1/32 Trumpeter A-10A Thunderbolt II

[SteveK_NZ]

Good day all,

 

This is my first topic and post in this forum, so please bear with me.

 

This build of a 1/32 A-10 was actually recently completed as part of a group build for Flory Models, however after a request from geedubelyer, I am posting up my in progress shots here. I will also post up some completed photos in the Ready For Inspection area once complete.

 

My build will consist of the main kit parts, with the Eduard colour photo etch instruments and Master GAU-8 Avenger gun tip and pitot tube. I also used the GT Resin engine parts for the A-10, and what a difference they make to the overall appearance of this kit.The kit fan blades for example are dreadful to say the least, and due to the big engines being where they are on the A-10, you really need to make them a focul point as far as I'm concerned. I'll be doing the gray Ghost Scheme of the later A-10A's, so I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a set of TwoBobs decals for the later grey schemes. To be honest, I'm not sure if the decals were just very old, as they were sent to me as a gift from someone, or if they just are like this, but I found them very difficult to work with as they were very fragile and thin. Normally, thin decals is a good thing, but not when they start breaking before you get them on your model.

 

Anyway, here are the all important box and sprue shots, we've seen them all before. Progress shots will come soon once I get started with this "beast". I will be doing a lot of copying from my build thread on Flory Models, but you should get the jist of it.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Cheers,

[LSP_Kevin]

Welcome aboard, Steve!

 

 

Good luck with your project.

 

Kev

[SteveK_NZ]

So, moving along...

 

After washing all the plastic for this kit, and having a real good look at the state of the metal landing gear, I decided to get the Dremel Tool out while I was waiting for the plastic to dry after it's wash as the metal parts really needed a good cleanup and have heaps of seam lines in them.

The Dremel metal polisher head that I used was pretty much shot once I had finished, time to buy another metal polishing pack.

I also took a few of the larger parts off the sprue and cleaned them up with a few Flory sanders and did some dry fitting. I know understand that if you put a little work and effort into the model before you just go crazy with glue, it will probably go together better. One thing I should probably point out here is that this is only my second aircraft I'm building after being away from the hobby for a number of years, and boy is she quite a beast.

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Steve

[SteveK_NZ]

Welcome aboard, Steve!

 

 

Good luck with your project.

 

Kev

 

Thank you Kev, appreciate being here and able to share my work.

[SteveK_NZ]

Here I have primed most parts of the big gun system with the AK Xtreme Metal Primer, added the normal weight inside the drum, and started with the cockpit and seat. I've also sprayed the ammo with Vallejo ModelAir brass, ON THE SPRUE, and added the little bullet tips in a dark blue colour, a custom mix of Tamiya paints. I will not be using the Vallejo Model Air metallics ever again, they just don't work for me as a paint for praying as they are thick and lumpy, even after giving the bottle a damn good shake up.

 

 

I used AK Xtreme Metal flat aluminum for the inside part of the drum, and used a mix of 3 AK Xtreme Metal paints for everything else. The mix was Jet Exhaust, Burnt Metal and Gun Metal, which I think turned out pretty well.

Very impressed with the turned brass gun tip, and a big thanks to Clint who helped with some ideas on how to put it all together, it came out well in the end, considering I superglued it, then took it apart and burnt all the glue off, then repeated this process a few times until I got it right.

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

[SteveK_NZ]

The cockpit is basically done. This was my first time working with an Eduard cockpit set where the photo etch parts overlap each other to create a type of 3D look, and I must say, on my first attempt, it didn't turn out too bad. There are some mistakes, but I am learning. Unfortunately Trumpeter did not design the cockpit very well, and the rest of the details are very softly molded, and very poorly at that. It won't even take a dry brushing very well it's so soft. The seat on the other hand isn't too bad compared to the rest of the pit and looks OK.

 

 

 

 

The big gun has also been completed.

 

 

Cheers,

Edited May 20, 2017 by SteveK_NZ

[SteveK_NZ]

So I've put the wings together, with the movable flaps, as well as the nacelles of the GTResin engine parts, which are now painted up, using MRP Paints for the gray and AK Extreme Metal for the fan blades, which has really come up well. I will be going to the RNZAF Air Tatoo airshow tomorrow, Saturday, so I will only be able to get stuck in again on Sunday. Without further ado, here are some of my progress shots.

