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A-10A "Warthog" of the Wisconsin Air National Guard


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23 minutes ago, billn53 said:

Ah, the memories!  I worked with the OA-10 squadrons a little bit.  It seems not much has changed after 22+ years!  Yes, air-to-air is a last-resort option for the A/OA-10, but it's still an option.  The biggest change is with the helmet, which the USAF did not have at the time.

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Today's work has been less than satisfying . . . .

 

On the positive side, it looks like the seams on the fuselage are manageable, even the self-inflicted step along the spine.

 

I used styrene sheet to even out the deck behind the cockpit. This will later be covered with a piece of photoetch:

51367408327_1f746cf28a_z.jpg 

 

The other seams I sanded down, followed by a layer of sprue gloop as filler:

51368906494_db9ab4182c_c.jpg 

 

While the sprue gloop was curing, I moved on to assembling the wings. Good news is, I got them glued together:

51368388783_6137a3db74_c.jpg 

 

Bad news is, well . . . . The fit leaves a lot to be desired.

 

The main landing gear pod refused to completely close up:

51368388733_ce486b0f09_z.jpg 

 

There are gaps on the underside at the wingtips, which will be a pain to fill due to their location:

51368388658_1241a6836d_z.jpg 

 

The chord of the upper wing piece is slightly larger than the lower, creating a case of overhang at the trailing edge:

51368388768_a57876b4c0_z.jpg 

 

There are significant gaps along the wing root. Giorgio mentioned this in his build, but also said they went away when dihedral was added. I'm not so sure about that -- as far as I can tell, the center wing section (between the landing gear) has no dihedral. If I were to force the wings upward to close the gap, I fear I would be introducing more dihedral than is appropriate.

51367408317_1e82f170e0_c.jpg 

 

The biggest problem I encountered was with the aileron - speed brakes. The kit give you the choice of having the speed brakes open or closed.

51369204235_1ca4d1305d_c.jpg 

 

Here's my advice: Don't do what I did. Instead, go with the "open" option. If you go with the "closed" option, you must glue the two brake halves together along the trailing edge. The forward edges must end up separated a distance equal to the thickness of the wing at that point. If I were to do it over again, I would add a spacer along the forward edge to stabilize it and achieve the proper thickness.
 

Viewed from above, the fit doesn't look too bad:

51368388748_7a526939f1_z.jpg 

 

But, there are significant gaps and misalignment on the underside. This is the starboard wing's aileron - dive brake:

51368388773_7d5b21f900_z.jpg

 

The port side is even worse:

51368388753_091942e6d4_z.jpg 

 

Grrrrr.....

 

To add insult to injury, I found that there is a twist in my fuselage. Maybe I did it, maybe not. In either case, a test fit of the horizontal stabilizer shows how bad it is:

51368906464_36d37f8386_c.jpg 

 

The tip of the starboard stabilizer is a good 1/8-inch higher than the opposite tip. That's something else I'm going to have to attend to when the time comes :angry:

 

That's all I've managed to accomplish today, and there's little I can be proud of. I'm still mulling over what to do about the nose shape. The differences between Hasegawa and Revell/Italeri are pretty obvious. Less obvious is what is actually the correct shape.  The photo below is pretty clear, and I'll do my best to match what I see here:

51367877264_df3917522f_c.jpg 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bill, really appreciate the walk through on the flaps.  Since you always have done your research or have knowledgeable folks following your builds, I figured I would ask a question.  I thought I read Hasegawa’s 1/72

A-10’s greatest weakness was the engines—did I hear that wrong?  I noted you are using the Hasegawa A-10 a lot as a reference—I also read the old Monogram 1/72 A-10 was an extremely accurate early A-10.  Hope I don’t hijack your build—I really like A-10s in the green vice grey schemes.  As always, amazing work—best, Erwin

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Just now, VT Red Sox Fan said:

Bill, really appreciate the walk through on the flaps.  Since you always have done your research or have knowledgeable folks following your builds, I figured I would ask a question.  I thought I read Hasegawa’s 1/72

A-10’s greatest weakness was the engines—did I hear that wrong?  I noted you are using the Hasegawa A-10 a lot as a reference—I also read the old Monogram 1/72 A-10 was an extremely accurate early A-10.  Hope I don’t hijack your build—I really like A-10s in the green vice grey schemes.  As always, amazing work—best, Erwin

Hi Erwin! 
I had read that Hasegawa’s shape is pretty good, and it’s the only other A-10 in my stash, so that’s what I compared to.  I also read, like you mentioned, that Hasegawa’s engines are too fat. 
I just bought a Monogram warthog off eBay (got it for $5) and am looking forward to seeing how it compares. 
- Bill

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Bill, thanks & good to know your opinion of the Hasegawa engines—honestly I would rather not drop the coin for aftermarket engines if builders and researchers like yourself think they are very close or spot on representations—well done so far & look forward to any bonus comparisons with Monogram’s kit as you create another masterpiece—best, Erwin

