Marcel111 Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 (edited) Well, here goes, my opening post for my Bug. I started this last year, then had to put it aside due to a mishap with the windscreen. I wanted to make this a fairly fast build (by my glacial standards, at least). Also, the canopy will be closed to preserve the shape of the twin seater, so I'm not going too crazy on the cockpit. This a pic of the real thing, although my build will show the aircraft with some serious hardware, as deployed to Al Asad in '05. Key ingredients of the build are: Academy kit, MAW decals, Aires exhausts, SAC landing gear, Cutting Edge Sidewinders, Wolfpack Litening pod and some Eduard placards. To start off, here is the single Maverick. It is an amalgamation of a CAM missile and the kit missile, I used the resin wings since they seem a little thinner (but not by much). Fortunatly, I found some piece of circular reflective foil lying on the floor in our home one day, which is, I think, a perfect representation of the laser seeker mechanism. If only I knew where it came from... I also added a bit of detail to the rear of the missile. Below are the exhausts. First off, a pic of the real thing as reference. As is quite well known, the Aires exhausts are slightly undersized, so the fuselarge had to be sanded down very slightly so that the fit to the exhausts is flush. I applied some red/brown pastel over the creme/gray inside color to get tht burnt ceramic look. And now a little bit of the ugly. The wings were pretty warped, so this is what I did to straighten them out: Here is the intake. In my view, this is the greatest weakness of the kit, the inside throttling of the intake doesn't correspond to reality at all. I believe DMold produces a non throttled intake, but that came along too late for me. Anyway, the outside fit of the intake took quite a bit of filling/sanding, but thankfully that is now done. I also added some detail around the HUD (photography here is not so great). The HUD glass itself was scratchbuilt from transparent packaging material, the kit HUD was too thick. Here's the cockpit. Still a lot of work to do although, as said before, the cockpit will be closed, so I won't be going too wild. Comments and critique are very welcome! Marcel Edited December 23, 2009 by Marcel111 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
John Tavendale Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 Looking great mate! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Brett M Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 Agreed, looks like a great start! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Gunny Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 I plan on building that same bird. I've got a buddy that is a Maj. who is a pilot with -224 & flew for them in Iraq in 2005. Looking good so far. Gunny Quote Link to post Share on other sites
niart17 Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 great start. the exhaust paint job looks dead on, just perfect. and for not going too wild as you put it in the cockpit, that looks fantastic! keep it up. Bill Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jinxter13 Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 Dude...would you mind if I watch over your shoulder so to speak....this has all the promise of a very great Bug!!!!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
infideon Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 now thats nice work! especially like the ordanance! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
D_IcarUS_ Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 Love it. I must build a best like that one!!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Marcel111 Posted July 25, 2009 Author Share Posted July 25, 2009 Thanks John, Brett, Gunny, Bill, Angels49, Infideon and Icarus! Gunny, I like the fact that your buddy is Major with the Fighting Bengals!!! Marcel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ken Middleton Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 Marcel, that looks great - the nozzles and Maverick are exceptionally well done Quote Link to post Share on other sites
richter111 Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 Lookin good, keep it up! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JMan Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 WOW, Marcel, what a nice pit. Kind of puts my pit to shame. I havent quite decided whether mine will be canopy closed or open. I have things that I want to do with the pilots, but its taking up alot of my time. I am using one Maverick as well. How did you get the wiring on the exhaust part of the Maverick? I thought the kit part was pretty good. I could benefit from any detailiing that your doing. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Marcel111 Posted July 25, 2009 Author Share Posted July 25, 2009 WOW, Marcel, what a nice pit. Kind of puts my pit to shame. I havent quite decided whether mine will be canopy closed or open. I have things that I want to do with the pilots, but its taking up alot of my time. I am using one Maverick as well. How did you get the wiring on the exhaust part of the Maverick? I thought the kit part was pretty good. I could benefit from any detailiing that your doing. I used fuze wire and sort of routed that into a piece of brass tubing. I'll PM you a good reference pic... Marcel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dodgem37 Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 It looks ALL good to me, brother! Great job! Sincerely, Mark Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Anders_Isaksson Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 Very impressive work so far, Marcel! Looking forward to see more progress on this one. Cheers, Anders Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chuck540z3 Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 Lookin' Great so far. I also had trouble with those intakes the last time I made this bug, so I bought those DMold intakes last week. Hopefully they will look a little more realistic. Since I'll be building this bird next, I'll be following your every skillful move. I'll be interested to see how you do with that SAC landing gear, which I have as well. I think a few kit plastic parts might need to be glued on to metal in order to spice them up a bit. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
