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Dragon 1/144 F/A-18E Super Hornet


srkirad

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Hello mates,

 

First of all, I wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy New 2022!

 

Time has finally come to get to work on some new model(s) :D 

For this (ST)GB I've chosen Dragon dual kit pack of F/A-18E Super Hornets in braillescale.

Decals are given for VFA-31 Tomcatters and VFA-105 Gunslingers.

 

As wings can be assembled fully stretched or bended for parking in carrier hangar, I plan to make one of them (most probably VFA-105 as it's less colorful in general) in that pose, but fully armed.

 

Here is the preview photo, and see you soon with some photos from the bench!

 

fa-18e-144-x2-001.jpg

 

Cheers,

Srđan

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Happy New Year!

 

I built this kit for the last F-18 GB.  But I didn't get these two finished and they are still sitting on my shelf of doom.

 

The kit builds up pretty nicely and is better than the older Dragon offerings with the melted pilots in them!

 

Look forward to seeing what you do with this one. :)

 

Kind regards,

 

Dazz

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  • 5 weeks later...

Few days after last photo was made I've got first symptoms of Omicron, and as expectedly positive AG test, so the following period was just taking a rest and a ton of medicines and vitamines... 

All of that is now behind me, thankfully everything went well, so I'm finally back at the work table, and continuing where I stopped at (almost) full speed :)

 

Fuselages are assembled, although their alignment wasn't perfect - it seems Dragon messed up a bit joins of fuselage parts, so I had to use a lot of putty and sprue goo to repair that bottom part of strakes and around horizontal stabilizers...

Kit with fully stretched wings is going to be VFA-31, while the other one, in parked wings position will be VFA-105.

Few more parts to be glued and we're ready for primer...

 

fa-18e-144-x2-004.jpg

 

fa-18e-144-x2-005.jpg

 

Cheers,

S.

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Tails are attached on the fuselage, as well as weapon pylons under the wings.

What's left to do before primer is sanding seamlines on canopies (they are moulded right across the center line 😠) and polishing of canopies.

 

Hopefully next photos will be in primer/painting stage...

 

fa-18e-144-x2-006.jpg

 

fa-18e-144-x2-007.jpg

 

Cheers,

S.

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Well mates, I'm officially giving up on these two - Dragon made my day with its inventive/modernised canopy design, which I do not so prefer....

 

I was about to mask canopies with Tamiya tape, and as soon as I've pressed tape onto windscreen, I just heard "craaaaack" sound... and canopy just split in half... there was a seamline visible before this, but I thought it was just inside_plastic_seamline that wasn't surface based and impossible to repair .... anyhow, I don't have any creative idea at the moment - maybe in future I will make canopy just like on these photos, and make SF-18 Space Hornet, but frustration is high at the moment, and I'll just shelf them...

 

fa-18e-144-x2-008.jpg

 

fa-18e-144-x2-009.jpg

 

fa-18e-144-x2-010.jpg

 

fa-18e-144-x2-011.jpg

 

fa-18e-144-x2-012.jpg

 

Cheers and thanks for organizing this GB - see you in some other themed story :)

Srđan

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On 3/5/2022 at 8:49 AM, gingerbob said:

You may be able to get replacement parts from Dragon?

I doubt it would arrive in a month, how much is left until the end of GB, and probability that replacement parts are also prone to the breakage is high.

Nevermind, they are shelved until I find some inspiration and solution to this problem. Maybe they will be finished as what-if, I'll think about it :)

 

Thanks for the suggestion anyway.

 

Cheers,

S.

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