 

 

 

 

 

The big old lump of an A-10 is finally together, after using lots of Tamiya Extra Thin to try and seal up as many gaps in the joins as I can. Unfortunately my local model shop has run out of very thin plastic card to insert into those large gaps, so I had to make do with what I have. There are quite a few issues here, but as most of the joins are also panel lines, I'm trying to get away with it, but it's not perfect.

Due to this being a later A-10A which have the slime lights, I've also used some .75mm plastic card to create that 3D look as they are actually slightly raised on the real thing. I also have actual decals in the aftermarket decal pack for the lights. I'm also decided to add them on before I start painting so that they can be weathered in at the same time as the rest of the model.

Anyway, here are a few recent pictures which will get you up to where I am currently. I'm also trying out the AK polymer surface primer for the first time to see what it's like for small gap sealing, and so far it's not bad. As I'm going to be using MRP Paints on this one, I also tried it out on my "buster" test, 1/72 Hornet, to see how MRP Paints are going to behave sprayed onto what is essentially an acrylic primer, and actually it comes out very good. Only put primer to the upper surfaces, going to do lower surfaces now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

[SteveK_NZ]

And the underside is now also primed.

Gonna give this a few hours just to go off, then will check to see if there are any areas that need more sanding, that I'm able to do, maybe do a little more filling if required, then would like to push on with getting the first paint colour sprayed on before the end of today.

Working with the AK Polymer primer for the first time is different. It's VERY thick, so you need high air pressure on your airbrush, it doesn't come out of the airbrush as well as lets say MRP paints, or even Tamiya acrylics thinned with MR Color Leveling thinner, and it tends to bead up on the end of your needle very quickly, but fortunately I have a H & S airbrush with a pinch clean needle guard, but I do find myself cleaning this very often, but I did still get lots of spits. It also goes on VERY flat and looks like it dries very quickly, bearing in mind I'm in New Zealand weather, currently the end of summer, where it's a nice warm'ish day outside, and the humidity is average. I also have windows open which might help. I also haven't had any problem with sanding a few areas where I've already sprayed primer on top of the fuselage. To be honest, don't know if I'll use it again, too early to tell, but I'm not WOW'ed by it. The finish once it's been drying for a while is pretty smooth, although as mentioned very flat and dull, but I guess good for a primer.

Those bumps you see under the engines come with the GT Resin goodies, it's the fuel dump ports, if that's the right word for them.

 

 

 

 

After the entire aircraft was primed using the AK primer mentioned above, I let it dry for a while before I went around and just checked a few areas, sanded here and there, and then did the pre-shading. I was tempted to do the whole black basing technique like Phil did on his, but I find that pre-shading works for me, and I really wanted to try out the AK primer that I have recently got in, and that's in a grey colour.

The pre-shading was done using Tamiya XF-1 thinned with Mr. Color leveling thinner roughly 50/50.

So, once the pre-shading was on, it dried really quickly, I was eager to get to use the MRP Paints in anger on a model, so I didn't waste any time. As I will be modeling a Grey A-10A, I started with the underneath colour, which is FS36375, or MRP38 which is Light (Ghost) Grey. All I can say is WOW, this paint is really, really good.

Now, a few things about this paint that I have noticed. I use a H & S Evolution CR Plus airbrush, and although I find it a very good airbrush, I would probably recommend to use an airbrush that you can lock the trigger off, like a H & S Infinity or similar. I'm not saying that you MUST use a Harder & Steenbeck airbrush, but I would highly recommend a good one, not a Chinese knock off. This is good paint, treat it well and you will paint well.

The other things I've noticed, lower your air pressure. 10psi or less is just fine for this paint. Painting a rather large model like this 1/32 A-10 with very big wings, you do go through quite a fair amount of paint. After completing all the painting as seen in these pictures, I probably went through about half a bottle which is 30ml. I think I could have gone through slightly less if my pre-shading wasn't so dark and coming through the paint all the time. Without pre-shading, I'm sure the coverage would have been fine. Also, due to the low air pressure, the paint is incredibly localised. If you keep your airbrush trigger under control, there is very little to no over-spray, and the fumes are very minimal. Yes this paint does smell compared to Tamiya, but it's really not bad as long as you have good ventilation like a window open or if you can afford it, an extractor. There was also absolutely NO spitting from the airbrush at all.

