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Trumpeter 1/72 RA-5C Vigilante


dswoofie

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I'm finally throwing my hat into the ring on this Naval GB at last! I've finally chosen something to enter with, and here it is...

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The Trumpeter 1/72 RA-5C Vigilante!

A very nice looking kit that I've had for a couple of years. Now is the time to crack open the box and get building it!

There's a total of 137 pieces in the kit... and so far I've used 39 in just the cockpit as far as I've got with it! Seems like the rest of the build should be a breeze :lol:

Starting off with the seats... not bad for kit ones.

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Although the seatbacks look like they've been build out of bricks like a wall!! :S

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And the cockpit pieces coming together...

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Then I got on with painting the pieces. The whole cockpit was sprayed over with grey, and the instrument panels picked out with some flat black. The controls were then highlighted with some white, and a grey/white wash was plopped between the sections of the panels. A dirty grey/black wash was added to the rest of the interior parts and seats to make it dirtier. A few bits picked out with spots of colour (I know it's not 'real' but I like it anyway :D )

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The IP's still have some glue in the dials which hasn't dried yet, but there should be dials showing through afterwards from the film panels that are provided.

More to come soon!

Karl.

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Yup, the cockpit does come in quite a few pieces :lol:

Anyway, that's all sorted now, and ready to be properly installed into the fuselage halves. Seats and IP's were added last night, and a little drybrushing and further wash were added. The oversized ejection handles were used as I wasn't too fussed to make some more. Here's the finished cockpit...

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And here popped into the fuselage half...

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I get the feeling that quite a bit of weight will need to be crammed into that area before it's closed up :S

Karl.

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Looking grand Karl :thumbsup2:

I'll be interested to see how you get on with this kit as the old Airfix kit in the collection could do with a replacement. I've read a few things about fit and shape issues with the 1/48 kit, which I'm assuming is largely similar to this one, so I'm keen to see how you get on if/when you tackle them :)

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Lots of pressure now people are watching :S:lol:

The one thing that is bugging me about this kit so far is the number of pieces it is broken down into... at the moment I'm looking at the wings and the tail, and they are in quite a few pieces. I can understand it to a point, with the fact that you can fold the wings and tail, but the also don't fit that well when doing them normally.

Here's the breakdown of one wing... it's split into 2 halves, with 3 separate flaps, 2 of which are in halves, plus the wing end.

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And the tail is in 2 pieces as well... 2 halves to the lower section, and a top section that is one piece...

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I've put the pieces of the tail together and it has left a nasty join really. Not nice, but it just wouldn't sit right at all. It was extremely hard getting it on there and keeping it very straight. The slightest bit off and it would have looked silly at the end!

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I've also just started to put the fuselage havles together... annoyingly you have to insert the nose leg at this point as it will not go through into there once closed up :( The top seam requires some work to tidy it up, and it was very hard avioding a step in that very flat back area!

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More to come soon!

Karl.

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Loverly bird the Vigilante- getting envious- but will sit back and enjoy your build :popcorn:

dontcha just love it when the undercart has to be sandwiched in between the fuselage halves when you close up

for my esci AV-8 i chopped off the main (belly) cart cos i know what would happen if i didn't :bristow:

at least this way i am perpared and wired to stick back at my own convenience

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The one thing that is bugging me about this kit so far is the number of pieces it is broken down into...

Cos it is identical in almost every way to the 1/48 kit. You are doing a grand job with it there Karl, you wouldn't know it was the littl'un.

Al

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:bleh: Behave you! What I meant was the number of uneccessary pieces, such as the flaps being in halves, and such!

Karl.

Maybe they split the flaps to save any sink marks? Just a thought... don't tell me off like you did Jen! :unsure:

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On the underside of the fuselage there is a square plate to add in, but around this area are 2 very chunky annoying moulding stub/blocks that need to be removed. As they were quite thick I was quite careful with the cutters in case they nipped a chunk out of the fuselage (probably my hamfistedness that causes this, or my crap cutters :lol: )

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The plate that dropped in there didn't exactly fit well, and left some gaps around it once added. Trying to get this and the tailcone to line up was pretty awkward, and I had to leave a small step on both top and bottom to deal with afterwards.

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Next I moved onto the wings which again were very tricky to try and get a decent fit. The tips seemed to be slightly thinner than the actual main wing, and I should have spotted this before I put the halves together. If I Had I could have thinned them very slightly. As it was, I now have another step to deal with :S The flaps were also very weird, they were set up to sit at about a 10 degree drop, which didn't look right at all. So after some fiddling (and breakage) I decided to do away with all of the fitting pegs and get them in there straight and raised.

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There is a slight lip where the flaps sit, which looks a bit wierd but I'll live with it... There's enough other bits needing attention already!

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The tail halves, once mated, were filled with some trusty CA/talc mix and then rescribed to add the detail back. Looks a little rough like this as you can still see the original gaps through the CA. Once some paint goes on it'll be fine.

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Wings and the nose were then added... both needing a little attention with the CA/talc filler (recurring theme here!)

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And then I fixed up the rear areas with the same methods and re-scribed/riveted where necessary.

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A few minutes ago I added on the intakes, and guess what?? Yup, you got it... more CA/talc filler needed :lol:

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And while I was adding the intakes I somehow must have dripped some glue on the top of the fuselage and stuck my fingers in it :doh: I now have a nice gluey fingerprint to remove from the nice previously sorted out fuselage seam!!

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Right... time for more filling, sanding, scribing, and riveting!

Karl.

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Finally I arrive at the painting stages! I filled and rubbed down all the remaining areas yesterday, and re-scribed again, and it's ready for the paint.

This morning I put on a light coat of Tamiya XF-2 as base, and then added some Tamiya Sky Grey as some shading to the panel lines and details. I got a bit wibbly in places with it, for some reason, but it came out OK. For some reason I seemed to have shaking hands this morning :S Not nice!

Anyway, here it is. Another couple of coats over the white, and maybe some other little bits of shading to go in there to do this afternoon :)

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Karl.

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