Revell 1/32 F/A 18 F Super Hornet

[Oldbaldguy]

On 4/28/2024 at 11:37 PM, chrish said:

Much easier to deal with the little issues when so many modellers have documented the trouble areas before I got into it

The ECS vents have been pointed out as another poorly fitting component, I found that by cutting off the joining web between them, adding them separately with a shim of .010" to widen them they will fit better. Here's a test fit with the right side separated and shimmed, the left side as the kit intended

 

 

both sides shimmed and friction fitted

 

The kit supplies bot the new style vents and the old style, I doubt I can open up the vents to make them look hollow so, I filed off all the detail from the old style vents, made a top panel and ordered the Trumpeter kit resin upgrades

 

as well, the horizontal stabs are supposed to look strange when added, not sure whats up or where but here's a comparison with the revell (light gray) compared to the Trumpeter E stab.

 

 

Thanks for looking

That’s easy enough:  one kit has a more ample butt than the other.

[Jim Barry]

Love your passion for a challenge! Good luck! 

[chrish]

I do seem to gravitate to tough builds yes

I wasn't too thrilled with the sink mark running full circumference around the Revell tail pipe. I remembered I had an ancient Hasegawa kit collecting dust in the basement so with caliper in hand I did a quick measurement and decided the Hasegawa pipes were close enough for an organ donation

The Revell part in light gray and the Hasegawa kit coming in under the knife

Thats a hand painted 410 Cougars from waaaay back

with the Hasegawa part cut off it was tried for fit to the tail pipes

 

and found to be fairly close, enough to offer some optimism at least

and also test fitted to the airframe

which was also encouraging;

 

and that's a s far as I got tonight,

thanks for looking

[Azgaron]

Very nice progress!

 

Håkan

 

[chrish]

Jumping around in the assembly with no specific course in mind...

I filled and sanded smooth some ejector pin marks that will likely never be seen anyway;

I've cut into the old style ECS vents and test fitted the quickboost examples. I screwed up on the first cut (nothing unusual there) and ended up with a gap, fixable and I can still cut into the kits new style ECS vents if necessary to fit the resin parts.

Possibly a dumb idea fitting upgrades to the kit at this early stage but, I've never been accused of being smart

and the other one cut and test fitted

 

I've got a coat of white Tamiya flat white for primer then a 50;50; mix of Tamiya flat and gloss whites for the gear bays, framing and intake ducting

Alclad aluminum, steel, dark aluminum and burnt iron for the turbines and exhaust

The fun continues

Thanks for looking

 

[Jboldt007]

great to see where an old build can be an "organ donor" for a new build! Circle of Life ...:)

[TankBuster]

Nigel's Modelling Bench on youtube did a build of this kit and showed the best way to get the kit together, might be worth a look for some tips allthough you are doing a great job of it. Cheers.

[Azgaron]

Very nice progress!

 

Håkan

 

[chrish]

I took to heed warnings about sanding all the joining seams to square and work is continuing. The gear bay assembly is about the most complicated, other than perhaps Italeri's F-35 that I've seen but, fit was pretty good overall. A little bland for detail I think but still not bad

 

The instructions suggest cutting off the molded on hinges for the inboard gear bay walls, to be re-glued once the lower fuselage is attached to the intake plenums

 

 

 

I wanted to try something a little different, I taped the inboard walls to the lower fuselage and kind of slid them in with the lower 1/2 as an all in one type thing

 

 

As well, work has commenced on filling and sanding the seams

 

 

 

Thanks for looking

[chrish]

I have managed to fit the vertical tails and close up the rear component, I did get a poor fit aft of the horizontal stabilizers but I'm pretty sure that's my fault as I didn't trim the exhaust turbines to fit the jet pipes, I kind of hoped I could convince it all to go together.

 

 

 

 

and I've done some advance work for fitting the wings together, I have no intention of using the kit hinges, I'll simply add a piece of evergreen into the slot and glue the outer wings to the stubs, but some sanding and carving was required to get a snug fit;

 

Thats all for today

Thanks for looking

[Grunticus]

Looking good! I like how you solved that without cutting.

[Azgaron]

Very nice progress!

 

Håkan

 

[chrish]

slow progress but progress is still progress. with warmer weather finally here I'm torn between working on the super bug or playing in the yard (between those nasty bouts at work) Just hedging my bets...I purchased (on line) from Canada Hobbies the Trumpeter EA-18G which can be built as an F...as well as a couple of sets of Quinta cockpit decals (one set to try on this kit....is it weird there's no updates for this kit?!)

First up, the nose radome, not terrible but compared to images and the Trumpeter kit, it's too blunt. with too much downturn (hook) about 1/4 of the way back from the tip to the rear. I sanded it for quite a while in the effort to reduce the hook and increase the sharp pointy profile. I didn't do a "before" picture but this is the after.

 

next.... the horizontal stabs, I'm not so sure the stabilizers are misshaped so much as the rear of the airframe is too tapered. Here's a shot of the kit stabilizer "as is" showing the fitment gap

 

I've seen builds where the stab was relocated forward and the fix makes it look better and is a good fix in my opinion (if posing the stabilizers in neutral, posing the stabilizers off of neutral will show a new issue.

Another builder has done what I decided to do (following the trail blazers here) and reshape the stab's

here's a re-shaped one next to the "as is" offering

 

and compared to the Trumpeter E tail. The Trumpeter part over top the Revell part

 

Aaannd the Trumpeter stab. compared to the Revell fuselage

all this and looking/ comparing to pictures suggests to me the fuselage is the issue, not so much the stabilizers

Here is the final(ish) finish on the stabilizers

 

Thanks for looking

[F`s are my favs]

Why there is such a huge gap all along the joint line during the test fits? It looks like the stabilizer is not entirely inserted in its place, hence the big gaps.  But it only looks like that. I guess if you have any doubts about shape issues, you can find a real drawing/blueprint of the plane with a top-side view of the silhouette, then print it on a paper with the right scale, and compare the positions. Btw the Revel manual seems like a scientific/academic work to me, so it should be quite trustworthy for comparison. 

[chrish]

15 minutes ago, F`s are my favs said:

Why there is such a huge gap all along the joint line during the test fits? It looks like the stabilizer is not entirely inserted in its place, hence the big gaps.  But it only looks like that. I guess if you have any doubts about shape issues, you can find a real drawing/blueprint of the plane with a top-side view of the silhouette, then print it on a paper with the right scale, and compare the positions. Btw the Revel manual seems like a scientific/academic work to me, so it should be quite trustworthy for comparison. 

You’re correct about the gap, it’s excessive in the image shown here. I haven’t inserted the post entirely into the stabilizer due to the very tight fit causing concern about it’s still needing removal to finish remaining work on the fuselage. Basically I’m afraid I’ll break the post off if I install and then try to remove the stabilizer. It should be more correctly gapped at the end of construction