Kit Bash Stinger

[Out2gtcha]

A good sharp chisel can go a long way to helping carve out areas that need deepening for insertion of PE parts.

[themongoose]

My bathroom renovation is on hold today so it was a work bench morning 😃 I fitted up the splitter plates. They will need some card and putty up against the fuselage to finish them up. There's just some core differences in the academy and hasegawa shapes here that hopefully i can make look good on the finished products. Pics on this later once i get the front fuselage all together.

I cut off the integral coaming on the hasegawa and dry fitted the academy part. No rushing here, just slowly work that plastic back with the file. I'm making good use of the diamond files I bought last year for sure.

 

It feels like I'm bouncing around on parts as I have to return to the cockpit next. Funny how Placement of 1 part impacts how 3 more have to be located. Makes me appreciate the guys who create these kits so much more! I've gotta believe a 3D CAD must do wonders for impriving the alignment of parts when they're all done and go to see if all 50p poeces can now be fit together for 1 finished model.

[themongoose]

Well with some home remodeling needing done progress has been a tad slow. I’ve got some ordnance glued together since it’s easy to do while in the middle of other things. My spare time has been spent wworking on making the kit intakes as smooth as possible. I used a kids medicine plunger to get the house paint into the intakes without touching anything else. I just happened to have a very light cream colored paint leftover from the laundry room a few years back. So after this bit of rambling here’s my one pic for today!

[themongoose]

Making some good progress on the front fuselage today! It took me all afternoon to whittle the cockpit in there  

 

then i made a tracing of that empty space and cut some plastic, that’s repetitive on this build I might be getting the hang of it after all my practice hours, check it out...

[Guest Maxim]

Nice progress.

[themongoose]

Lots of pieces parts together so far but not one complete section yet. Guess I’ll post an update and share my progress. It definitely helps with the motivation  Feels like everything I touch is a custom piece lol

while the front fuselage was drying I put in the saddle and drilled a 15 degree hole in the bottom for the mount. These landing gear won’t hold the model let alone any resin and a nose weight I’m betting!

 

then on the opposite end I had to cut 2.5mm out of each nozzle and close them up in order to match it to the exhaust exit of the Hasegawa kit. Tricky, can't tell in the pic but you cut out a triangle shape so the exit staays the same diameter otherwise the inner nozzle won’t fit right. I used cement to melt the joint and you can hardly tell it’s there.

 

Primered all the weapons...ther’s 2 different SEAD stores here. A little teaser for the finale’ - I picked up some mini neodinium magnets and am going to try nd set up interchangable ordnance 

 

Last on the list was a test fit to setup my pilot’s personality...the arm ihad with my Navy pilot looks a bit like he’s giving the queen’s wave lol. Surprisingly after bashing 3 different sets together here he fits without hitting anything!

Edited August 17, 2018 by themongoose
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[themongoose]

I got a lesson on how to straighten wire when I was working on the nose gear bay. Here’s how the main bays are turning out. Tomorrow I’ll primer and add some details plus a few colored wires. I superglued some piano wire behind the diagonal gear support arm to add some strength. I plan to pin the connection point with the piano wire too in hopes of keeping it all together.

[alaninaustria]

Some serious work going on here - nice to see your “out of the box” strategies!! Looking great so far!!

Cheers

Alan

[themongoose]

So the bathroom that was leaking into the family room on the main floor is now fixed and I can start on some fun stuff again! Only took almost 4 months of evenings and weekends.

Ive got the front and back half together. I started something new, trying to scribe panel lines. It’s going ok, not going to be a show stopper unless i spend the same amount of time filling in the wandering paths i dug on a few occasions  

 

Tonight I decided to risk the whole model build and cut the flaps! I want to display it launching off a runway so I have to have them down, no getting around it, right? They turned out pretty good. I’m quite happy with them. 4 #11’s to make it happen though was a real surprise. 

 

[Dandiego]

Nice work. I also have this kit in the on deck circle. I too will be using parts from my Academy  kit. 

 

I see that you have cut out the aelerons  in the original short configuration. I am not sure this is correct for a Desert Storm Hornet. I thought that these were limited to just a few  very early airframes. Although I could be mistaken.

 

Dan

[themongoose]

Hey DanDiego you definitely scared me there  going back to the reference shots i have it looks like they match. I could be a little off because I didn’t have any clean shots from top or bottom in this timeframe to judge the width. Here’s a pic from dstorm.eu, there’s a bunch from vmfa451 that I’m using for reference. Does this look different than what you were thinking?

 

Edited November 3, 2018 by themongoose

[Dandiego]

I have checked several photos of F-18s during Desert Storm and they all appear to have the full span flaps that extend to the missile rail. One of my books indicates that the short span slats were gone by the mid 80s.

 

I purchased a resin update set for my build but I won't be using the resin plugs for the lerx slots. They are yours if you want them.

 

Dan

Edited November 3, 2018 by Dandiego

[themongoose]

Ok that’s doable. Just more cutting and it’s easy to glue those 2 sections together. Will pm you on the resin parts. Thanks!

[themongoose]

With a few more hours this evening I was able to get quite a bit done. If nothing else this thread should give the next person thinking about using the Hasegawa YF version of the Hornet some serious pause   Lots of filler pieces to make and modifications that won’t be seen to complete. If i can just get to paint I know I’ll feel better about it 

 

i finished modifying the airlerons. Nothing special to see there except there are 2 pieces that need cut off the fuselage and added to the airlerons and then 2 plugs need made for the pocket on the fuselage 

 

Fitted up the wings once that was done and started on the louvers, not sure what they are called. Could someone chime in on this one? These are from the AMUR Reaver set as are the other PE you’ll see below. So far these are the most complicated PE pieces I’ve done. Glad they came out nice.

 

much better than the plastic lines on the model for sure!

 

I added the brass tubing for the dump and the steel PE here 

 

and then I did the main vents under the nose. This piece was much easier to curl then it was to install. I ended up doing it twice. The first time I started in the middle and that was the wrong approach for sure. I ended up with ripples on the outer edges because it didn’t lay down right. The 2nd time i taped one long edge and then started glIng on the opposite side. That worked well and now it’s smooth.

 

 

Thats it for the week. Traveling for work so, till next weekend model on bros!

 

 

 

 

[Out2gtcha]

Looks goooooood!