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1/48 Hobby boss A-10 Thunderbolt II


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Hi all,

First a bit of a story. The A-10 has been my favourite plane since I first discovered it as an early teen in the mid 80s. I built the monogram A-10 (black boxing) in the late 80s and I guess have been planning this build ever since. Realistically I have been collecting "stuff" for about 7 or 8 years for this and a couple of other A-10 builds.

I have been pushing this build back for years partly because I want to this plane justice and have been a little daunted by building what will be my personal "piece de resistance", and the other being acquiring the decals I wanted which I now have thanks to Jake Melampy's recent A-10 sheet.

More recently I have had a break from modelling for nearly 12 months and what better way to get back on the bandwagon that this project. I started this build about 1 month ago and I am taking my time, but will back track with some pics from the very start.

So here is what I have:-

A couple of kits, I am using one of the Hobby Boss.

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Most of the "stuff"

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Assorted weapons, True Details and Royal Resin Wheels, Cross Delta formation lights.

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Eduard Big Ed set which is packed with PE, and Remove before flight tags

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Sierra Hotel Fans and A-10 update set (really want another couple of fan sets), Master barrels, Black Box cockpit set for the Revel (Monogram) A-10, Legend Aces II seat.

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Aires A-10 sets

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Shull24 A-10 upgrade set and various weapon sets

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Eduard Brassin assorted weapons sets - Don't think the A-10 used the GBU-24?

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Assorted decals

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I will be using Jake's Sheet since I pestered him to produce these I better use them :)

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I want to do a Euro1 scheme plane and really like the Warthog nose on the Barksdale hogs so will be doing this plane

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And finally reference material

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And the bible

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And so it begins...

Where else would you start an A-10 build but with the mighty GAU-8/A Avenger cannon :)

The first thing I did was added some lead shot to the ammo drum, 34g to be precise

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I then started on removing some of the kit plastic in preparation for some of the Eduard gun PE

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PE ready for folding. I am using various tools including tweezers and an Etch mate 3C with is very handy.

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and installed onto the kit plastic

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a little more PE and it is coming together nicely

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More to come

cheers

Anthony

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I then built the main body of the gun

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I also spent some more time doing PE work for the gun

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and together

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After completing the cannon I decided that since I would be showing off the underside of this plane, I would scratch build the gun bay- more on that later.

Because of this I needed to see where the Aires pit and front wheel bay would sit so I started cutting and sanding. As a lot of you already know this is an exercise of sanding to the point of see-through to get things to fit. After a lot of test fitting I think it will all fit nicely now.

I also had to remove the kit detail and thin the fuselage walls.

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I ended up going through on the front of the pit but may not patch as it will not be visible.

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I had to remove a fair bit of the wheel bay

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...and broke through again but this time it will be visible so I patched it with some plasticard

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and the final result

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To accommodate the wheel bay I removed the kit details and some locator tabs.

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Some little things I've been working on-

I thinned these covers, which are staying on as I am depicting a pre-LASTE A-10

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And added some mesh to the inside

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I removed the kit glare shield

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Thanks Nactwulf


I also started doing bits and pieces on the fuselage sides. A lot of this has been done before and I am referring to Jake's "bible" and also other build logs I have saved over the years.

Drilling the APU and ECU vents and relacing with metal tubes

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Which I puttied in for strength

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I also drilled out the battery door vents and placed some thin tube to replicate these

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Next is removing the kit AoA and scratching one up that is closer to the real thing.

Cheers and thanks for looking. Any comments are most welcome.

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Thank you all for your support.

A few more small things done.

I changed the AoA to make it more like the real thing. I still need to add the indicator itself but this will be later as it will just get knocked off.

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I also moved the UHF/TACAN Antenna to its correct position and also made an ILS Marker.

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I sanded a bit too much when adding the APU exhaust and damaged the teardrop shaped panel so made a new one.

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fitted

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Next I started removed the kit GPS dome as my jet is too early to have this. I will fill with a disc later when the fuselage is joined.

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And finally I painted the front wheel bay

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These Aires resin wheel bays have some very nice detail and even includes the steel weights used to balance the centre of gravity depending on the ammo load for the avenger cannon.

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thanks for looking

Anthony

Edited by drizzt73
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Anthony, one thing to watch out for before it is too late in the build...

When I was working on my HB A-10 ( no, it's not finished!) I noticed that after attaching the wings to the fuselage it had some dihedral to the center section of the wing which it should not have. Now I readily admit this could have been something I had done wrong,but for the life of me I could not see where I had done anything to cause it. Anyway please do yourself a big favor and test fit the wings before it becomes an issue. :frantic:

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Superb workmanship!

Also, thanks for such wonderfully detailed posts.

Gene K

Thank you Gene. I will try to be as detailed as possible as I really enjoy other people's build logs and they can be of great benefit. I have learnt a lot from WIP/ build logs.

Cheers

Anthony, one thing to watch out for before it is too late in the build...

When I was working on my HB A-10 ( no, it's not finished!) I noticed that after attaching the wings to the fuselage it had some dihedral to the center section of the wing which it should not have. Now I readily admit this could have been something I had done wrong,but for the life of me I could not see where I had done anything to cause it. Anyway please do yourself a big favor and test fit the wings before it becomes an issue. :frantic:

Thanks mate, I will keep an eye on this. I have a fair bit of work to do on the wings including cutting them to add the Aires main gear bays so thanks for the heads up.

But what are the bananas for?

They are there just for scale :)

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Hello all, so time for some more pics.

Once I finished painting the nose wheel bay I wanted to test fit it as I was concerned about the fit to the fuselage side and also the kit under piece (F3). My concerns were justified as it took a bit of fiddling to get it to sit neatly but once done I epoxy puttied it into place. I then glued F3 to the right fuselage. I am quite happy with the finished result.

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I then started on the scratch gun bay which I mentioned earlier in the log.

I decided I would do side walls, the rear wall and even the top of the bay. It is still a work in progress and most won't be seen but it is there to represent something of a bay.

I started by folding some pieces that Eduard include on the bottom most section of the fuselage.

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I then made some plain plasticard wall. In this pic you can also see the wheel bay. I made sure to make sure the walls fitted within this and the pit.

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This is the left side, you can see the gun mounting points which I ensured are still useable.

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I then made the rear wall. The hole that is visible will be explained later.

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blue tacked into place

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And a test fit with the gun, again not a lot is visible but it will be better than the bare kit wall I think. Once it has all been painted I will take some better shots.

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Finally I worked on the top of the bay

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Any comments welcome. Thanks for looking

Anthony

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After posting the above I thought I should do a test with the walls in place and then joining the fuselage halves and it all fits :yahoo::thumbsup:

The top sitting under the pit nicely

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and with the halves held together

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Thanks again

Anthony

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