Dukie99 Posted June 5, 2017 Posted June 5, 2017 (edited) Here is my first contribution to this GB: 1/32 Trumpeter A-10A converted to a A-10C. The chosen scheme is Indiana ANG Black Snakes. I bought this kit cheap as it had been started by someone else. The guy had glued the front fuselage together and that was it. I ended up sawing the front fuselage to eliminate the kit's cockpit and insert the Aires resin cockpit updated with Harold's A-10C miniset which I highly recommend. I don't think I have done it justice, but I am a modeler of moderate skills. I underestimated the amount of work this kit represents as the fit is really not great. Anyway I hope to restart it with your help and finish it because this is an airframe I really like. I see that Mr. Fisher may come up with a corrected front fuselage and it will prompt me to do another one, but changing the front profile as Chuck did on his is really beyond my skills. Here are the box shot and what currently lies within the box, kinda depressing but I will get it done. Cheers, David Edited June 5, 2017 by Dukie99 Shaka HI, BradG, Harold and 3 others 6
Spooky56 Posted June 22, 2017 Posted June 22, 2017 Hi David, Tagging along for this ride, good luck with your build and 'Happy Birthday!' Best regards, Rick Shaka HI 1
Winnie Posted June 25, 2017 Posted June 25, 2017 I have that kit, and I intend to do the same, but with different "stickers". I have almost all the aftermarket for it as well... Just missing the verlinden set, and the Hobby Decal transfers that I desperately want again... Harold and Shaka HI 2
Dukie99 Posted July 4, 2017 Author Posted July 4, 2017 Hi Guys, Thanks for posting, I have made progress on the kit but the whole PB debacle has just left me scratching my head about posting pictures. Took me a while to learn how to post pictures with PB and now I have to figured it out again but without the useful thread that our moderators had posted on how to use PB. I have signed up at Smugmug and will try to post pictures of my progress later. I have been managed to glue the front and back fuselage together (surprisingly good fit) and the tail (more approximative fit). I have also glue each wing and shall we say there is a lot of filler involved but we are getting there. I have also painted with rear part of the fuselage with Mr.Paint light ghost gray in anticipation of glueing the engine nacelle as it will be more difficult to have a nice coverage in the hard to reach area once the nacelles are glued. I have used the GTresin A10 engine set, the engine fans look awesome and the fit was great, very good product. Pictures very soon. Cheers, David Harold and LSP_Kevin 2
Dukie99 Posted July 4, 2017 Author Posted July 4, 2017 As promised some pics of where she stands now: I hope you like it. I will be happy to be done this kit is fighting me. All the pics were taken with my iPad, edited on SmugMug on the iPad and posted here with the iPad, so much simpler than PB (PooBucket). Cheers, David Harold, Uncarina, Shaka HI and 3 others 6
Dukie99 Posted August 13, 2017 Author Posted August 13, 2017 (edited) Time for an update. I have now glued the engine to the fuselage. The fit was not good and I am still trying to get a smooth transition between the nacelle and the fuselage, lots of putty and sanding. On the picture I have added one final coat of Mr. Surfacer and then one last sanding and hopefully I can then glue the wings and get going: Since the model is both bulky and very heavy (there is a lot of weight in the nose because the resin engine nacelles make it even more prone to be a tail sitter), I have decided to paint, decal and weather the underside of the wings before glueing them on. Here is one wing completed: the metal landing gear has been glued with epoxy for strength. The other wing in progress with a grey flory wash waiting to be wiped off: I have also been working on the loadout as what would be an A-10 without some heavy metal. That is what I plan to hang under the pylons, trying to get as closed as possible to OEF typical load-out: 4 x GBU-12 from Brassin, 2 Mavericks from North Star, a litening pod (3-d printed bought on e-bay), one 7-rockets pod from the ZM USAF Skyraider armament set and 2 x GBU-38 from Videoaviation. Still a work in progress. Normally I have to kick myself to build the ordnance but here in comparison to the Trumpeter kit it is a real pleasure, the Brassin GBUs are particularly nice and so are the mavericks, they both come with a full complement of stencils which will certainly look awesome when done. Hopefully I will make more progress this week and get this one done before August is over. Thank you for following this build. David Edited August 13, 2017 by Dukie99 Harold, BradG, johncrow and 3 others 6
Out2gtcha Posted August 13, 2017 Posted August 13, 2017 Man that looks superb!!! Man, I will never understand how you guys can paint, decal and weather before assembly is finished...........have had 0 luck with that, except on my B-25 where the wings has a tremendous locking system on them.
Dukie99 Posted August 16, 2017 Author Posted August 16, 2017 Hi Brian, Thank you for your kind words. I did not decide to paint and weather the entire airframe before finishing assembly, only the underside of the wings because I thought with a plane this big it would trickier to do the underside after assembly. I glued tonight the wings and wheels (using 5 minutes epoxy and she stands proud. I have minimal clean up to do on the wing joint and then I can finish painting the fuselage and wing roots, then clear and decals. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel: Cheers, David A-10LOADER, Shaka HI, DesTROYer and 2 others 5
Dukie99 Posted August 17, 2017 Author Posted August 17, 2017 Master Gatling gun glued. Finished painting the airframe and coated in future with hopefully decals tomorrow. Decaled the mavericks, ready for another coat of future and a wash Finished assembling and painting the gbu-12, ready for future then decals Cheers, David A-10LOADER, Harold, Shaka HI and 3 others 6
Dukie99 Posted August 20, 2017 Author Posted August 20, 2017 Here she is fully décalée. Caracals decals were really nice, very thin, very sharp definition and responding extremely well to the Microset, Microsol combo. One more coat of future and on for some weathering Cheers, David Shaka HI, DesTROYer, Shawn M and 2 others 5
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