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It's time to present my next project: F4U-4 Academy 1/48 I am working on some custom decals to recreate this shameful aircraft that got what he deserved for landing on the wrong carrier 😜 I haven't seen one built on the internet yet, so this is the perfect opportunity to experiment and develop new skills.

Hi all. This is the 1/48th Trumpeter FGA.6 Seahawk. I started this about a year ago and I’ve just finished it today (16/10/16). It’s been around a while so and information about the kit is readily available online so I won’t cover that here but I will cover some of the issues that I had when building it. Firstly, it’s built with kit decals. From the boxy get WV824/122-C. An FGA Mk.6 apparently from HMS Bulwark in 1959, that’s what Trumpeter tells me so I’ll go with that. Main paints are Gunze Acrylic, Mr Color Lacquer and Tamiya Acrylic all thinned with various amount of Mr Color Levelling Thinner so it goes through the H&S gun. The seat has been replaced with a Pavla item though I don’t think it’s correct for the variant. So sad too bad right? The kit decals performed quite well with the Microset/sol products. The white is transparent so you can see the demarkation line between the grey and white on the rear fuselage, be sure to squint your eyes. Building the model was pretty straight forward with the two most noticeable problems being cleaning the seams of the intake guide vanes and cleaning up the horizontal seam that separates the upper and lower fuselage halves. Two or three applications of sprue glue helped eliminate the seam along here with some judicial sanding and polishing of the plastic for final finishing. Nose weight was installed behind the rear wall of the cockpit as I was suspicious of tail sitting with the wings folded. I installed a number two sinker with some two part epoxy to secure it in place to ensure this wouldn’t happen. I still had suspicions when I test fitted the wings and gear so I had to hack the noses of the wing tanks to install a number 0 and number 1 sinker in each of those. This put weight forward of the main wheels which ensured it sat on its nose wheel. The main tanks needed some work after having their noses cut off. Iy was once again out with the sprue glue to tidy up my handy work. Another fiddly area to tidy up and look respectable is the forward rear join that runs straight through the middle of the exhaust panel. More sprue glue fixed this panel up. The corollary to this panel line is that time needs too be taken when aligning the fore and aft fuselage sections. The Mk 1 eyeball helped here and I’m pretty happy that all is square. The other subassemblies are certainly not Tamiya like in detail but they suffice for this model. The undercarriage and associated doors are suitable for the kit as long as you don’t pick it up and the flap wells are there but…meh. Of course the most noticeable feature is the folded wings of the model. I replaced the kit attachment points with something a bit more substantial from card stock and some superglue. The kit would have you mount the wings perpendicular to the horizon line but reference pics suggest that they are almost touching. Due to the precarious fold I opted for a middle ground and angled them in but not to far so that the glue wouldn’t be to stressed. The benefit is that it saves display space in the cabinet and is something different to look at. There’s a bunch of other stuff I could go on about but this is enough…tl;dr right? Pardon the moody pictures too. The black cardboard was at hand so that’s what I used. Feedback and suggestions are more than welcome but I certainly won’t be building another one of these soon! Thanks, Michael