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Academy 1/32 F/A 18 under way


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Hi all

Got the cockpit and nose gear bay fitted and the forward fuselage closed now. The Aires cockpit ended up being a tight fit and needed quite a bit of thinning of the plastic fuselage inside to get enough width. The Eduard etched panels which sit to the L and R of the pilots knees also were too wide and pushed the sidewalls out a bit which didn't help. I took these out and trimmed them to fit a bit better. Dry fitting of the upper fuselage and windscreen also shows that the 'screen is set a bit narrower than the fuselage so that's going to need a bit of work to get a nice fit. That will come later though..

For the moment heres what the assembly looks like.

Next up the rear fuselage, intakes and finishing off the main gear bays.

Steve

pit4.jpgpit3.jpg

pit2.jpgpit1.jpg

Edited by eagle models
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Hi all

Got the cockpit and nose gear bay fitted and the forward fuselage closed now. The Aires cockpit ended up being a tight fit and needed quite a bit of thinning of the plastic fuselage inside to get enough width. The Eduard etched panels which sit to the L and R of the pilots knees also were too wide and pushed the sidewalls out a bit which didn't help. I took these out and trimmed them to fit a bit better. Dry fitting of the upper fuselage and windscreen also shows that the 'screen is set a bit narrower than the fuselage so that's going to need a bit of work to get a nice fit. That will come later though..

For the moment heres what the assembly looks like.

Next up the rear fuselage, intakes and finishing off the main gear bays.

Steve

pit4.jpg

pit3.jpg

pit2.jpg

pit1.jpg

Nice Steve, by the way that FGR2 set you sent me was xlent :D

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Forward fuselage main assembly put together and sanded smooth. The upper and lower fuelage panels fitted well after a bit of careful trimming and the radome followed the shape of the fuselage ok. I had to look to my references to select the correct part for the lower forward fuselage as alternatives are given in the Academy kit with different style mesh grilles.

There's going to be a tiny bit of scribing required to level the panel lines after the sanding but I didn't need to sand so much so as to remove any lines completely.

The forward part on the instrument combing is fitted here with a bit of epoxy - I don't trust cyano so close to clear parts even after it appears dry - but the screen is just dropped on to see how it fits. It's looking better than the dry fit as all the panels seem to have drawn the fuselage to a better shape so I'm happy with that.

Looking ok so far.

Picture072.jpg

Picture076.jpg

Edited by eagle models
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