t15dja

I love it! Got this in the stash....what was it like to build?

I certainly will, and yes it is!

That is a beautiful looking model....congratulations! I have one of these in the stash that I picked up for less than £10. I recently tried to sell it on ebay for a modest sum but absolutely no one wanted it....not even any silly offers! I'm now most definitely not going to sell it and am looking forward to building it....who knew it was such a nice kit and could turn out looking so good!

Brilliant job...well done! Following along with your WIP has inspired me to get one of these myself! Looking forward to the RFI! P.S. ....note my avatar - the B-58 is just about my favourite plane!

My advice would be.....don't worry! I must have requested about 15 or so parts from Revell over the years and only once have they not been able to supply me with spares, but that was for a kit that was long out of production and they were very apologetic.Revell's spares department are excellent in my opinion.

Brilliant work! Can I ask what make / colour of green paint you used for the gun bays etc please?

Moving on to the engine intake, Trumpeter make this as a two part item - top and bottom - that has a gently "S" bend and a closed off inner end - there is no compressor fan. You can see the upper and lower parts in the top right and bottom left of sprue E below. Joining these together obviously leaves a central seam that runs the whole length of the intake on both sides. First step was therefore to glue the parts together and remove the closed end so I can tackle the seam. This can then be closed off with styrene sheet later. I then filled the seems on both sides with Perfect Plastic Putty, applying and smoothing it with damp cotton buds. I then sanded it using a wet and dry sandpapers of varying grades wrapped around and taped to a pencil. This had to be repeated several times to get a seamless finish but eventually I was happy with the result. Then we move on to the replacement lip. Below are the instructions from Zactomodels. There are only two pieces of resin - an inner "former" that will give the intake its new shape, and the outer lip. As you can see the instructions call for the original part to be cut off precisely 5.72 mm from the front edge. Now this is a very exact measurement that I could not hope to achieve....so I just used the Mk1 eyeball, steel rule and sharp pencil to cut off as close to 5.8mm as possible in the knowledge that a tiny bit of sanding / filling would fix any fit issues. Original part after surgery and having superglued on the resin "former": You will see that I've also added on extra bits of sprue to add as strengtheners to the locating tabs on the sides of the intake. This is because the original tabs are quite flimsy and I broke a couple during the test fitting of the intake to the fuselage. I also added some sheet styrene to the sides of the intake to hold it all together. There is also now a new seam to deal with between the resin part and the plastic: However after much more filling and sanding and priming the result was pretty good... And with a top coat of white this step is done... Here's another shot with a piece of styrene fitted over the inner end of the intake. You can also see the strengthening styrene I've added: When installing the intake into the fuselage, the Zactomodels instructions above call for pressure to be applied just behind the radome like this: This obviously has the effect of opening up the radome seam, which will need to be addressed later. However I found that the fit of the intake was pretty good without applying pressure in that area as you can see in this photo where I'm holding the fuselage halves much further back. So, the intake has now been glued into one fuselage half with the other side just dry fitted and taped to ensure everything stays in the right place while the glue dries....time will tell... Next step will be gluing the other side of the intake to the fuselage, fitting the cockpit, electronic bays and wheel bays and closing up the fuselage.

