1/32 Trumpeter A-4E Scooter: 8/4/17 Crossed the finish line

[Gazzas]

Joel,

    I just attached the last parts and sealed the 102's dorsal side with Future this morning.  Will do the ventral side tonight after my club's meeting, then some light weathering tomorrow.  I'm hoping to mail it out at the beginning of next week.  That will give it five weeks to get there.  I land there on 17 June.

 

Gaz

[Starfighter]

Looking great so far, Joel! Glad you have corrected the slat recesses. Your solution is a tad complicated, though. You could just have cut out the recessed area, glued it back flush with the wing surface and closed the resulting gap with a small strip of sheet or a bit of putty. This would have saved you a lot of sanding and you'd have kept the surface detail in this area. I hope you see what I mean, it's way harder to describe than to do... If it's unclear, just let me know and I'll get the Scooter box out of the stash to take a pic of my modified wings.

[Joel_W]

Looking great so far, Joel! Glad you have corrected the slat recesses. Your solution is a tad complicated, though. You could just have cut out the recessed area, glued it back flush with the wing surface and closed the resulting gap with a small strip of sheet or a bit of putty. This would have saved you a lot of sanding and you'd have kept the surface detail in this area. I hope you see what I mean, it's way harder to describe than to do... If it's unclear, just let me know and I'll get the Scooter box out of the stash to take a pic of my modified wings.

 

Ben,

  Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my Scooter build to date, it's much appreciated.

 

  I was really thinking of doing the modification of cutting out the recessed slat area and gluing it to the top of the wing, as well as adding those two small fillets. What concerned me was that the upper wing leading edge was now shorter then the lower wing leading edge.  To correct that I would need to glue on a thin piece of sheet on the back edge, so now I'm gluing sheet to 3 sides of the cut off section of wing. I still have to do whatever sanding & filling needed to create a single smooth surface, then glue it to the wing. That seam would also needed to be blended in perfectly.  The method I came up with didn't require any cutting, and only two strips of stepped strip plastic and putty to blend it in as well. I'm pretty sure that I would have had the same sanding and rescribing issues on the top surface either way.  Comparing the two methods, I honestly feel that my method was easier and quicker, at least it was for me.

 

Joel

Edited May 8, 2017 by Joel_W

[Joel_W]

Work has continued on a somewhat slow but steady pace, as now I'm deep into what I've always referred to as the Ugly Duckly stage of the build: Sanding, putty, more sanding, polishing, priming for more issues, etc. till I get it as good as i'm able to. The Fuselage is basically done except for the misc. parts such as antennas that need be glued in place before a full primer. So now it's time to glue up the main wing and tail horizontal Stabilizers. 

 

I had fit issues with the main wing sub assembly and worked both the lower fuselage and sub assembly till I got a pretty good fit. I glued it on and secured it with masking tape. After letting it dry for 24 hrs I removed the tape was somewhat surprised that the wing assembly seemed to have shifted and lifted towards the nose about a 1/16+ of an inch or so. I wasn't too happy about it as adding more Extra Thin to wing joint wouldn't loosen it enough to move it as the wing is also glued on the bottom of the fuselage where I can't get to. So now I had to sand and use .020 sheet feathered in Bondo Glazing Putty to correct my error. The end result is smooth and consistent running my finger over it. 

 

I also sanded the gun bay access panel doors down and decided that the joint line should be somewhat more prominent as the hatches are opened and closed all the time. So I puttied them with a light coat of Vajello's White Acrylic putty which shrinks quite a bit, and that's was exactly the effect I was looking for.

 

 

The bottom of the fuselage has 4 vents that weren't molded very well, so I removed them and made new ones out of two stepped layers of sheet, and a vent tube out of plastic tubing. I'll try to include a close up in my next update.

 

 

The Horizontal Stabilizers are attached to a movable plate so the whole Stab can be varied in it's angle. After gluing them on in the usual down angle as per references, it became apparent that nearly all the work I did to cut open the slot in the tail would be covered up, but at least a little still shows, and you can still see through to the other side. 

 

I was also not sure how to handle the dive brakes. Trumpeter did an excellent job of molding them, and also provided not one but two PE pieces to further detail them as well as a decent piston to open/close them. After checking my references, it became quite apparent that other then for specific maintenance issues, those dive brakes were always in the closed position, but usually ever so slightly open from loosing pressure. So that's the way I glued them into position.  