Lastly, the paint dries very quickly, and generally has a very good finish to it, almost like a glossy/matt type of finish. I guess this would only apply if you have a good surface that you're painting on.

Well, here are some pictures of the srpaying I did today, as mentioned, I've only done the light ghost grey colour so far, will do the darker ghost grey, FS36320 during the week or next weekend when I get a chance.

Finally, would just like to say a big thanks again to Joe Cooke from Canada for sending me the TwoBobs decals from his stash that he wasn't using. Now I can do the grey paint scheme, and I have the correct decals to go with it.

 

 

 

Cheers,

[SteveK_NZ]

Here are some more pictures from the progress I'm been making over the past week and weekend. I think I'm moving on pretty well with the build, up until I got to decalling. As mentioned, I'm going to be using the decal set from twobobs that was sent to me by Joe, unfortunately when applying the decals, they all just started breaking and tearing apart, fortunately I was applying the slime lights at the time, so had spares. Obviously these decals are NOT like normal manufacturer decals such as Tamiya, Trumpeter, etc. These decals are so thin with hardly any carrier film, and you daren't leave them in water for too long because I think it what makes them too soft that they tear. I have now learnt just to quickly dip them in water, with a locking tweezers, and then take them out immediately and let them sit on the backing paper for a minute or 2 just to loosen, they will come off the backing paper very easily. I would also have to say that applying decals over MRP Paints is just the best thing since sliced bread.

Although the twobobs decals doesn't have a scheme that comes with either a hogs mouth or sharks mouth, I just needed to have this on my A-10, so I cheated slightly and used the kit decals from Trumpeter for the sharks mouth and used this in conjunction with the twobobs decals. To be honest, as you can see below, I think it looks OK. The picture below was before I put a little Tamiya X-20A thinners on it to make it settle down a little more, as you can see it wasn't sitting very well at all. With the help of the X-20A, the mouth is now settled nicely onto the model and conforming to the panel lines and other details in the plastic.

I also went and resprayed the demarcation lines in the grey camo as this did not look good. As I had some of the 2mm Tamiya masking tape for curves, I decided to give this a go and see how it works, and I would have to say, very well, albeit leaving a too very well defined demarcation line in the different grey camo colours. I have since sanded it with the blue side of the Flory polisher and to try and blend it a little which worked a treat. Once the Flory dark dirt clay wash is on, it will blend in even more. There a couple of other small things I've done such as the false canopy in dark grey on the underside, but this is where I'll stop talking and show the pictures, so hope you enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here's the money shot, THIS is what makes an A-10 as far as I'm concerned, although a Hogs mouth would have been good as well.

 

 

Cheers,

[SteveK_NZ]

So finally, the decals are on the A-10, a coat of Tamiya X-22 clear has been sprayed all over to protect and further bed the decals down, and the entire aircraft has been given a Flory Models dark dirt wash, which has just made the details on this A-10 pop. I've elected to keep the jet kind of dirty. They just have this character to them when they are slightly dirty, muddy or oily all over.

 

 

 

 

After the Flory Models dark dirt wash was applied and then removed, I de-masked the canopy and gave the rear canopy a dip in some AK Glass Coat Gauzy (AK839). Firstly, this is the first time I'm ever dipping a canopy, and secondly, this is the first time I'm using AK Gauzy as I only got it in a short time ago. I would have to say that it really does improve this canopy, it was not great to begin with, and I did remove the seam from the outside of the canopy and gave it a dam good polish with a Flory polisher, but it still wasn't as good as I would want it, so this Gauzy stuff has really done a treat with it. The stuff is a little difficult to work with as firstly when it dries out on the lid and you unscrew the lid, these weird "strings" come off which is obviously the dried out product. I do find this liquid is very thick and become very gooey and is also blueish in colour initially. Think I would rather try and get some of that new Floor Care in that Phil keeps raving about. I've also installed the awesome gun tip that came from Master with individually turned barrels and it looks amazing.

 

 

Cheers,

[SteveK_NZ]

So as mentioned, the landing gear is coming along quite nicely. This is also the first time that I'm ever scratch building anything by adding hoses from 0.5mm lead solder wire to the landing gear, both front and rear. Here's a work in progress. The wire work is now done, but I will paint the individual wires tomorrow and then weather the landing gear as a whole with an ink wash.

