here are the gaps that resulted under the intakes. Not too hard to fill, and I much rather have them here than around the sides. I also installed the centreline pylon. This demo jet flew around a lot with a luggage pod, and it went to England with 3 tanks. The centreline was present for most of the show season. This little pylon causes very little drag; the wing pylons are horrific for drag.

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Arrestor hook assembled. I tend to do this last before priming with the Tamiya Light Grey primer, and I leave off the exhausts because they are easier to paint when not installed at this point. I've also installed the TEF and ailerons. One small complaint about this kit is the inconsistent angle between the TEF and ailerons. As they bleed down after engine shut-down, they sometimes end up a bit at odd angles (like here), but eventually settle down to the same 45 degree droop.

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The kit's landing gear is detail-rich. Here I've spray-painted them white Tamiya primer, and I've also started to paint the ceramic tiles inside the nozzles.

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I used metallic silver pen for the bare metal on the gear.

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Here are the interiors of the nozzles. I used some dark brown paint on top of the desert yellow, as well as some HB pencil to add the black, plus a bit of dry-brushing.

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Assembled nozzles. Need some minor touch-ups to the metallic grey (Tamiya).

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Installation of the vertical stabs, with my high-tech brace. I use the LEX fence angles as a guide for their angles. These resin parts fit fairly well, but not as beautifully as the kit parts.

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I have now primed the beast, using Tamiya Light Grey, followed by white Tamiya primer in the wheel wells. I tried spraying the false canopy using the Canuck Models masks, but that didn't work out so well...

I also painted the red borders on the gear doors.

Here I have masked in preparation for the top camouflage colours.

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LOTS of tape! Just sprayed the interior white in the wheel wells. Used about 3 light coats for this.

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Yeesh! Not so happy with this situation.

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More in next post.

ALF

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Using AX_365's patented (used under licence) medical tape method for masking camouflage. This tape is wonderful! I added a bit of red to the XF-59 brown (Tamiya).

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This is the scariest stage. Never sure if it will have bled a lot, and look terrible...

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Wow! Super happy with the result. Only a few very minor touch-ups needed here and there.

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Note how I have left out the gun port. I paint that part separately, and install it at the end. Makes for clean lines.

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Looking a bit better. Some hand-painted touch-ups.

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Lots of work done prior to this pic. Detail painting (ECM and RWR antennae on tail, GPS bump, nozzles, etc). I used the clear nose cone for the HARM from the kit for the GPS dome antenna. This kit does not come with it.

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Hand-painted black on the canopy undersides. I also used a silver metallic pen to do the surfaces of the 3 mirrors.

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Seat glued in place. I used a little piece of masking tape to add the fabric shroud around the back of the ejection handle. Our Canadian seats were different at the time, and had this little loop cover. I've dry-fit the front canopy piece. It will need some paint touch-ups to cover the black showing under the canopy. Also, note I have dry-brushed some metallic grey on the cockpit sills. These are typically quite scuffed up on the fleet.

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Up on its gear, almost ready for clear coating then decals.

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Deadline is fast approaching, but I have more time to get this done since all my exams are marked.

Thanks to those who are watching and commenting.

ALF

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Very nice work, pal-o-mine!  I have the Academy F/A-18A+ (#12107) in 32nd scale.  I haven't cracked open the box yet so I'm not sure if the RCAF style landing gear are included in the kit.  It comes with RCAF decals so I'm hoping that they have the proper landing gear.  I'll find out when I get to it, I guess.  Some handy pointers here for when I get around to my big Hornet.  Look forward to the end results.

 

Mike

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On 18/12/2017 at 7:43 PM, Roundrobin said:

All I can say is WOW!!!

 

Thanks! You might like it more when you see this update.

On 18/12/2017 at 10:32 PM, Neo said:

GReat paint job there! 

Thanks, Neo. It's all thanks to Mike's tip on the medical tape.

On 19/12/2017 at 7:40 AM, AX 365 said:

Very nice work, pal-o-mine!  I have the Academy F/A-18A+ (#12107) in 32nd scale.  I haven't cracked open the box yet so I'm not sure if the RCAF style landing gear are included in the kit.  It comes with RCAF decals so I'm hoping that they have the proper landing gear.  I'll find out when I get to it, I guess.  Some handy pointers here for when I get around to my big Hornet.  Look forward to the end results.

 

Mike

:)

I have no idea if it has the Canadian gear or not. We'll see when you receive the big boxes we just co-ordered; given they are the ABCD box, fingers crossed.

On 19/12/2017 at 1:35 PM, Roundrobin said:

The silver (scuff marks) on the cockpit sill is brilliant. Only someone who flew these or work on them would know that!! Love it!!

 

al

Aw, shucks, Al. Partly true. Also true for many of the scale modeling (not display models like you do) gang.

Amazing how much of an eye for detail we modelers have!

 

Update time. As we left off, the major painting and touch-ups were done. I did some detail painting, added a few antennae and other things, and gloss-coated prior to the decaling. Note the ID light panel has been left off. The plan for this is to gloss coat it, cut the decal that straddles it and the electrical panel ahead of it on the left side fuselage, then spray the dull coat over the ID light panel. After the dull coat dries, I will install the transparency (to avoid having to mask it), the ID light itself, and only then glue the panel in place after the rest of the lower grey colour has been dull coated.

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For the tail art, I started with this decal. The two lines going up to the top tore off, and I added them afterward. For the other side, I chopped those lines off pre-emptively, and added them later. Some things I did on the detail painting: the grilles just ahead of the nozzles I did with silver paint, then toned down with HB pencil to leave some silvery colours in there as well. I also painted the bottom of the light wells (near the LEX fences and under the wings and on the wingtips) silver, followed by red or green.

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Nearing the end of decaling. The tail decals must be applied in order: triangular artwork, then the flag, then the tail number in yellow, then the formation light. At the end, I applied the Wing identifiers at the tops. I also left off the horizontal stabilators until just this stage, to facilitate painting and decaling.

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Now for one of the most finnicky parts, the HUD. I glued the large transparency to one of the side braces, and let it dry. Then I glued the other side brace in place, and finally added the smaller transparency (just visible at the top left of the photo).  I took this picture after gluing the first side in place, and letting it set.

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After the decals were done, I applied another gloss coat to the top camouflage (carefully avoiding the light grey, so it would remain dull after spraying the Testors Dull Coat on it). I then added the remaining transparencies and antennae. I also installed the rubber tires (love that part of this kit!).

CKIi8Mz.jpg

 

Pretty much done. Finished pics in next post.

ALF

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This one is done, with only 10 days to go in the Group Build. I have deliberately left the canopy loose, because my customer (Roundrobin) will be receiving this shipped in a box across Canada to Vancouver Island. I'll leave it to him to glue the canopy in its open position. When I sent a 1/48 Hornet to the foothills of the Rockies for another friend last summer, the canopy broke off despite my best efforts at protecting it in the open position. Luckily he had some skills as well to fix that.

 

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Thanks for all the encouragement, folks!

ALF

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1 hour ago, Roundrobin said:

What can I say?? Fantastic.....

:cheers:

Wait until you see it in person. I just have to paint the canopy actuator and package it all up for you. Sending you an email tomorrow with more details.

ALF

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