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Hello,

 

this is a build I have made in 2012-2014. I will present here a step by step process to make this kit.

 

The TA-4SU is a Skyhawk version especially developped for Singapore Air Force. It is a 2-seater aircraft with two separated cockpits ... the fuselage has been lengthened by 72 cm (which is usefull for 1/72 modellers - see Wikipedia page)

The raw material (except a lot of Evergreen, Tamyia putty and Gunze surfacer) was two Skyhawk kits from Fujimi : an A-4C (white plastic, for example for the nose) and an A-4E/F (grey plastic) for the rear cockpit.

The decals come from a Milliverse decal sheet. I used the instruction sheets and xeroxed them to have 1/72 schematics of the TA-4SU.

For the documentation, I used the Deltail & Scale Vol. 32 and some walkaround from the internet (the one from Fanakit and the one from ARC).

This project took me 19 months, representing 300 hours of work.

 

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Edited by colargol
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The front part of the fuselage

For the nose of the aircraft, I used the A-4C kit (white plastic for the front cockpit) and a part of the A-
4E/F (grey plastic).
As the air intakes of the TA-4SU (and the A-4SU) don't have a separation from the fuselage, I had to keep the A-4C ones, hence the white part for the air intake ... in fact, I could have kept the A-4E/F ones but the didn't survive the surgery ...

 

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the cockpits ...

 

The walls of the cockpit are made with aluminium foil, previously shaped with a toothpick and glued with cyanoacrylate glue. Other details are made in plasticard. The nose gear well can also be seen.

 

I have also rebuilt the rudders, a part of the sticks, the throttles and the rear part of each cockpit with plasticard.

 

For the instrument panels, I first paint the right part in black that would be seen later through the holes representing the instruments. The final panels will be glued later. In fact, there is a Multi-Function Display in each cockpit (on the left part of the instrument panel) and I decided to represent it with decals (from a Hasegawa F/A-18F). Putting decals at this stage seemed a little be ambitious, considering the water sanding phases to come ...

 

The rear windshield was vacu-formed using a master made of plasticard. For the vacu-forming, I heat the rhodoïd at 230°C(500K)  for 50 seconds. The master of the rear canopy and several try with various thickness of rhodoïd can be seen (this master is based on the canopy from the Fujimi kit) ... I prefer to have a lot of spare ... Finally, I present all the masters I used to vacu-form several parts of this kit (windshields, canopy and air intake duct)

 

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The front gear well, before and after painting (White Gunze - airbrushed - and Prince August for the details - brushed). I prefer shadowing with paint rather than with wash.

 

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Edited by colargol
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the air intakes ...

The air intakes duct from the Fujimi kit wasn't convincing enough for me. I decided to rebuild it by vac-forming it using a plasticard master. I also rebuilt the internal structure of the air intake, behind the rear cockpit. The final result is very nice !

For the first compressor stage, I used a piece from a F-14 kit; for the fixed part of the engine intake, I used pictures of F/A-18A/B/C/D engines (same engine for the TA-4SU).

On the last picture, a additional NACA air intake can be seen on the right air intake. I will explain later how I have built this kind of additional air intake.

 

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n this post, I will present the method I have used to represent small additional air intakes on the fuselage, either triangulary shaped (NACA) or rectangulary shaped.

The first step is to dig the plastic of the model on a little bit less than 0.5 mm (by checking regularly with Evergreen plasticard strip of the same thickness). Generaly, when I scratchbuild some pieces, I make more than needed. Then, I can choose the best ones amongst the ones I have made; moreover, if I loose some parts, I have spares ...

On the other hand, I make the air intake using 0.5 mm thick plasticard strips.

Then I glued the air intage (little rectangles in the first photo below) at their final place. Eventually, I have put some other platiscard to fill the gap between the intakes, finished the zone with Tamiya putty and Gunze Surfacer.

A NACA air intake could be noticed on the second picture (and in the previous post).

The question of additional air intakes is a tricky one with the TA-4SU. Indeed, depending on the aircraft and on the period you consider this aircraft, the position, the number and the shape of the air intakes could vary ! I had to choose a specific aircraft (the 909) and stick with this choice based on picture found on the internet.

 

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The fuselage ...

On the first picture, the front and rear parts of the fuselage have just been glued together. The picture was taken just before the long putty/sanding period ...

On the three last pictures, the rudder has been detached and I also have built the additional module on the left side of the fuselage.

To simplify the air intakes painting, these ones have been already white painted and the separation between the white and the rest of the camo was made using Tamiya masking tape before gluing front and rear parts of the fuselage (when this area was accessible from both side).

The big black flat antenna on the back was built separately, painted separately and put in the rigth position after camo painting.

 

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The wings, the inner part of the fuselage and the engine ...

