Revell F/A-18E Super Hornet build.

[chrish]

Well...Thanks to you and the other builders of this kit for their effort to building this model and sorting out and posting the issues found. As for the rest of us, those that may attempt to follow that is, I wish you all luck...I just bought some "corrections" I could find for the Trumpeter kit (G) in my stash, I don't think.. no, I know, I don't have the stamina to fight this Revell F-18 kit.  I'll definitely keep watching these builds with a kind of morbid curiosity though.

Great work so far!

[dmthamade]

I take satisfaction from problem solving, so this build isn't a total soul crushing, buzz killing, depression inducing experience that some ESCI (try their MRCA Tornado or Alpha Jet) kits were. All the work, dryfitting, futzing about did get results, problem is, all the work, dryfitting,and futzing about that had to be done!! Warning!! when it came out, the Trumpeter kit was equally slammed, and for many of the same reasons and a few more additional. I did do a build on it, wasn't a walk in the park either. If I had to make a choice to build either one or the other again, I really think I would take a zero and stay home.

 

Don

[chrish]

Tamiya all the way?

[dmthamade]

I'll have to say, I've done one recent Tamiya 1/32 super kit, a Spitfire, great build, and I have 3 (Corsair, Mustang Mosquito)  in the stash, otherwise my recent builds have been other mainstream builds. Revell, Hasegawa, Italeri, Trumpeter are the most common, with Trumpeter leading. Funny, thinking about it now, i'd rather do battle with a kit that fights back  than do a Tamiya super kit. Odd....

 

Don

[chrish]

I feel your...pain? I will get into a short run resin kit of an esoteric cargo plane with half dozen Tamiya kits in my stash waiting for assembly...We model builders are an odd bunch indeed...Well,  speaking for myself at least.

[stusbke]

On 4/27/2019 at 4:01 AM, Zactoman said:

 

What an unfortunate piece of... "Engineering" shall we call it. Sad that the Revell I grew up on, that was showing continuous signs of improvement, dropped the ball so badly.

Keep up the good work. It almost looks like a fun challenge (if you have masochistic tendencies ).

 

Is that the kit AMRAAM? It looked more detailed in the instruction sheet. I ask because I am about ready to release an aftermarket version ( http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/306361-132-aim-120/ ) and want comparisons to existing parts.

 

 

You're making amraams dude....that just made my day...

 

Cheers

Frederick Jacobs

[dmthamade]

Relaxing a bit, working on the nose cone. Took a lot of work to get it to mate up to the forward fuselage, cut away all the locators around the gun outlet and shaved away a lot of plastic inside the cone to clear the locator on the fuselage. Cone itself  is....odd looking. I did comparisons to published pics, it looks too blunt, needs more of a point. From the top view it looks too fat, should taper more. Has an odd top surface, looks like it has a lump on top near the tip. The part itself has flat spots and high points, i've been sanding away at this thing for hours to get it to resemble a nose. Not a truly accurate comparison, but the pics compare to the Trumpeter kit, at least the Trumpeter closely matches published pics.

 

Not much more that i can do to the nose, is what it is. Constantly skating up hill on this thing...

 

Don

[Telepatu]

Whoah. I was going to start this kit but now I'm having second thoughts. I'll be following your progress closely.

 

Br, Jani

[chrish]

I see what you mean...the fuselage doesn't even seem right aft of the nose cone (radome) in taper from above. The Trumpeter one more closely resembles the images of the real aircraft...optical illusion?

[hpetiers]

Hi dmthamade, so i found your build, thanks for sharing your experiences on this build. I can relatie to all of your fit challenges. Funny to see how you succeeded in fitting the inner intakes, there is more ways that lead to Rome!  How do you plan on painting the insides of the intakes gray in wonder? Note that revell does not give you any indication here.

if you have not mounted the upper wings yet, I advise to remove the splitters of the small exhausts of the LERX from the bottom wings and glue them under the top wings first. It's much easier to clean up the seem this way. For what it is worth...

Edited May 1, 2019 by hpetiers

[dmthamade]

I'm debating how much work i'm going to do to the intakes. Something I do when building jets is to mask and paint them before getting too involved. Guess what I forgot to do....I will say the fit of the parts isn't too bad, small amount of filler would take care of things. Whether I want to...There are screens on the inner surface that in all likelihood be removed sanding in the intake, thanks again Revell. The inner parts of the intakes did fit ok, I have to tell you, I had a BIG pile of shavings and chunks removed to get these to fit. I did install the upper surface, fit was ok, was able to cement the parts you describe through the open front. These two parts do add support to the upper fuselage/wings, fit isn't that great. I should have spent more time on these, will be a PITA to clean up.

 

Don

Edited May 2, 2019 by dmthamade

[Roy Noras]

Hi Don

 

I really love your build, but did you stop here and gave up? I know it's several years ago, but I would really like to know how the rest of your build went along 

 

(-: Roy