SH T-2C Buckeye - USN Low Viz - NAS Oceana Aggressors

[Out2gtcha]

Evening ladies and gents!
 
I fancied me a flame thrower and after adding everything including the kitchen sink it felt like to my last WIP, I figured I would go with something not really seen much before, and something I could go completely OOB on.
 
This will be my OOB (except maybe for a set of low viz masks) attempt at the  Special Hobby 1/32nd T-2C Buckeye, in the low viz camo of the NAS Oceana Aggressors.
 
Here is the scheme Ill be going for:
 
 




 
 
 
 
 
The Kit:
 
This is a new tool kit from SH and a first for the T-2 in 32nd. I have not seen in person the 48th scale version of theirs so I cant speak to that, but I can show you what you get in the 1/32nd box.
 
 
Nice sturdy SH box, with some great box art for the "Camouflage Trainer" version:
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
The box came well backed w/air filled pockets protecting the whole of the single major bag all of the sprues came in:
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Instructions seem pretty clear, and precise, with good illustrations:
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Decals seem very nice, and are clear, and in good register throughout. I didnt take them out of the package, so Ill find out more about the quality of these later in the build:
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
SH gives you some very nicely (if not a tad clunky) molded Bang seats that although not perfect should look really cool on an OOB build with very little effort:
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
The intakes might be a bug-a-boo, as each contains 5 separate parts:
 
 

 
 

 
 
SOME MORE..........................

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 15, 2014 by Out2gtcha

[Out2gtcha]

Here is a pic of the wings and flying surfaces. They are deceptively detailed. At first glance the riveting looks overdone and a tad on the clunky side, but after examination, these are NOT Trumpy-esk rivets (and I do like Trumpeter) but are much more "done" than Tamiya's rivets.

These SH rivets fall somewhere in between Trumpeter and Tamiya style rivets:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fuselage is the same way, at first looking overdone, but after a closer look it is really nicely detailed with raised areas, rivets that will look stellar under some paint IMHO, and a realistic feel to it that I think will be just great with a bit of smoothing and some paint:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well gents, thats it for the opening round, so Ill be back as soon as I have some progress to show, as I still need to take some RFI shots of my recently finished 190 build.

 

Thanks for lookin in on me and cheers!

 

 

[Vandy 1 VX 4]

Thanks Brain    I will being watching this closely, As I have this kit in stash.          Also have some Walk around pics of a Trainer from Pima AZ if you need them?

 

 

Cheers

[scvrobeson]

Looks like a really nice kit. There's one of these on the shelf at the LHS, I will look at it.  I really look forward to your build, should be a great read.

 

 

 

Matt 

[dutik]

Good choice! Accquired one for myself last weekend and will monitor your activities closely!

 

 

I like the multicam options. Thats why I took one Buck home. As you are going for the grey bird I will follow you with the South America mulitcam livery.

 

Regards

- dutik

[Tanker459]

Go to Scalespot.com /On the Bench and see the Buckeye under construction

 

 

[Hubert Boillot]

Go to Scalespot.com /On the Bench and see the Buckeye under construction

 

Very good start. You should post it here as well. What is your view about the canopy. I am still unsure whether it is too wide or not .... not that i have dome much research on the topic after my first review !

 

Hubert.

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks guys! 

 

Tanker, that is a great build, and will definitely take pointers from it like raising the seat, and a great tip on the threaded canopy support strut. Great stuff.

 

Im not sure if Ill be going with air-scale IP instruments or if Ill end up using the stock instruments or chop the OOB instruments up.  Ill likely not be putting all the scratched details in mine, like the scalespot.com build, but I will definitely make corrections that are needed and warranted like raising the instructors seat, and some other details, but Im going to try to stick to an OOB build as close as I can.

[Tanker459]

Not my model it belongs to the owner of scalespot just pointing you modellers if you wish to follow his build

[Out2gtcha]

Well, some first updates with a couple oddities.......................

 

 

First off, the kit sprues have letters for sprue designations, but NO numbers for individual parts!   Weird.....................and it really leaves you guessing sometimes as to what part they are talking about.

 

Fortunately (so far) the instructions are clear, well drawn and seem to point to the correct parts in the correct places. Another weird thing in that line of thought, is that instructions do have the individual parts numbered.................go figure. 

