Trumpeter 1/48 Seahawks FGA Mk.6 complete

[Mick Drover]

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 27, 2016 by Mick Drover
Insert photos

[djos]

Very nice sea hawk. Both Trumpeter and you done a good job  

Looking strange with folded wings.

Regards

[woody37]

Lovely finish

[batcode]

very nice looking Sea Hawk, the finish looks great.

[polo1112]

Super well looking Seahawk !!!

Great job !!!

[tonyot]

Very nice,.....love the scheme.

 

Cheers

           Tony

[Mick Drover]

Thanks fellas. I'm glad you like it. If you want any more info about it just let me know.

[WildeSau75]

Love your build of this bird - had always a weak spot for this plane. Well done.

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Mr B]

Great finish

 

rgds

[RMCS]

Love the lines of the Seahawk. ..nicley done...

[Mr Modeller]

A beautiful Seahawk Mick and I love your clean style of painting with just some subtle weathering. Too many people go waaaaaay over the top with their weathering (which seems to be the current vogue), but I think some of them just don't know when to stop and then it just ends up looking like a messy, very badly made model to my eyes - but yours is PERFECT!!

 

Very well done Mick, love it.

 

Kev

[F4u]

Great Sea Hawk , nice paint work and it looks great with the wings folded.

 

 

Guy

[FIGHTS ON]

Great looking build - the Pavla seat looks spot on to me - and adds a nice dash of colour & detail at the front end. Does the Trumpy kit provide clear wingtip lights or did you make them yourself?

 

Unusual to see a Seahawk in these late colours, I think Trumpeter got the description of the decals wrong (bless them!), this is an 801NAS FGA6 from HMS CENTAUR ("C") from their last deployment at sea with the type ( Seahawks replaced by Scimitars & Vixens in '60, but not 801NAS). 

[cngaero]

Lovely looking Sea Hawk. It looks really smart in that scheme. 

[Martian]

Nice build and also nice to see a Seahawk in the latter EDSG/White scheme and even nicer to see an HMS Centaur machine being modelled. Great effort all round.

 

Martian

[Darby]

Very nice indeed. Always like the EDSG/white on the Seahawk

[Orion]

Hi Mick,

What a perfect finish.

Newly constructed, out of the factory.

Job well done.

Regards,

Dirk

[bigbadbadge]

Very nice indeed, I have this one to do and am doing the HMS Centaur machine, to go with my Centaur Sea Vixen FAW 1.

My dad served on HMS Centaur and so I am trying to build the correct machines, hopefully (once the loft conversion is complete) I will crack on with building the Seahawk.

Thanks for sharing your build

 

All the ebst
Chris

[TheStig]

lovely build!

[pacificmustang]

that turned out quite nice Mick

 

Bruce 

[Squibby]

Nice work, love the colour scheme and subtle weathering.

[Mick Drover]

Thanks for the generous comments folks. They are appreciated and certainly egg me on to the next build. Again, thanks.

 

Mick

 

11 hours ago, WildeSau75 said:

Love your build of this bird - had always a weak spot for this plane. Well done.

 

Cheers,

Michael

Thanks Michael. It does have nice lines, even with folded wings.

 

11 hours ago, Mr B said:

Great finish

 

rgds

Thanks Mr B.

 

10 hours ago, RMCS said:

Love the lines of the Seahawk. ..nicley done...

Thanks RMCS.

 

9 hours ago, Mr Modeller said:

A beautiful Seahawk Mick and I love your clean style of painting with just some subtle weathering. Too many people go waaaaaay over the top with their weathering (which seems to be the current vogue), but I think some of them just don't know when to stop and then it just ends up looking like a messy, very badly made model to my eyes - but yours is PERFECT!!

 

Very well done Mick, love it.

 

Kev

Thanks Kev. In the photos that I looked at almost all of the jets were kept in pretty good nick even while deployed. Rarely did they have any sign of much touch work done to them. I don't know what corrosion control was like back then. I tried to keep weathering in control as I wasn't keen on following the standard 'vogue' techniques. I can't say I'm a huge fan of them anyway. Weathering is post shading, oil filters (on a dark surface???) and panel line pin washes. Glad to hear you like it though.

 

9 hours ago, F4u said:

Great Sea Hawk , nice paint work and it looks great with the wings folded.

 

 

Guy

Thanks Guy. It certainly helps to save space on the shelf!

 

7 hours ago, FIGHTS ON said:

Great looking build - the Pavla seat looks spot on to me - and adds a nice dash of colour & detail at the front end. Does the Trumpy kit provide clear wingtip lights or did you make them yourself?

 

Unusual to see a Seahawk in these late colours, I think Trumpeter got the description of the decals wrong (bless them!), this is an 801NAS FGA6 from HMS CENTAUR ("C") from their last deployment at sea with the type ( Seahawks replaced by Scimitars & Vixens in '60, but not 801NAS). 

Thanks Fights On. Not quite sure if I got the correct Mk for the seat but it's a lot better than the kit item. The kit does include clear wing tip lights but I drilled them out and used some Gunze clear green and red on the interior of the hole. No idea if the orientation is correct or they were even like that! Bulwark is indeed a typo. The kit does say HMS Centaur, I'll fix that. Cheers for pointing it out.

 

6 hours ago, cngaero said:

Lovely looking Sea Hawk. It looks really smart in that scheme. 

Thanks cngaero. Glad I chose not to do the Suez markings. It does look dressed up in this scheme.

 

6 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

Nice build and also nice to see a Seahawk in the latter EDSG/White scheme and even nicer to see an HMS Centaur machine being modelled. Great effort all round.

 

Martian

Thanks Martian!

 

6 hours ago, Darby said:

Very nice indeed. Always like the EDSG/white on the Seahawk

Thanks Darby.

 

5 hours ago, Orion said:

Hi Mick,

What a perfect finish.

Newly constructed, out of the factory.

Job well done.

Regards,

Dirk

Thanks Dirk. Not quite factory fresh but they were a relatively clean jet.

 

4 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Very nice indeed, I have this one to do and am doing the HMS Centaur machine, to go with my Centaur Sea Vixen FAW 1.

My dad served on HMS Centaur and so I am trying to build the correct machines, hopefully (once the loft conversion is complete) I will crack on with building the Seahawk.

Thanks for sharing your build

 

All the ebst
Chris

Thanks Chris. It's great to have a connection to the model you're building. It sounds like you've got a fairly close contact! All the best with your build too and thanks again.

 

1 hour ago, TheStig said:

lovely build!

Thanks Stig! Love your work

 

1 hour ago, pacificmustang said:

that turned out quite nice Mick

 

Bruce 

Thanks Bruce. Jag next next

 

30 minutes ago, Squibby said:

Nice work, love the colour scheme and subtle weathering.

Thanks Squibby.

[Stesca]

Superb one of the best I have seen.