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Trumpeter 1/32 RNZAF A-4K "Kahu Upgrade"


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Thanks Barry and Mark

 

The Trumpeter kit has this engine air bleed vent, but it was not quite right. They show the opening at the front face whereas in reality it is at the bottom. I modified an old Hasegawa one, but a Trumpeter one can be just as easily used. I used a Hasegawa one as I lost my Trumpy one for a little while (it was in my sons model Harvard box) and I found it again after I made the new one!!

 

Yes, next up are the hinges and I will be addressing that big gap between the fin and rudder after the fuse halves are together.

 

Thanks for the comments!

 

Cheers

Anthony

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wasnt going to post an update tonight as my photo's came out pretty crappy. But now the Mr Surfacer is sprayed and buffed it has come up really nice and you wont see what I added when I take photo's of that.

 

I transferred the anti col light to the stbd u/c fairing and offset it to the outboard as per the actual plane. Actually this nearly caught me out and it nearly went in line with the others. First of all a teardrop shaped plate was glued to the fairing and then the remains of the lamp fairing from being cut off was made deeper again and then it was glued to the plate. Mr Surfacer was brushed into the corners to slightly round the join as per original. I had a fuel dump from a Hasegawa kit that I decided to use as I felt the Trumpeter one was a little 'chunky'. It could be easily thinned out but the Hasegawa one looked a better starting point (I promise I wont use any more Hasegawa bits.......I think! I cut the end off it and thinned the flat plate out and then fashioned a piece of plastic to make a new hollow end. I was really pleased how well it came up actually.

 

The u/c fairings needed some sort of seal (?) that ran between the fairing and lower wing. In these pics it looks prominent but I have thinned it out a lot and now it is sprayed is barely visible.

 

A jacking point(?) circular plate was added just forward of the rear hell hole door.

 

Finally the u/c fairings were extended up to the wheel well rear edge and the rear ends of the fairings were slightly tweaked to match photo's.

 

I am presently working on the lovely seperate lower flaps and have block sanded the outboard face to remove any sink marks and imperfections as well as thinning them out a tad.

 

I modified the shape of the fairings that go on them and have now glued them to very thin plastic card. I am flooding the join with Mr Surfacer to give a nice blended transition. This will then be cut out and glued to the flat flap surface, hopefully replicating this area better. There will need to ba a couple of small additions to the inner flap area.

 

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As you can see I am making an ADU(?) adapter mount to go between the LAU-7 and pylon.

 

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Once again, please excuse my crappy pics, I was in a hurry to spray them before it got too cold.

 

Cheers

Anthony

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Harold, no they didnt mate. The std E/F intakes.

 

I have an update but my photo's aren't very good so I will take some more tomorrow. Harold, where can I order your new A-4 parts from?

 

Thanks for the comments guys.

 

Cheers

Anthony

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Hi Harold, no they didnt mate. The std E/F intakes.

 

I have an update but my photo's aren't very good so I will take some more tomorrow. Harold, where can I order your new A-4 parts from?

 

Thanks for the comments guys.

 

Cheers

Anthony

Check Sprue Bros tomorrow. Gordon has them now, but needs to takes pics and post them.

I have some photos of the Kahu and I didn't see enlarged intakes. I found several references stating that some did...I found that on the net, so...I took it with a big grain of salt.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Harold

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Fantastic work Anthony! You should be casting copies of your parts and selling them! I know that I'm not an jet guy... But I think that I have to get one of these scooters and do an Kahu...

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Thanks Richard and Dave

 

Arrrgh I wasnt quick enough to get some of Harolds Intakes!! All sold out by the time I went to order!

 

I got a bee in my bonnet about the intakes early on in the build but stopped when I saw Harolds ones. Here is where I got to. Might just finish them now and get Harolds set for another build.

 

These are the old Cutting Edge intakes from the "Super Fox" conversion. What I did was grind out all of the resin outer intake insert leaving the trunking only. This was then glued into the Trumpeter plastic intake which was in the process of correcting. once the front was mostly blended in I cut a half round with myCompass 'P-cutter' to match the outer dia of the engine fan face. Then it was all in the process of blending in......

 

The photo's probably explain better.

 

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What do you think???? Not sure whether to continue and finish them off....

 

Thanks for looking

 

Cheers

Anthony

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Anthony

Awesome work! Looks like you're one of the people I was refering to in my thread, when I said some guys can super-detail and work miracles...

 

You're making me want this kit. The A-4 has always been a favourite of mine. Small, manoeuvrable, and looked like fun to fly. I had the pleasure of instructing with a former Kiwi A-4 pilot - he emigrated to Canada in the early 80s, and we instructed on Tutors together. I could never understand why he would leave NZ and its temperate climate and easy-going pace of life, for the deep-freeze of the Canadian prairie...

We used to call him the 'Cane Toad'. He had the misfortune of describing it to us once, and of course we all started calling him that immediately.

 

ALF

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Wow, you are determined for sure. Those intakes were hard to do..

I used the Hasegawa intakes as my guide. They are much closer to the correct shape. I used Apoxie Sculpt to fill in the insides. I smoothed them as much as possible before casting the first prototype. I had to do about three sessions with a scriber, sand paper and my super secret smoothing surfacer for the insides.

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