As I have decided to open some hatches on the aircraft, I have to represent the inside of it ... 

For the internal structure of the fuselage, I have used an A-4C walkaround (but I have lost the URL ...)

For the gun bay, I used picture of Trumpeter and Aires kits.

For the metallic paint, I airbrushed Prince August Aero Metal painting, mixed with Klir (Future). The details were painted with Prince August, with a brush. 

On the last picture, the parachute fairing could be seen, at the bottom of the fuselage near the exhaust.

 

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Ready for painting !

Here is the model after 196 hours of work ...

The 400 gallon tank was built using a 300 gallon tank from an Hasegawa EA-6B and modified according to schematic found here (modification with Evergreen strips and a lot of Tamiya putty).

The clear part (as navigation lights) will be painted with the fuselage but this paint will be later removed using a toothpick. After that, I painted them with the right color (red, blue or ... no paint)

 

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The painting ...

 

According to Milliverse instructions sheet, the color are :

 

Dark Green FS34079 : Gunze H309. In fact, I mixed it generally with 50% of H70 (RLM02 grey), even if I used it sometimes with no other mixing, for some spots on the fuselage.

Green FS34012 : Gunze H303 ... I mixed it with 50% to 75% of interior green (H58), depending on the zone I was painting and the shade I wanted to have.

Brown FS30219 : Gunze H310 ... excepted for some dark aeras, I mixed it with at least 50% of H318 (radome) and/or H313 (Yellow FS33531).

 

For the bottom part of the fuselage, I used H338 (FS36495) with a primary layer of white.

 

The shadowing in the gear well and on the gears and gear doors was made with clear blue Prince August paint (a mix of blue and white. I prefer this technics to a simple wash). Some scratches were made on the white parts with grey/brown and zinc chromate.

 

For the red parts, I try to fit with the red of the decals. The darker zone were painted using a mix of red and red brown (H327 and H47). The primay layer for the intrados was the color of the bottom of the fuselage (H338). For the upper part (air intake lips, leading edges), I used a primary layer of the same color as the brown of the fuselage (H310 + H311/H318). This choice was made to avoid the appearance of a white layer in the width of the red painting edge, if I would have used a white primary layer.

 

I didn't make any pre-shadowing. I prefer to enlighten the center of the panels one by one depending on the effect I want ot render.

Unfortunately, I made a judgement mistake on the painting ... the limits between the colors are very narrow on the real aircraft. Then, I choose to paint the camo using masking tape. After that, I decided to repaint the limits between colors with the airbrush ... bad choice ... first, the limits is too large, and moreover, the edge of the masking tape can be seen under the layer of this blur areas ...

One thing leading to another, it took me 70 hours to paint the model ...

 

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Edited by colargol
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Quite the end ...

After waiting for a week that the varnish layer was completely dry (Klir/Future), I put the Milliverse decals. They were very pleasant to handle.

Second Klir layer after that ... some aeras have to stay gloss (some of the red parts, as the leading edge under part and the flaps, the black rectangulare area near the guns and the nose). Except this aeras (masked with Tamiya masking tape), everything has recieve a flat varnish layer (Gunze). It has to be noted that at that time period, I didn't use panel wash for weathering.

The guns have been made using copper tube and steel rod.

Then I have glued the various pieces (using CA glue and Micro Kristal Klear) ... quite finished !

Two major issues have to be corrected: the front canopy is not straight and the leading edge slat are to deployed ...

To be corrected ...

 

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Diorama preparation ...

Singapore Air Force seems to use two kinds of chocks for the TA-4SU: an foldable mechanical yellow kind, and a black, one piece kind (maybe in rubber). I have chosen the first kind.

The chock are made in styrene. They are painted using Gunze and Prince August (for spots and details).

For the ground, I have used a photo frame as a basis, with a piece of styrene sheet (2 mm thickness). The line between the plates are engraved. I have used the TA-4SU Walkaround from Aircraft Resource Center for the circulation line pattern.

Painting was done using Gunze, oil spots are made with dilute Humbrol paint.

 

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The finished model ...

After some little corrections (the forward canopy repositionned and the leading edge slats that I have moved about 1 mm backward), here are the pictures of the finished model.

 

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I hop you'd like it 😉

 

colargol

 

 

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Yes, I agree, very impressive.  Jaw-dropping, to say the least. You pack alot of very nice detail into the kit, nevermind the awesome scratch building for the TA-4SU variant. Congratulations! Kind regards,  Dutch 

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Wow nice work, I started one of these using a very old conversion set (I think there is a build thread somewhere for it), I should get back to finishing it one day.

 

You have done an awesome job on the interior and exterior detail. 🏆

Edited by Trojan Thunder
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