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1 hour ago, VT Red Sox Fan said:

Bill, thanks & good to know your opinion of the Hasegawa engines—honestly I would rather not drop the coin for aftermarket engines if builders and researchers like yourself think they are very close or spot on representations—well done so far & look forward to any bonus comparisons with Monogram’s kit as you create another masterpiece—best, Erwin

For this build, I’ll be using the Aires engine inlets & fan faces. On the Revell/Italeri kit the fans are set too far back and the blades are very “flat”. Also, the fans have too few blades (but, who’s counting?). The Aires set (designed for HobbyBoss, but works fine with this kit) corrects those shortcomings. 

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15 hours ago, billn53 said:

I’ll be using the Aires engine inlets & fan faces. On the Revell/Italeri kit the fans are set too far back and the blades are very “flat”. Also, the fans have too few blades (but, who’s counting?). The Aires set (designed for HobbyBoss, but works fine with this kit

 

I am using this set as well and will add they work on the Hasegawa kit. Hase has too many blades on the fan (should be 28) and no detail on the hub. 

 

Good luck on those wings, they look to give you nightmares.

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5 minutes ago, baldwin8 said:

 

I am using this set as well and will add they work on the Hasegawa kit. Hase has too many blades on the fan (should be 28) and no detail on the hub. 

 

Good luck on those wings, they look to give you nightmares.

You are right about the blades, I misspoke when I said there are too few on the kit. There are, in fact, too many (as you said). But then again, who’s counting? 😉

 

Yes, the wings are giving me fits and so far I’ve spent at least 6 hours on them yesterday & today. I’ll say more about them in my next progress report. 

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As I mentioned above, I've been spending way too much "quality" time trying to sort out the wings.

 

I filled the humongous gaps on the bottom of the ailerson/speed brakes with scraps of styrene:

51370794172_4843f16a88_z.jpg 

 

Then sanded them smooth and applied putty & Mr Surfacer. Here's the starboard wing, which is beginning to look acceptable:

51371554631_827cce8123_z.jpg 

 

For the port wing, which was much worse, I had to resort to using Bondo filler:

51371783888_d3eef10bd8_z.jpg 

 

Which, after sanding, looks worlds better:

51372558895_f16949bd23_z.jpg 

 

Compared to what I started with:

51368388753_091942e6d4_z.jpg 

 

The upper surfaces didn't need nearly as much work:

51372284029_c43c8cf971_z.jpg 

 

I added styrene strip to the flap trailing edges, where the larger wing upper chord had caused an overhang:

51372558845_ec4d52ed48_z.jpg 

 

I also used styrene strip to fill in the wingtip gaps:

51370794217_25f5717ac6.jpg 

 

and a bit of plasticard where the landing gear pods hadn't fully closed up:

51372558805_75986a09be.jpg   51372107893_2b54b44189.jpg 

 

To help with the wing root issue, I added 0.2-mm plasticard to the wings' inner mounting surfaces:

51371554451_d218fef783_c.jpg 

 

Which went a long way toward solving that problem:

51370794152_f120c4851c_c.jpg 

 

I also worked on re-shaping the Warthog's nose, which turned out to be a good news story. First, I sanded down the upper fuselage corners to match the contour of the Hasegawa kit, then added the Revell/Italeri nose cap. You can see here how much was removed from the fuselage (the tape you see is to protect the area forward of the canopy, which includes the refueling door and must remain flat):

51371554496_7ebbc4a9fd_z.jpg 

 

I then sanded the nose cap until I was happy with its shape (as compared to photos of the actual aircraft's nose):

51372283974_8f4c5e1bd0_z.jpg   51367877264_df3917522f_z.jpg

 

Finally, I added the 4-mm brass tube for the Model Master GAU-8 gun tip:

51372558735_2a945cbf07_z.jpg  51372283879_d9604d8296_z.jpg 

 

I'm now firmly committed to using the Model Master gun assembly, so wish me luck at putting it together!

 

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Hi @billn53 I don't know if you're committed to the fuselage or are still having issues but I had a twisted fuselage with Revells 1/48 F-15E I emailed them with a photo and they sent out the 3 main sprues as a replacement free of charge minus the canopy and weapons they're very helpful if you are having issues trying to correct it. This is the email address: [email protected]

 

spacer.pngthis was how badly warped mine was and below is what they sent me.

spacer.png

The detail you're adding is very impressive I'm looking forward to seeing it completed. I hope the above information is useful for you in case you wish to get new parts.

