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My second Skyhawk will be the Hasegawa 1/48 A-4M. This will be more or less OOB with Caracal decals for the unique black and white Naval Air Test Center scheme. Here's the box shot:

 

Hasegawa A-4M

 

I haven't found a public domain photo of the aircraft I'm building, but there's one in this thread elsewhere on BM. Made a start today - various parts cut out and primed - but nothing worth photographing yet. Maybe more tomorrow.

 

cheers

Julian

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6 minutes ago, modelling minion said:

Great to see you bringing another build to the party Julian.

I like your choice of scheme very much, really different and one I am very much looking forward to seeing done.

 

Thanks - couldn't even think about another scheme once I'd seen this one!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Time I got a move on with this one. Fuselage went together pretty quickly - this is a pretty much OOB build, I just need to watch out for the things that are a bit different about this airframe, like the missing lumps and bumps on the nose and the standard fin cap.

 

A-4M WIP

 

cheers

Julian

 

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That has gone together very quickly Julian, and very nicely too.

No signs of any nasty gaps or mismatched parts at all. I found that the nose pieces on mine needed a bit of persuasion to conform to the shape of the forward fuselage, and still needed a bit of sanding afterwards, nothing drastic just not  very Hasegawa like.

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5 hours ago, modelling minion said:

That has gone together very quickly Julian, and very nicely too.

No signs of any nasty gaps or mismatched parts at all. I found that the nose pieces on mine needed a bit of persuasion to conform to the shape of the forward fuselage, and still needed a bit of sanding afterwards, nothing drastic just not  very Hasegawa like.

Thanks Craig. The Hasegawa Skyhawks always seem to go together quickly, there are a few predictable little issues (the insert under the tail that never quite fits, the fin cap is narrower than the fin) but they're all easy enough to deal with. It's got its little issues that bother some people (I've never bothered with fixing the non-existent step under the leading edge slats) but I love this kit - a nice enough, simple kit that produces pleasing results every time, making it a good, relaxing build - which is probably why this and the Kahu are my 5th and 6th in the last two or three years. Not that a new range of Skyhawk kits that's up to today's standards (no the Hobby Boss kit doesn't count, if it doesn't have the slats down I'm not interested!) wouldn't be welcome - not least because it would most likely be cheaper and easier to get hold of than the Hasegawa kit!

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Not a lot of work on this one today - unplanned paintwork on the L100 in the Africa GB (after I knocked over some thinners) got in the way - but cleaned up some seams and added the airbrakes, which I've reshaped to blend them into the fuselage.

 

A-4M WIP

 

I'll start on the wings next.

 

cheers

Julian

 

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Looking good - and I finally found something the HB kit is better than the Hase :) , probably because of lack of details - the airbrakes were a really nice tight fit and the correct shape to the fuselage !! 

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Wings assembled. I've dealt with the step the way one or two others here have done it - cut out the inserts in the top wings, assembled the wings, then repositioned the bits I cut out. Easy enough, really should have been doing this on all my Skyhawk builds.

 

A-4K Kahu WIP

 

thanks for looking

Julian

 

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Getting close to painting time - should at least get some primer on tomorrow. As usual assembly was pretty straightforward. The only annoyance today was the seam on the canopy which needed polishing out, but that was easy enough.

 

A-4M WIP

 

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Ooo they both look to be coming along nicely.

 

I too did find it strange that the profile for the airbrakes is all wrong, but I decided to be done with it and leave everything down and dirty..... getting lazy in my old age! :D

 

Now for the Oh :poop: moment!!!!  When I've hear people talking about how Hasegawa stuffed up the wing I didn't realize what they were talking about........ the :poop: moment now is I suddenly do after seeing your wings (and a quick look on the net)!   :doh: ..... and here I was all set to start paint both of mine!   I guess painting will have to be delayed while I correct them.:wall:

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On 4/5/2021 at 7:31 AM, trickyrich said:

Now for the Oh :poop: moment!!!!  When I've hear people talking about how Hasegawa stuffed up the wing I didn't realize what they were talking about........ the :poop: moment now is I suddenly do after seeing your wings (and a quick look on the net)!   :doh: ..... and here I was all set to start paint both of mine!   I guess painting will have to be delayed while I correct them.:wall:

 

I had built four of these kits quite happily (although one of them had the slats retracted, which was appropriate for the airframe in question, although I got other details wrong) without realising there was an issue until recently - ignorance is bliss, it never really bothered me before - but now I know about it I can't unsee it and I have to fix it! My other problem with the Hasegawa kit is that I can't seem to build one without knocking off at least one of the slat track thingies, and this time I've knocked off all three on one side. Really wish they weren't moulded into the wing!

 

Started painting with an all-over coat of gloss black (this is SMS lacquer jet black) and have got the first of the white coats done. Rather than masking the asymmetric scheme in one go I decided to do it in two stages, so the white on the left side is done and the right will come next.

 

A-4M WIP

 

cheers

Julian

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Oh yes, this fantastic scheme is starting to take shape! Very nice bit of painting Julian, very nice indeed.

Those damn slat tracks are a real PITA aren't they, I have knocked a couple off mine and had to re-fix them, in fact I removed another when putting the sand colour on the other day, good job they don't need to be very strong to hold the salts.

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1 hour ago, modelling minion said:

I have knocked a couple off mine

 

1 hour ago, trickyrich said:

CLUB!!! :D

 

I've knocked off 2 already!! :doh:   

 

There's a bit of a trend in GBs these days for tracking all sorts of stats, we're seeing pie charts, coloured maps and so on, maybe the stat for this GB should be the number of slat tracks knocked off 1/48 Hasegawa Skyhawks.

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