cr7driver

This guy could make money just by releasing an extended wing slat conversion set for the hasegawa and academy f-86 kits.

The monogram kit is okay, however, I have gotten used to the delicate recessed details available in Japanese manufactured kits that makes the 'ol Mono kit look a bit long in the tooth. I guess its a matter of opinion really. In the end I only used very few parts from the monogram kit kit anyway. The bulk of the conversion parts came from the Hase A-4M kit. In fact if you want to make your life easier and cheaper to some extent, Steel Beach resin has a complete Oa-4M conversion kit out that uses the Hase Ta-4J or Hase TA-4F as the base kit. I originally wanted to do one using that conversion set, but I was unable to acquire one as they are quite popular and would sell out pretty fast over on Spue Bros. As I mentioned earlier its interesting to note how popular this little aircraft is considering they only ever had about 30 in existence. Thanks for looking.

So here is my first ever kitbash using 3 kits to create 1 quarter scale OA-4M skyhawk. It amazing that only about 30 of these little aircraft were in existence but they have quite the following. The original OA-4Ms were converted from existing TA-4F airframes and brought up to A-4M standards. In keeping with that tradition, I too used the Hasegawa TA-4F and A-4M and with bits from the Monogram OA-4M kit and have managed to piece together a reasonable facsimile of an OA-4M. I used the original kit cockpit with true details seats and the decals came from the outstanding Furball decal sheet. Here are some pics and I will post more as I progress. And last but not least, here is a pic of the most time consuming portion of the build. I would love to have words with the DOD guy who came up with the idea of painting the sides of the flaps and gear doors red. Its pull hell on modellers.

Welcome back...nice build.

Very nice work! I love the weathering.

Beauty!

So here is a question. Will this be the italieri plastic with AFV club extras, ie: PE, decals etc? Or is this a completely new mould kit that AFV designed from scratch?