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4 minutes ago, Deano353 said:

Hi @billn53 I don't know if you're committed to the fuselage or are still having issues but I had a twisted fuselage with Revells 1/48 F-15E I emailed them with a photo and they sent out the 3 main sprues as a replacement free of charge 

 

 

Thanks for the info. It's a bit late for me now to replace the fuselage, but I have a work-around in mind. Also, I was re-reading Giorgio's build log and found that he experienced the same problem. So, it may be something that is inherent to the kit and a replacement fuselage might not be any better.

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6 minutes ago, billn53 said:

 it may be something that is inherent to the kit and a replacement fuselage might not be any better.

Ah fair enough I have used boiling water to twist plastic back to shape on kits in the past it can separate the glue but if you're careful enough you can use the water to fix warps.

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On 8/9/2021 at 6:40 PM, billn53 said:

There are gaps on the underside at the wingtips, which will be a pain to fill due to their location:

51368388658_1241a6836d_z.jpg 

 

 

Both Italeri and Hasegawa could have fixed this plaguing issue by making the wingtips separate pieces and have the dispenser fairing again a separate part to add after. Or maybe an aftermarket one-piece resin add-on.

 

Good work.

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I'm continuing to clean up the aileron/speed brakes on the bottom of the wings. Nothing much to show on that process that you haven't already seen. But, I do have a few other things to show that should be more interesting...

 

I drilled / cut out openings on the rear fuselage openings (cribbing from Giorgio's work, I freely admit). I backed the smaller holes with black-painted plasticard, and the larger ones with brass metal cloth:

51374296494_6201122d37_c.jpg 

 

I acquired the metal cloth a few years back when I was doing this project:

30613971398_ddf8f3444a_c.jpg

 

One can't buy just a few inches of metal cloth, and I now have a supply that should last a few lifetimes (if anyone needs some, let me know!)

 

While test fitting the wings, I found a slight step where the rear of the wing assembly meets the fuselage. I corrected this by adding a 0.1-mm shim and sanding down the hashed areas shown below:

51373794993_bfc7287da3_z.jpg 

 

Finally, I believe I have corrected the off-kilter horizontal stabilizer. At first, I had thought the fuselage must be warped. On closer inspection, I discovered the mounting surface on the bottom of the fuselage was not even -- the left side was higher than the right side. I filed down the high side and added layers of tape to shim the lower side, until I got the horizontal stab to fit, well, horizontally:

51373563636_df4b6385c3_z.jpg 

 

Compounding this problem is the fact that the right wing has a slight downward bend. I should be able to fix this when I glue the wings to the fuselage:

51374569650_e86c7c060d_b.jpg 

 

And, yes, I've been photo-bombed by an unwelcome visitor to my workroom.

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14 hours ago, billn53 said:

I'm continuing to clean up the aileron/speed brakes on the bottom of the wings. Nothing much to show on that process that you haven't already seen. But, I do have a few other things to show that should be more interesting...

 

I drilled / cut out openings on the rear fuselage openings (cribbing from Giorgio's work, I freely admit). I backed the smaller holes with black-painted plasticard, and the larger ones with brass metal cloth:

51374296494_6201122d37_c.jpg 

 

I acquired the metal cloth a few years back when I was doing this project:

30613971398_ddf8f3444a_c.jpg

 

One can't buy just a few inches of metal cloth, and I now have a supply that should last a few lifetimes (if anyone needs some, let me know!)

 

While test fitting the wings, I found a slight step where the rear of the wing assembly meets the fuselage. I corrected this by adding a 0.1-mm shim and sanding down the hashed areas shown below:

51373794993_bfc7287da3_z.jpg 

 

Finally, I believe I have corrected the off-kilter horizontal stabilizer. At first, I had thought the fuselage must be warped. On closer inspection, I discovered the mounting surface on the bottom of the fuselage was not even -- the left side was higher than the right side. I filed down the high side and added layers of tape to shim the lower side, until I got the horizontal stab to fit, well, horizontally:

51373563636_df4b6385c3_z.jpg 

 

Compounding this problem is the fact that the right wing has a slight downward bend. I should be able to fix this when I glue the wings to the fuselage:

51374569650_e86c7c060d_b.jpg 

 

And, yes, I've been photo-bombed by an unwelcome visitor to my workroom.

Good progress there Bill, I had the same issues when I made the Italeri boxing of this kit. Watch out for the engine cowl seams and good hunting.

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Glad you got the alignment sorted, looks like the only thing out of square is the late interloper.

 

Also an evocative and sensitively rendered post-mortem photo, Bill.  Album cover material for sure.  Have you seen this item?  Makes for jolly sport wherever flies are to be found.  

 

 

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4 hours ago, Jackson Duvalier said:

Glad you got the alignment sorted, looks like the only thing out of square is the late interloper.

 

Also an evocative and sensitively rendered post-mortem photo, Bill.  Album cover material for sure.  Have you seen this item?  Makes for jolly sport wherever flies are to be found.  

 

 

 

Thanks for the tip. Here's a video for anyone who has a bug problem:

 

 

 

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