Fresh from the sheer pleasure of building Airfix's 1/24 Hellcat, and now, as the man said, for something completely different..... ....Although not that different really, since it's got an engine and wings and flies through the air...but from a different era and, if first impressions are to be believed, a different and less forgiving building process. For some reason I've always liked the look of the A-7 Corsair, aka "SLUFF" (an acronym that always seemed a little inaccurate and unfair to me), but have never built one throughout all my modelling years. I've also never yet built a kit by Trumpeter, so why not kill two birds with one stone I thought....also that colourful box art depicting one of the two possible colourful CAG schemes has been staring at me for too long. There are various reviews of this kit available online, so rather than go on about what's in the box I'll get straight on with the build. Without knowing much about this offering from Trumpeter I was initially intending to build it straight out of the box, since it was not a cheap kit to start off with so I didn't want to spend much more on it. However, having studied the parts I did decide to add a couple of aftermarket items as will be seen below. All of the reviews I've read about this kit state that Trumpeter moulded the engine intake too flat. Even their box art depicts a nice round intake, whereas the model's intake has a very definite oval shape with a flattish bottom. A very quick internet search revealed that a company in the USA called Zactomodels makes a replacement resin "lip" that can correct this fault. Further research revealed that the same company also made a replacement resin seamless intake and more accurately shaped canopy. I say "made" because the intake trunk and canopy set are no longer mentioned on their website and after much searching none are available to buy through any retailers. I thought I'd at least have a go at correcting the shape of the intake so I invested in the replacement lip. Looking at the cockpit and comparing it with photos of the real thing, the front panel didn't seem too bad, but the kit's side panels seem to be a generic collection of lumps and bumps and do not compare well to the actual aircraft. The seat is also interesting. Two types of ejection seat are supplied with the kit, namely the earlier "Escapac IG-2" seat and the later "SJU" seat, although the instructions only show how to build the SJU seat. The parts for the SJU seat are also on a separate small sprue "N" thus: Whereas most of the Escapac seat parts are mixed in on sprues D and E I'm assuming sprue D is the same as that included with Trumpeter's 1/32 A-7D version, hence their (perceived) need for the new SJU seat sprue for the "E" version. However, another quick bit of research revealed that the switchover from Escapac to SJU seats for the A-7E started in the early 1980's and took a few years to ripple through. The supplied decals are for two 1970's aircraft so, for me, Escapac is definitely the way to go and maybe Trumpeter got it wrong by instructing that the SJU seat should be used for these aircraft. As I say there are no instructions on how to build the Escapac version but it isn't hard to work out which bit goes where....there are only 6 parts! Even so, comparing kit to real thing, I think the Escapac seat supplied is a little light on detail, so I decided to go with Eduard's photoetch set, part 32558, which is now discontinued but luckily I was able to source one on ebay. The two seat cushions supplied for the Escapac version are also devoid of any detail, so I decided to add some texture by using a layer of milliput suitably prodded and poked. Here's a picture of the parts with the milliput added and the Eduard set. After bit of gluing, bending, cursing and painting, this was the end result: Many pictures I've seen show a pipe coming from the back of the lower seat cushion, so I decided to add that for a bit of interest...not sure what it is though! I also refashioned the 2 canopy breakers at either side of the head rest out of thin styrene sheet to give a bit more depth. As far as the rest of the cockpit goes, as I say I don't think the side panels are accurate, however a resin replacement is not cheap so I'll stick with what is supplied. So, with the usual painting, dry brushing and detailing I end up with this: As can be seen, I also added a few extra pipes using fuse wire, again just to liven things up a bit. Next will be the intake and installing the resin lip replacement.....

The weathering is superb.... I love it!

A superb build you've achieved there, congratulations! It's inspired me to drag mine out of the stash and move it up the queue! Could I ask what paints you used for the Hemp and Grey please?

That's exactly right, Steve. I get the bit about not wanting / being able to host photos.

Hi, I just wondered if there was any area within the forum where we can just post a few photos of each of our own completed builds in order to build up a personal gallery? Apologies if there is but I haven't been able to find such an area. I can see that there is a "see my activity" under a member's profile page, but that will include all postings. If you're viewing or following a member's RFI or WIP it would be great to see what else they had completed. It's also a good place to keep track of all the completed builds that you've posted.

I checked on the Draw decals website. They do indeed look excellent but it seems they will cost me about £27 to get delivered to the UK before VAT is added on, if applicable. So.....I just bought the whole 747-8 kit with the new Lufthansa decals for £22.95 and free delivery from Jadlam models! They've also got the Emirates version of the A380 listed for the same price, but currently out of stock. That version includes the wildlife livery, but looking at the instructions the animals are separate decals so you could leave them off to get the "standard" Emirates livery.

That's great.....thanks, Neil, I will certainly have a look at those. I've also got Revell's 747-8 in the (ever lengthening) queue, but that too has the old Lufthansa livery (kit no. 04275), so might look to update those as well.