RAN A4G

[CJP]

Hi All - I,m a newbie on LSP and thought I would post up my restoration of an old Hasegawa 1/32 Skyhawk kit that was gradually losing bits and succumbing to damage sitting on a shelf.

I actually have a current post for the WIP on Britmodeller and have only recently discovered some Skyhawk models on LSP by GDW and Anthony in NZ that got my admiration - as it is a 1/32 model I thought I would post the WIP here as well.

The link to the Britmodeller WIP is here - https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235027738-ran-a4g-skyhawk/

The photos below show where the restoration is up to as of this morning.

This is a  shot of where she will sit in the display case next to my Fisher Sea Fury - might even be able to

squeeze a 1/32 Sea Venom with folded wings in there too one day & maybe the Fisher Firefly!

 

regards

CJP

Edited September 23, 2018 by CJP
title

[LSP_Kevin]

Welcome aboard, sir!

 

 

Great to have you here. Looking forward to seeing your Skyhawk finished up. Looks like good work so far.

 

Kev

[Anthony in NZ]

Yep, great having you here!!  Love your Skyhawk, its inspiring to me.

 

Looking forward to seeing more of your talented workmanship over here!

 

Cheers

Anthony

[Greg W]

 Welcome to LSP Chris! Looks like we've started our own A-4 group build. I was on Britmodeller earlier checking out how you went about detailing the landing gear. The nose gear looks great. The leading edge slat parts you made out of metal are impressive as well. 

               

[CJP]

17 minutes ago, GDW said:

 Welcome to LSP Chris! Looks like we've started our own A-4 group build. I was on Britmodeller earlier checking out how you went about detailing the landing gear. The nose gear looks great. The leading edge slat parts you made out of metal are impressive as well. 

               

Thanks Greg - Calum kindly posted a link on my BM WIP to his A4K photo collection which has really good close up landing gear photos as well as the rest of the aircraft.

I ended up giving the metal slat runners a lot more curvature than I started with so that the slats hang down a bit more realistically and also had to taper the inner ends - it is a shame that Eduard did not include these in their slat etch to give a stronger attachment point.

 

[CJP]

Trying to a WIP in retrospect is not easy so I have selected some photos from the build rather than repeat everything that is on the Britmodeller WIP

the first photos show how the Skyhawk was separated into parts & the nose split to allow insertion of the Aires nose wheel bay and Avionics cockpit after a lot of fettling.

A soak in oven cleaner removed the previous paint job

The still to be finished canopy interior details - a lot of guess work here.

sketch of inner canopy lining detail that I fitted

shot gun pellets were used for nose weights

The Aires main wheel bays were able to be fitted but it was a tight squeeze requiring material to be removed from the inside of the wings and the resin bays

slat runners were made from model railway rail filed to shape - I ended up putting quite a bend in them to get the right droop on the slats

Extra detail was added to the Aires nose wheel leg and the kit wheel covers and re-scribing of some panel lines and made fin intake below.

 

Catapult hooks and intake blanks were scratch built

 

The copper wire brake lines were replaced with finer 20Amp fuse wire - Albion Alloys tubing was used for this nose wheel strut with plastic strip details - added push rod and linkage to rudder and ailerons - push moulded wingtip navigation  light covers

 

Hope this puts the post more in context.

Chris

Edited September 26, 2018 by CJP
text

[MikeMaben]

 

Hey Chris ! 

 

Top drawer work there .

 

 

 

[Greg W]

If you haven't already, check out these two builds by alaninaustria and ericg:

 

Both are incredibly good.

[CJP]

 

 

3 hours ago, GDW said:

If you haven't already, check out these two builds by alaninaustria and ericg:

 

Both are incredibly good.

Thanks Greg - I had seen & admired Ericg's Skyhawk before and have to say it pointed me in the right direction for modifying and detailing the undercarriage legs on my A4G - I shortened the mains by 4mm like Eric did - it really is a very neat model and attractive in the final wrap around camouflage scheme.

 

I just have looked at the alaninaustria build and it is another fine Skyhawk model and the first one I have seen using the Eduard vortex generators so lots of good useful information in that build too.

 

I also just found another nice A4K by KitmodellerNZ -

 

Chris

Edited September 25, 2018 by CJP
update

[CJP]

My Hasegawa Skyhawk inventory just had a massive expansion - GDW kindly sent me his kit sprues he no longer wants.

thanks again Greg

Very pleased to get the clear sprue as I need the underwing lights and landing light for the gear door on my A4G

Edited September 27, 2018 by CJP
add text

[Anthony in NZ]

Nice one!

[CJP]

Hi - I have been trying to do some refining of the wingtip navigation light assembly on my A4G and have come up with the following proportions to adjust a drawing I enlarged to 1/32 scale - it looks close enough compared to the accompanying photo of the real thing I found online - on the gull grey/white camouflage scheme I wonder if that strip at the back of the clear cover is white on all A4's or gull grey in some cases?

What I have not been able to find is what sort of globes light the clear part and where are they positioned - does  anyone have any information on this please

Chris

Edited September 29, 2018 by CJP
text

[DerekB]

very sweet work Chris. I was admiring two of these birds in the flesh at Nowra just 3 days ago.

[CJP]

2 hours ago, DerekB said:

very sweet work Chris. I was admiring two of these birds in the flesh at Nowra just 3 days ago.

 

 Thanks Derek - The FAA Museum at Nowra has a great collection of aircraft - unfortunately it has been quite a few years since I have been able to visit it.

Chris

[CJP]

Well I'm hoping that the new years modelling on the A4G will improve after a ropey start - first I wanted to see if I could paint the red/white checks on the rudder which was an early scheme and would mean I would fit a straight refuelling probe - later schemes would need the bent probe.

This is why I tried the rudder checks now before I finished the construction of the model.

 

I masked the checks with Tamiya tape after spraying a base of Tamiya flat white - this was followed by Tamiya flat red

 

The results when I pulled the tape off were not so good especially with the checks on the external ribs of the rudder -  the more I tried to neaten it up with a brush the more messy it got until I cleaned it all off and sprayed the base white again and started thinking about an alternative scheme maybe with the red/white checks on the fin.

I submitted a post here to see if anyone has advice on checks-

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/78523-i-need-help-painting-checkerboard-pattern/

 

 

Next the right hand airbrake departed into another dimension so I had to fabricate a new one from plastic scrap and sheet - I did not model the interior because I wanted to pose the airbrakes closed or just cracked open - the left hand kit part and my cobbled up airbrake are in the photo below.

I was hoping the RH airbrake might magically reappear but I've searched everywhere with no luck so I guess that's not going to happen.

CJP

 

Edited January 24, 2019 by CJP
link