1/48 Trumpeter Seahawk FGA6 - Finished

[trickyrich]

hmm, after seeing the curves there I can see why they would fit or follow the contours.

 

I've had decals like this before, they just don't fit and they won't follow the contour at all and just breakup. The wings you could redo with paint fairly easily if you need to. The fuselage will be harder but it is quite possible, it'll take sometime to lay out but very doable as well.

[Chewbacca]

Fortunately I found last night that Hu trainer yellow enamel is a near perfect match for the yellow so have touched up the wing stripe leading edges and put a first coat of yellow down on the fuselage.  I must confess I couldn't face masking the whole aircraft and going through he rigmarole of cleaning the airbrush after spraying enamel so after masking the front and rear of the fuselage stripes I brush painted it to see what the result was like.  It'll need a good flatten down with some 1000 grade wet and dry before a second coat but I think it will be okay.  Provided I can smooth it off sufficiently with the wet 7 dry I will spray the top coat now that I know that it works.  Looks like I'll be painting the jet pipes for a third time!

 

Curiously I also fitted all of the stencils last night and one is very interesting.  No 30 reads:

 

HOOD JITE SON

BRIAN WINDOW

PULL 10 RELLASE

 

I wonder who Brian Window is?  I think it should read HOOD JETTISON BEHIND WINDOW PULL TO RELEASE

[Chewbacca]

Well that was a frustrating evening.  Flattened the hand brushed paint (in fact I almost took it all off) but every time I loaded the airbrush with paint, it sprayed one pass then clogged.  I would then spend 20 minutes cleaning it out.  Reload, one pass then clog. Happened about 4 times with 2 different Iwata airbrushes.   I tried playing with the density of the paint mixture and it was either thin and watery, which would spray, or add just one tiny drop more to thicken it and it blocked.  To make matters worse I managed to break the nosewheel door and bend the main undercarriage.  I'm thinking I should have stuck with the handbrushed and gone heavy on the weathering.

[Chewbacca]

I am beginning to think that this model is trying to tell me something!

 

So I managed to finish spraying the fuselage Aden stripes.  Took off the masking and the black had all run through onto the yellow.  I couldn't face another 2-3 hrs trying to remask it so I resorted to brush to try to touch it up.

 

Then turned my attention to the undercarriage doors.  Despite everything I tried, I couldn't bend the port undercarriage leg back after it distorted while in the spray booth without risking breaking it.  I do have a cunning plan but that will have to wait until its fitted to the flight deck base.

 

Managed to fit all bar one of the doors - including refitting the front nosewheel door which broke off in the spray shop - but as I was fitting the aft nosewheel door with the model balanced upside down on two pots of Tamiya paint, the weight I had in the nose to keep the nosewheel on the ground decided that it was going to drag the model off the bench and onto the floor.  Fortunately its a fairly strong model and the only casualty was the nosewheel leg itself which snapped just above the yoke.

 

When refitting this I managed to drop the whole nosewheel/yoke assembly into the small pool of superglue that I was using to place drops on the leg and when I picked it out and tried to clean it off, the CA took all of the paint off.  By this stage I was ready to launch the whole thing off a catapult into the nearest bin but stepped away and came back 30 mins later.  Then I was about to fit the Kleared fuel tanks when I thought, that's a very dark sky compared to the rest of the underside and realised that I had Kleared over primer!  So time to paint the tanks!  this model really was trying my patience!

 

That said, I can see light at the end of the tunnel (is that an express train coming my way?).  Off on a business trip this week and then away next weekend so no work for a week but when I do get back its fuselage roundels, fuel tanks, 3 inch rockets, aerials and pitot to fit, then a final coat of Klear and an oil pinwash and it should be done.  But I'll bet something else will go wrong before then.  I think I'm going to stick to floaty things in future.

 

 

 

 

 

And I've only just noticed from scrutiny of the photos that there's virtually no ground clearance on that stbd uc main door...

 

 

 

 

 

[Chewbacca]

Starting to think about weathering.  Does anyone know if the underwings fuel tanks were aluminium or GRP?  I suspect the former.

[Chewbacca]

I think this is a first for me - a GB completed within the time limits.  My last one (on ATF) was 10 months late!

 

Anyway here it is.  Still not overly happy with the fuselage Aden stripes but it's about the best I'm going to achieve.

 

Aerials (part B11 & B19) were replaced with 0.1mm nickel rod from Albion Alloys which is probably a bit closer to the scale size even though the kits ones were commendably thin, they probably still equated to about 25mm in real life.

 

I always like to put my models into context if I can and so here you can see the armourers putting the finishing touches to the 3 inch rockets before handing the aircraft over to the pilot for his next mission over Egypt.  Figures are modified Eduard 1042 US Navy Personnel.  Their rate and specialisation badges were hand printed.  Unfortunately there use dot be a very good online reference that showed every single RN specialisation badge  but it seems to have disappeared.  There is one that does a cross section but the artwork is not great.  I may at some point in the future add the rocket deck trolley.  I've seen one in a YouTube video but I'll be blowed if I can find it anywhere and there are no images that I can see.  there are some shore side ones but I'm pretty certain the ones used on aircraft carriers were different.

 

The deck is 5mm MDF covered in 320 gauge Wet & Dry and sprayed Vallejo Dark Grey

 

Whilst this model threw up a whole raft of issues, it was a fun build and using the lessons learnt from this one, I do plan to do another one in the later colours of the RNHF 806 NAS Ace of Diamonds cab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[trickyrich]

well done for finishing her and preserving through all these last minute dramas, I can understand the feeling of wanting to "launch" her.

 

But in the end she's worked out and you've got a fantastic looking model, well done. I do like the little setting you've set up for her, it helps give her extra life.

 

I hope in the end you did enjoy the build by the sounds of it you've learnt some new little trick. I think it's something we all do with each model we build.

 

Well thanks for joining us, was great to have you along and to follow your build, look forward to seeing more of your builds in future GB's.

[Chewbacca]

Thanks Rich