 

 

 

 

On the top side I did have a very small gap do to miss alignment on my part, so I filled it in with Bondo Glazing Putty, and sanded to shape. And yes there still is one small area on at the rear of each wing that needs the Bondo treatment. 

 

 

 

I also decided to use the canopy as a mask for the cockpit, and at the same time making painting it part of the fuselage process. I've managed on more then a few occasions to forget to paint it, and had to paint it separately from any other parts. 

 

 

Overall I'm pretty happy with the kit to date, as most of the issues were caused by yours truly. 

Edited May 15, 2017 by Joel_W

[Guest]

Coming right along Joel.

[Joel_W]

Coming right along Joel.

 

John,

  Thanks for stopping by and having a look. It's much appreciated.

Joel

[Joel_W]

It's looking amazing Joel.

 

Tony,

 Thanks so much for the thumbs up. It's always much appreciated.

Joel

[Guest Peterpools]

JA

Some mighty nice work in bring the basic assemblies together. The underside wing fit issue looks spot on after your minor/major surgical corrections. All the work on the horizontal stabilizer still looks really good as well as the decision to just leave the speed brake a tad open.

I always prefer to paint my canopies on the model when able, as it insures the colors match.

Looking mighty good

Keep 'em coming

Bro

[Marcel111]

Looking very nice, appreciate the pace of this build!

 

Cheers,

 

Marcel

[Joel_W]

JA

Some mighty nice work in bring the basic assemblies together. The underside wing fit issue looks spot on after your minor/major surgical corrections. All the work on the horizontal stabilizer still looks really good as well as the decision to just leave the speed brake a tad open.

I always prefer to paint my canopies on the model when able, as it insures the colors match.

Looking mighty good

Keep 'em coming

Bro

 

Bro,

    Thanks for stopping by. As you've lived through all of those issues 1st hand, you know just how I tackled each area one at a time. Still not sure where that nasty little step came from as I didn't have it when I glued and taped the wing sub assembly to the fuselage, but there is was the following day. Took nearly a full week to deal with all those areas. Hopefully when I do the 1st prime, they' look as good as the modified slat wing areas.  

 

    As for the speed brakes, I really wanted to have them open, but almost all of the parked aircraft had them closed or a tad open from loss of pressure.

 

slightly open:

 

Closed all the way. And this is the exact aircraft I'm modeling:

 

   Honestly, I'm still not 100% sure about which way to go. It's easy enough to close them if I change my mind.

 

Joel

[Joel_W]

Looking very nice, appreciate the pace of this build!

 

Cheers,

 

Marcel

 

Marcel,

  I'm most appreciative that you've been following my build as it's no where near the class of your builds which are world class. As for my building pace, I'm just trying to move forward a few hours most days with my wacky overnight work schedule. Next week I start my 1st of 3 weeks vacation, so it's either more modeling, or less depending on the Head of the Household's  "Honey to do list".

 

Joel

Edited May 16, 2017 by Joel_W

[Gazzas]

Joel,

   

Glad to see another update.  The main assemblies are really looking good, and you've done a great job of making the wheel well detail stand out. 

 

Gaz

[Joel_W]

Joel,

   

Glad to see another update.  The main assemblies are really looking good, and you've done a great job of making the wheel well detail stand out. 

 

Gaz

 

Hey Gary,

  Glad you stopped by, and checked out the Scooters progress to date.  As I work the small details especially along the bottom, I've been cross checking them to my references and continue to find ways to improve them. Most of which no one will ever notice unless I point them out other then posting pictures as I move along in the build. 

 

Joel

[Shaka HI]

Progressing nicely Joel....Somehow I missed your last update!

 

(I have an issue with keeping up with this very busy site!)

[Joel_W]

Progressing nicely Joel....Somehow I missed your last update!

 

(I have an issue with keeping up with this very busy site!)

 

Shaka Hi,

  No problem. I'm glad that you're following my build. And yeah, this place is really busy and hard to keep up on everything that's happening. 

 

 It would make more sense to have 2 or 3 WIP forums: Props, Jets, & Bi-planes just for the ease of following builds and generally staying current. 

 

Joel