Marcel111 Posted May 2, 2021 Author Share Posted May 2, 2021 (edited) On 3/19/2021 at 3:18 PM, chuck540z3 said: Great looking seats Marcel! I hear you with not wanting to use CA glue on canopy parts, which is why I now use Gator Glue whenever I need to glue brass to clear plastic. It cleans up with water and the bond is quite good. Cheers, Chuck Agree, I am using Gator glue a lot these days also... just wanted something extra strong for the frame since my clumsy fingers are likely to accidentally tug it off. So I initially cheated myself into thinking I could do this build without filling the rivets that Trumpeter mistakenly showered the kit with. That quickly changed when I airbrushed some gray onto the model, the rivets make the model look badly off and really need to be taken care of. Incidentally, I am seeing many online builds of this kit where the rivets are left on (ok, I'm lazy too) but then highlighted with pre-shading... I'm glad guys on this forum tend to be inspired by the real deal a little more. I've sunk a huge number of hours into just generally cleaning up the kit, this is where I am now... look Ma, no more rivets: Closer view, still needs a lot of work: Closer view of the rear area. Note the scratched formation light strips and raised panels around that little exhaust at the rear. Also, I introduced raised "washers" punched from plastic sheet around the airbrake perimeter. In reality these are hexagonal but that was too much of a stretch for me, at least they are now raised as they are on the real deal. No more rivets along the intake. I made some of the panels raised as they seem to look in pics I found. Cheers, Marcel Edited May 2, 2021 by Marcel111 chuck540z3, phasephantomphixer, Scotsman and 13 others 16 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allthumbs Posted May 2, 2021 Share Posted May 2, 2021 Marcel, Your 'truder is coming along great. What technique(s) did you employ to fill the rivets? Rich Marcel111 and phasephantomphixer 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcel111 Posted May 3, 2021 Author Share Posted May 3, 2021 15 hours ago, allthumbs said: Marcel, Your 'truder is coming along great. What technique(s) did you employ to fill the rivets? Rich Thx Rich. I filled all the rivets on the fuselage with superglue. Obviously a pain to sand down but I have previously found that doing so with filler etc results in indentations here and there, which requires endless filling/sanding repeats. With superglue it's one big painful operation but then it's done. On the wings I filled the chord-wise rivets with superglue. I used Mr Surfacer 500 to fill the spanwise rivets since pics I have show that some spanwise rivet detail is very faintly visible, so I'm ok with the odd spanwise rivet still slightly showing. Will no doubt get a deduction for inconsistent rivet detail if I enter the model into a contest but that's what the real thing seems to look like. Cheers, Marcel stusbke, Anthony in NZ, Greg W and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allthumbs Posted May 3, 2021 Share Posted May 3, 2021 Great explanations...and a smart way of approaching the challenging task of eliminating recessed surface details. On it’s face, the operation seems straight forward enough. But, in practice, it’s anything but! Nice job...and looking forward to more! Marcel111 and phasephantomphixer 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony in NZ Posted May 3, 2021 Share Posted May 3, 2021 4 hours ago, Marcel111 said: Thx Rich. I filled all the rivets on the fuselage with superglue. Obviously a pain to sand down but I have previously found that doing so with filler etc results in indentations here and there, which requires endless filling/sanding repeats. With superglue it's one big painful operation but then it's done. On the wings I filled the chord-wise rivets with superglue. I used Mr Surfacer 500 to fill the spanwise rivets since pics I have show that some spanwise rivet detail is very faintly visible, so I'm ok with the odd spanwise rivet still slightly showing. Will no doubt get a deduction for inconsistent rivet detail if I enter the model into a contest but that's what the real thing seems to look like. Cheers, Marcel Marcel, I hear ya on the CA with the rivets. I filled all mine in with my CA on my Trumpeter TBF Avenger....I hit the wall after that! You are correct it is an endless fill and sand process, I think the results are worth it though. I absolutely love the look you have given this A-6 and the partial riveting showing through on the wings will look awesome! Hang in there buddy, your results are speaking for themselves! Cheers Anthony Marcel111 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeroen_R90S Posted May 12, 2021 Share Posted May 12, 2021 While I love the look, I really could not imagine filling all those rivets myself. IMHO it's one of the bigger downsides of this otherwise nice model. I intend to paint a nice coat of primer, then scribe the panel lines back to plastic, give it a little sanding, and hope that will subdue the rivets enough. Time will tell... doing it your way will sureley obliterate them, but I'd never get the model done, and my shelf of doom isn't large enough to hold it Looking great so far! Marcel111 and MikeMaben 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcel111 Posted May 13, 2021 Author Share Posted May 13, 2021 On 5/12/2021 at 9:32 AM, jeroen_R90S said: While I love the look, I really could not imagine filling all those rivets myself. IMHO it's one of the bigger downsides of this otherwise nice model. I intend to paint a nice coat of primer, then scribe the panel lines back to plastic, give it a little sanding, and hope that will subdue the rivets enough. Time will tell... doing it your way will sureley obliterate them, but I'd never get the model done, and my shelf of doom isn't large enough to hold it Looking great so far! Thx Jeroen, yeah filling the rivets really is a pain and