 

 

And the landing gear hoses are all painted up. I know it might not be 100% accurate, but that's fine with me. This is the first time I'm doing this type of scratch building with landing gear hoses and I don't have too many references. I know that one of the hoses on each landing gear is a light blueish colour, and the others are dark, so I actually used Tamiya XF-85 Rubber Black, and the blueish colour is my own mix of XF-50 Field Blue and XF-19 Sky Gray to lighten it. In fact there more XF-19 in the mix. I used a little artistic license, so bear with me here.

 

 

Cheers,

[SteveK_NZ]

I'm going to call this pretty well darn close, if not complete with other projects that I want to move on with. Not to say that I haven't enjoyed this build, which I have very much and I've learnt lots of new things with, as well as used MRP Paints on a full model for the first time and first time scratch building, although only really the pipes and hoses running down the landing gear, working with large pieces of resin for the first time, It's just time to put this lump away now. I think it has turned out really well in the end with all the new things I've used on this build, and due to this it has been a bit of a challenge. The kit wasn't the greatest kit out there as in Tamiya fit quality and you can definitely see that the kit is showing it's age. It's taken me a good few months to complete this kit, but with all the different mediums I've used for the first time, and also having a full time day job that can be rather stressful, I don't think I did too bad in the end.

I did have a few problems with the parts, such as the metal boarding ladder that was definitely missing a piece so I had to find another way of getting that to fit, and the gun hole in the front that was too small for the aftermarket Master gun tip barrel, etc. The Two Bobs decals that I was using were also extremely thin, and quite possibly due to the fact that I had never worked with decals as thin as these, they kept breaking up and were a bit of a challenge in the end, but I got used to them. I think in the end, this is a very impressive kit one complete and on it's landing gear in terms of size. Yes, there are also some very blatant inaccuracies with the kit, but you're only going to spot them if you really know the A-10 very well. I have also chosen not to go with any full weapons load-out or anything like that, mainly due to the fact that the weapons with this Trumpeter kit are so horrendous and inaccurate (I don't have a replacement weapons set right now), and I'm sure it's been mentioned many times before that the A-10's generally didn't go out with heaps of weapons on multiple ejector racks on every pylon very often. In fact while looking for reference photos, I saw a A-10A in flight with only 2 AGM-65's slung underneath. I chose to do this load-out, including the fact that one was white and the other was olive drab, as well as have a couple of sidewinders and the ALQ-119 pod that was typical for the A-10A, although I wouldn't be surprised if this too was totally inaccurate as far as the kit parts go. Apart from that, I do hope that a manufacturer decided to make an accurate A-10C model in 1/32 soon with all the bells and whistles.

Here are my final few photos I've taken today, and will get my final reveal photos done during the week with a nice backing and with my DSLR camera. Hope you enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And just for size comparison, here is the 1/32 A-10 on top of my glass cabinet with my 1/32 Tamiya Spitfire Mk.IXa inside the cabinet. The A-10 will obviously not fit inside...

 

 

Cheers,

[Guest Peterpools]

Steve

Welcome aboard and glad to see am A-10 Hog under way. Awesome progress and enjoying your workmanship.

I've become a huge fan of AK Extreme Metallics and have found them to be nearly bullete proof. I'm not a huge fan of their black base and use either Tamiya Gloss Back, MRP Black Primer of Mig Black Primer, all of which work wonderfully.

Looking forward to your  next update

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[LSP_Kevin]

Beautiful work, Steve! This has got to be the fastest build thread in history.

 

Kev

[SteveK_NZ]

Beautiful work, Steve! This has got to be the fastest build thread in history.

 

Kev

Cheers for the comments Kev,

 

As mentioned, this build is actually recently completed for another group build I was doing. After being in contact with Guy about his F-15E builds, I mentioned that I was/had just recently finished the Trumpeter A-10 and would be moving onto the 1/32 Tamiya F-15E shortly. Guy asked me to put these up a few weeks ago now, but as I've been trying to finish off a 1/32 Bf109 "GALLAND SPECIAL", I have just not had time.

 

I'll be starting very soon on my Tamiya F-15E build and I have quite a few ideas from Guy as well as some other people for this one, so keep an eye out for that.

 

My completed build photos are up in the Ready For Inspection thread too.

 

Cheers,