lgl007 Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 Wow, impressive work so far... the exhausts look spot on. I like your wing straightening idea... very clever. And the missile... awesome! Looking forward to seeing more updates :-) -Greg Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Marcel111 Posted July 30, 2009 Author Share Posted July 30, 2009 Thx Mark, Greg, Anders, Chuck. Chuck, those intakes really bug me, what were Academy thinking. Apart from that, it's a complete joy to build. Marcel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Marcel111 Posted August 7, 2009 Author Share Posted August 7, 2009 Here's an update. I somewhat belatedly filled the far too large gaps to either side of the leading edge. Here's a pic of how the situation looked initially. Here's one of the shims, ready for application: Shim applied. The shim was lined up to the opposing surface, the gap between the side of the flap and the shim was filled with superglue and filler: A look at things from the underside. Also visible are the brass sway braces (1/48) from True Details that I bought ages ago, I think they are not available anymore, but I sure wish they were. Top view, current state. Lots of rescribing to do at the back side. And here are some preliminary views of the SJU-17 seats. I'm considering leaving the canopy open after all. Overexposure always makes things look a little bad... Cheers, Marcel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
viperbite Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 Amazing!!! Really amazing!!! From the begining I saw that maverick...amazing! J Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Marcel111 Posted August 26, 2009 Author Share Posted August 26, 2009 (edited) Thx Viperbite for the compliments! Well guys, I tried something new yesterday, and below is the result. But first, some background: When I got to get up close and personal to an F/A-18, I was struck by how rough the walkway areas are. Here's what I'm talking about: I started wondering about how to recreate this effect in 1/32, until one day I came across this at the Home Depot: I tested it a few times and decided I was going to use this product to recreate the rough texture found on those walkways. Here's what I did: Step 1: Comprehensively mask. I used the plastic bag technique pioneered here by Chuck. Masking is key, since this stuff will go absolutely everywhere. ... yep, there is a Hornet parked under all of that... Step2: Spray a very light coat of the textured rattle can paint. I did about two to three passes, sprayed from about 12 to 15" away from the surface. Don't go too close or the surface will be drowned, however, too far and the paint will dry before hitting the surface. Step 3: After letting the textured coat dry for about 20minutes, I applied the dark gray coat (I used Testors Engine Grey). I didn't want to let dry for too long, since I wanted to pull off the making before all the paint was too dry, thus avoiding a serrated masking edge surface. Step 4 (not required when building a fresh off the production line aircraft): I airbrushed some of the outer edges of the panels in upper fuselarge color. I was thereby mimicking what I have seen on the real thing, which is that the walkway panels frequently get lighter to the outside of the panel or walkway section (habitual panel center section lighteners beware :) ) And here is the result: Doing this was a ton of fun... so much so that I'm already eagerly awaiting Trumpeter's F/A-18E in 1/32! Cheers, Marcel Edited September 14, 2009 by Marcel111 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jinxter13 Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 I'm liking what I've seen to this point, and like I said before the promise of this being a fantastic bug is still fulfilling itself.......Great stuff.....I'm taking notes too :) . so when I'm able I'll get one and follow you in prog to attempt to get the same great results.... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GreyGhost Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 Whoa, another beautiful build going on right here ! Fantastic work here ... :) Gregg Quote Link to post Share on other sites
geedubelyer Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 Hey Marcel, That's a neat trick. I've been considering ways to replicate these areas on my big Turkey so I might just give your technique a whirl. Thanks for sharing. Looking good so far, keep up the great work. :D Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Qian Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 Hello, That's a very cool method to replicate beaten-up walkways. It looks very convincing! Great job so far chap! I can't wait so see more photos! :) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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