in a way I'm glad I only came around to the idea this far into the build, else I may never have started the build a all. I am taking a bit of a break from this project right now, I'm away from home and hence my airbrush since we had to move out of our house due to a major rebuild we are doing. Launching into the Tamiya F-14 but hopefully will re-engage this in a few weeks with renewed vigor. Cheers, Marcel Anthony in NZ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scvrobeson Posted May 13, 2021 Share Posted May 13, 2021 Filling those rivets really does help the overall look of the plane. I know it was a ton of effort, but it does show in the end. Keep up the great work. Matt Marcel111 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcel111 Posted May 18, 2021 Author Share Posted May 18, 2021 On 5/13/2021 at 7:45 PM, scvrobeson said: Filling those rivets really does help the overall look of the plane. I know it was a ton of effort, but it does show in the end. Keep up the great work. Matt Thanks Matt! So a double whammy on this build. I had lengthened the Tamiya MER's to accomodate the Rockeyes but then went ahead and bought the Eduard MER's since they have some really nice detail and I figured Eduard would ensure that their Rockeyes would fit on their TER's and MER's. Turns out the Eduard MER's are far too short, so I will once again have to lengthen these: Also, on the wings, I thought I'd use Mr Surfacer 500 to fill the spanwise rivets since some fasteners are still faintly visible along the span of the real thing. This didn't work out at all, so after filling and sanding both wings I'll need to go back to the drawing board and fill all of the wing rivets with superglue, just as I did on the body of the jet. Cheers, Marcel Anthony in NZ, stusbke, scvrobeson and 3 others 4 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcel111 Posted June 7, 2021 Author Share Posted June 7, 2021 (edited) I have sunk a huge number of hours into this build over the last two weeks, in-between jobs right now so I have the time. That said, all those hours have mostly been spent on fine surface detail upgrades, so from afar the model looks much the same. Here's a closer look at the center fuselage section. You may notice quite a few reintroduced panel lines and rivet patterns. Also, I have added some lumpy bits along the spine similar to what I have seen on the real thing... I really want to replicate that super rough look A-6's had by the time they served in DS. Looking at the wing, you can see the scratch-built wing fence with Archer rivets used on the wing mount. If you look really carefully, you'll see an Archer piano hinge on the flap... these were indeed suspended by piano hinge. The fasteners around the wing root on the real deal look extraordinarily rough, with some of them not flush mounted. I reamed the upper row with a 0.5mm drill to make them more pronounced, the lower set of fasteners were applied using Archer rivets. A different shot of the wing. Note that I tried to recreate the weld seams visible on the real deal, see top left of the pic. The horizontal stab was again superglued and sanded so as to get rid of the rivets. The detail you can see in the below pic was then reintroduced (scribed/punched). As with the wings, some of the original rivets are still faintly visible which corresponds to the close-up pics I was able to find of the real deal. Brass pitot is in. More Archer rivets, this time around the exhaust area an on the engine nacelle. Chaff/flare dispenser was drilled out. Also added some detail to the tailhook bay, also note a bunch of plating added all over the show. Here is where I am with the outside wing, the underside of which will be a focal area of the model since I am displaying the model with wings folded. So after filling the rivets with superglue and sanding, I've started to add a bunch of detail, you can see the white styrene peaking through after some correcting. Next up will be some Archer riveting on some of those very slightly raised panels (I used 0.1mm styrene sheet). Cheers, Marcel Edited June 7, 2021 by Marcel111 easixpedro, johncrow, Anthony in NZ and 10 others 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starfighter Posted June 7, 2021 Share Posted June 7, 2021 Noice progress, ma'e! Marcel111 and Anthony in NZ 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted June 7, 2021 Share Posted June 7, 2021 Very nice details Marcel! I wasn't sure what you were going to do after filling in all those rivets, but this work really makes the surfaces look more realistic- and unique compared to other builds of this kit. Cheers, Chuck Marcel111, A-10LOADER and Anthony in NZ 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony in NZ Posted June 7, 2021 Share Posted June 7, 2021 Oh my goodness that extra hard work sure has paid off! She looks amazing. The devil is in the details they say and you sure are doing that. To me it is this kind of stuff that sets a model apart. Well done mate, love it! Marcel111 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easixpedro Posted June 8, 2021 Share Posted June 8, 2021 Oh that piano hinge looks amazing! Didn’t know archer made that...will have to pick some up for my Prowler when I add the flaperons. Thanks for the tip! Marcel111 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squizzy 78 Posted June 8, 2021 Share Posted June 8, 2021 That detail is going to pop once painting and weathering is complete, I can’t wait to see more! Great work Marcel. I’ve got this kit sitting in my cupboard, but I’m reluctant to start it, I don’t know why?! I know it’s expensive, don’t care about that, it’s big, don’t care, maybe past Trumpeter kits have scared me off! How have you found it Marcel, I know you have completed an awesome looking trumpeter tomcat, is it a similar type build in construction? Marcel111 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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