Knight_Flyer Posted September 21, 2015 Posted September 21, 2015 Seeing as the A-4 has come to a temporary stop I might as well make a start on the Bird Dog. This is old school Airfix and a lot different to the newer Skyhawk mould. The clear parts look really thick and the rest of the kit is pretty basic. It's probably ok as long as the completed model looks like a Bird Dog. The box art is a VNAF bird but I'll be doing the USAF scheme. I guess at some point I will be working on two models at the same time and be interesting to see which one gets completed first. 1
snapper_city Posted September 22, 2015 Posted September 22, 2015 Oh the memories. I look forward to seeing this. 1
Knight_Flyer Posted September 29, 2015 Author Posted September 29, 2015 Not much progress to report. I've gone as far as painting the interior and dry fitting the fuselage, wings and stabs. Windshield is a bad fit and need to work out the best way to fill the gaps. Rest of the kit isn't too bad considering it's vintage. I'll probably work some more on the model after the final coat of light grey has gone on the Skyhawk. 2
Knight_Flyer Posted October 3, 2015 Author Posted October 3, 2015 Most of the model is now assembled and need to fill/sand down some of the gaps. Landing gear legs are on and I think they might need to be a little further apart. The plastic isn't very hard anyway and they'll probably move apart over time from the weight of the model. After the gaps are done I can start painting the exterior of the plane. A-4 Skyhawk in the background.
Knight_Flyer Posted November 14, 2015 Author Posted November 14, 2015 Somehow it don't seem right to leave the Bird Dog unfinished and the decision's made to give it my best shot to complete before the GB ends. On resuming I painted the cockpit struts on the inside of the windshield. I wasn't happy with the result as it was sloppy and didn't look real. This is probably the only time I would do some customizing and I used two metal wires glued to the inside. It was tricky getting the wires in the right place and decided to leave it as you can see in the pic. Not entirely accurate but it the result is better and does look "realistic". After the glue had set I painted the wires same color as the cockpit. This was all done a few days ago. 1
Knight_Flyer Posted November 14, 2015 Author Posted November 14, 2015 (edited) Since the struts episode I had glued the windshield both front and rear. Wing struts added as well as the pylons for the rockets. Front of the engine compartment was also glued back on. As mentioned earlier there were a lot of gaps that required filler. After this was complete the model was painted in primer. Latest today was to paint the first coat of gray. Same as the Skyhawk it's going to require a few coats to get even coverage. Window frames will be painted free hand as I reckon masking tape isn't going to work too well, at least for this model. Edited November 14, 2015 by Knight_Flyer 4
Knight_Flyer Posted December 20, 2015 Author Posted December 20, 2015 The Bird Dog is done and I'm glad I went with the wires for the cockpit struts. Looks a lot better than being painted on. No problem with the rest of the paint job. Decals were a PITA as they started breaking up. Microsol decal film came to the rescue. I didn't exactly get the scheme right as I found a pic of the real plane after I completed the build. Well, I guess these things happen. 6
Luis Alfonso Posted December 20, 2015 Posted December 20, 2015 Hi Knight Flyer: Nice Build, I have one I bought started and with the wing broken in two but think the rescue effort will pay dividends. Also: The Cockpit struts are a nice Idea, hope to succeed as you did, ant my model will look at least half the nicer as yours, I'll be happy. Thank you very much for sharing!!! Cheers, Luis Alfonso 1
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