 

 

Im sticking to almost the EXACT opposite philosophy as my last build, and that is to throw the least amount of AM at this build I can, and stick to OOB as close as i possibly can, with the exception of some (small) scratch build additions and fixes where absolutely needed.

I am not going to worry about "accuracy" here, as reference to the real Buckeye.

 

I looked at the thread above and it did give me some great Ideas, but Im not building this model in the same way, as I will not be changing much at all, other than small things to suit my own personal acceptance level for a strictly OOB build.

 

I started as I normally do, and as the SH instructions tell you to, with the cockpit. This too will be OOB with some very small additions and changes to clean some things up, and add a few small things.

 

There are some small (2 per side) IP marks in each sidewall that needed some sanding and Mr Surfacer - Easy as cake:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The OOB pit with its nice looking resin seats, decently molded IPs and decent sidewall for OOB will look just fine I think in the end. I added some strip styrene to shim up the rear side walls. I still have the throttle quadrant/levers to add and some instrument wire for the instructors panel, as the pit is just setting together at the moment.

I will add a sun shade to the front IP in a similar fashion to the instructors seat.

I also have yet to determine if I will go with the OOB IP decals over paint or go with some individual AirScale decals. To stick to my OOB theme, I think Im going to experiment w/the OOB instrument decals first.

 

There was an issue with the height of the seats initially. The instructors seat sat almost lower than the front seat when sitting in the OOB pit floor. I cheated to fix this issue and left a bit of square "base" on the resin seats, and just cut the students seat shorter and left the instructors longer.....easy peasy.

 

With the IPs blu-taced in and the seats just setting in place I dont think it looks too bad at all even in this early stage:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also dry fit the cockpit in the fuselage, and checked the two fuse halves for fit as well.  Fit seems quite good actually, and overall the pit fits nicely so far (seats and IP stuff removed for fit clarity sake) :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Im not sure what if any other details Ill add to it, I just know Im not going to go crazy on this one, and will be trying to stick as close as I can to OOB.

 

 

 

I also started on those DEVIL intakes and Im going to give it the Ol college try, at smoothing them out. Not sure at all if Ill be successful as each side is made of of 5 separate pieces, and has full length seams as WELL as a seam in the middle running the circumference of the intake. AND they are super super tight, and funky shaped.

Seems a recipe for disaster, so my plan B is some scratch built FOD covers, like the ones SH portrays on the cover of the kit:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is not only the super slim shaped main intake that has a seem all the way down its length, but also a secondary intake section that has two parts sandwiched inside of each other, and they that has to be smoothed into the long intake! NOT pretty:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YIKES!   

 

 

My work is DEFINITELY cut out for me on that one, but IM bound and determined to try to make it work, and use the FOD covers and a very last resort. Knowing my own critiquing nature, I wont be happy unless its 100% smooth........................so if I cant get that, Ill be scratching the covers.

 

 

All for now gents and gent-ettes!

[Vandy 1 VX 4]

Thanks for the update and heads up. She's looking good. On the intakes It's bad that this kit is a limited run kit. We could have Harold make us new ones! ( that is if his son in law does not burn up the masters )

 

Cheers

Danny

[Zero77]

Nice review ! Thank you Brian.

 

For your intakes, with thinned putty and sanding paper rolled around a bit of sprue, you should be able to make them 100% smooth.

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks guys!  Zero, that is a really great Idea!

 

I was going to try something similar to that, but I think that's actually a better idea than my original one, which was to use a "D" handle shaped sanding grip, that had sanding "strips" that I could run through the intake, but I think the sprue (or even some thick wire) would actually work better.

 

I think Ill be dousing the intake seems with thinned putty, then sanding, rinse, repeat, then I will attempt the "laytex paint" intake method, to see if I can get some white paint on them, that will also smooth them out a bit as well.

 

Cheers

[Kagemusha]

Nice to see you tackling this one Brian, great link to the Aussie build, there's another http://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/2039-t-2c-buckeye-in-32nd/

[Out2gtcha]

Nice to see you tackling this one Brian, great link to the Aussie build, there's another http://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/2039-t-2c-buckeye-in-32nd/

 

 

Wow Andy! That looks almost identical to the SH kit I have,  from all the resin bits, to the way the rivets look, right down to the design of the kit.