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Posted (edited)

This has been on my bucket list for some time being a fan of the colorful period in US Navy aviation.  Despite the horror stories about this kit it went together very well and if you ever enter a contest with it you'll likely have the only 1/48 Vigalante in the entire room. It will really stand out amongst a sea of Phantoms, Hornets, Tomcats, etc..  

 

The kit was purchased used on line and the previous owner had already incl just about every aftermarket part made for this kit. I only used the Reskit exhaust cans, the excellent Eduard cockpit overlays and completely discarded the Aires resin set incl seats.  The Aires just didnt offer much in the way of detail over the Trumpeter set and if you scroll down you can see how well just the Eduard 3d stuff works on the Trumpeter cockpit set. 

 

Like I had mentioned, the 3 major flaws with the kit are the lack of internal bracing, the wings are too thin for the flaps & slats and my biggest headache is Trumpeter's lack of engineering in joining parts meaning a lot of large parts are butt-joints :(  The tail, the wing tips are all just big ole butt joints and very fragile once cemented together.  I just made up several bulkheads ( think battleship) from sheet styrene and it worked very well to strengthen the mid section.  I also thickened the wing at the front edge with a thin piece of styrene strip sandwiched between the upper and lower wings. You can see in the pics this has made for a very streamlined join now with the front leading edge . BTW, a byproduct of Trumpeters bad fuselage engineering is you actually don't have to worry about fitting the customary front fuselage ( think F-15, F-18) and worry about all those seams so its not too bad. 

 

All paint is AK real colors with a lot of airbrushing for shading the various tones.  Most of the images of these jets really show a fairly clean appearance so I went with a light to moderate weathering look, not what you see on modern US Navy Hornets that look like they have been rattle canned to death below decks. 

 

Anyway, I think of anything else that I left off ill edit, Cheers!! Happy Friday!

 

 

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*This is roughing out the center bulkheads to reinforce the top and bottom. This is really bad and super ugly. I cleaned up the final but you get the idea.....

 

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Edited by Charles68
add photos
  • Like 49
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  • 100% 2
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Difficult to make acres of grey look interesting, but you have. The excellent finish really brings the model to life, and that cockpit is the bees knees:clap2:.

Pete

Posted

Wonderful outcome, given what you started with. I tried building one of those and failed miserably, so I'm very impressed with your work.

Posted (edited)

Well hello all, thanks for the kind words!!  This kit may really be my 2024 unsung hero kit. Once you get over some if the lumps and bumps it goes together really well. Like Pete said, there was a ton of shading & airbrush experimentation ro get it to not look like a big gray jet.  It really is a beauty and I'm super proud I was able to share it . 

Edited by Charles68
Posted

Charles, the subtle finish is very realistic and I saved photos for my own reference (building a F9F Cougar soon). Thank you for sharing!

Posted
1 hour ago, 28ZComeback said:

Charles, the subtle finish is very realistic and I saved photos for my own reference (building a F9F Cougar soon). Thank you for sharing!

Highest honor one can get! Thanks!

18 hours ago, SAT69 said:

Wonderful outcome, given what you started with. I tried building one of those and failed miserably, so I'm very impressed with your work.

Thanks!!

  • 1 month later...
Posted

What a great build :clap:

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