dergrunepunkt

The nose job it's almost finished, spent a few hours of careful sanding and measuring, the use thin strips of tape made the shape problems to really stand out therefore easy to fix. I'm really satisfied with this, the nose fit it's as good as it gets, now I have to see if the 0.05% resin shrinkage would be noticeable when I make the final copy. The panels are marked only with pencil because I have to do some more research to verify and make the least amount of mistakes possible. Cheers!

Nice project, a Hunter in desert colors looks good, good luck mate.

And continues continuing...! Arranque a modificar las tomas de aire, en un momento pense en hacerlas desde cero en madera balsa y despues copiarlas como con la nariz hasta que me di cuenta que era una estupidez no arrancar con las de trumpeter, asi que empece por rellenarlas con masilla epoxi, Started to modify the air intakes, my first (and stupid) idea was to make the intakes from scratch using balsa wood as I did with the nose, then I decided to base my work on trumpeter's parts, that probe to be the correct approach as I achieved 70% of the task on one intake in about 30 minutes. The procedure was simple, add about 2-3mm of plastic to compensate the removed plastic on the fuselage and then fill the intake with 10min epoxy putty. When that was halfway cured, about 15 min later (I wonder why they called 10min) I started to sand the externall shape out, I quite happy so far because it looks to be pretty close to the actual shape of the plane. In the meantime I worked on the rest, the other wing, engines, elevons, flaps, slats so on and so forth, that's seems to never end, never the less it's a lot of fun. Well I hope you find this entertaining because is going to take some time to finish. saludos

Leaving aside the nose (for now), I started to work in all the rest, this kit it's leaving me a very pleasant sensation, I really like it. I made my mind on doing the A-4Q and that's simply because I know it better than the A-4B, I'll have to sacrifice myself and get another one. So I started with the works on the slats wells, took quite some time but wasn't problematic, I made the right choice on not using filler, detaching and reattaching the slat well was almost trouble-free. Early Skyhawks did not had this reinforcements so the must to go. Doing this took me about 2hrs, but I did it gladly, look awesome There's a lot of work to do but so far things are going fine. Saludos

I build in the three most common scales, but 1/32 it's great to add details whiout going mad, like the ones you added, cool work!

That resin looks nice, I look forward to see some progress.

Some progress... The cast of first copy of the scratch built nose is complete. I'm quite happy because both the resin and the silicon rubber are 2+ years old and I wasn't sure if they still good to use, if you see a funny color on the copied nose it's because I forgot to add the color when mixed the 2 part epoxy resin so I added that in the mold. Even when the resin has cured, it't not 100% cured so I can't make the pannels and the final adjustments. While that dries I continued the works on the AR's nose, added the second NACA vent and the exhaus pipe on the starbord side, also had to modify the bottom to better represent the this variant, but I'm glad that's almost done, and so far so good. Finally I made an impression with silicon of the part where the refueling probe meets the fuselage, I'll need that later on. For the first time I going to correct an error that every single Skyhawk model has, look at this picture, see how the slat recess blends smoothly with the fuselage?, on every model there's a step there and must go. More to come... Cheers!

Some progress... The shape it's practically there, not much to fix, once all lumps and bumps are smoothed out I'll make the first master, after that panels and rivets and finally I'll move to the intakes. cheers

Looking really nice, I would double foil maintenance access panels, what do you think about that?. Question, do the F-104 show stress marks on the surface?, I beleive it might not be that hard to reproduce with two or three layers of foil check this out: http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/stressed_skin/ cheers

So bloody cool!

Well, I cannot say how much I like your job, but what really impress me the most it's the precision you're showing, keep up this really excellent job.

I love this kind of projects, you're doing an splendid job!, I wonder, how expensive is to make one of those moulds.

It's so cool, the metal finish looks awesome.

Allright, some progress, slow but progress at last. Built the cockpit, even when trumpeter did a "nice" job I couldn't stand the lack of throttle so I mimic one, I promess I did try to look the other way but I just couldn't stand the side consoles, I I know I have a lot of work with the noses and the intakes but I had to do somethig with that sideconsoles so I lied a bit so the look like there's somethig going on there. Using epoxi putty ,did some improvement on the bang seat cushions. Finally I started to play around with the nose, first try a completely failure. cheers!

That model looks awesome, Harold did a great job! still too expensive.