F/A-18C seamless intakes: options & comparison?

[VintageEagle]

Hello,

 

I’ve tried to find 1/32 seamless intakes for the Academy F/A-18C. Although there seems to have been various options in the past, I couldn’t find any readily available.

 

Does anyone know if such intakes are still available? And what the best/most accurate option is/was?

 

As far as I read the kit’s intakes are too small in diameter.

 

Thanks,

 

Roger

[thierry laurent]

Out of my memory the external dimensions are ok but the internal ones are too small because the front lips are too thick.

[LSP_K2]

GT Resin, D-Mold and Seamless Suckers are all that I'm aware of. Which is better, I have no clue.

[Dave Williams]

Unless Seamless Suckers has improved over stuff I’ve gotten many years ago, I’d pass on them.  D-Mold is fine.  In addition, Cutting Edge and Rhino also did intakes for the Academy Hornet and are comparable to the D-Mold ones (some say they are all the same, but don’t want to get into another who-copied-who discussion).  The GT resin set is in stock at Sprue Brothers, but I don’t know if any of the others are available outside of eBay.

 

https://spruebrothers.com/gtr32052-1-32-gt-resin-f-18a-f-18b-f-18c-f-18d-hornet-seamless-intake-aca-kit/

 

Edited May 23, 2022 by Dave Williams

[VintageEagle]

Thank you all!  I tried to find a D-Mold intake as it seems to be among the better ones, but apparently they are no longer available. The GT one looks good, but I am not sure about the quality of the intakes that replace the kit parts. The “mesh” pattern looks a bit unsharp. 

 

If anyone has a D-Mold or a Cutting Edge intake for sale, please drop me a PM.

 

Thanks,

 

Roger

[Starfighter]

I don't have any for sale but I have some information - the DMold ones are restocked from time to time and the concept seems to ease painting, but the parts dont fit that well, causing a step between the front part and the intake trunks. The Rhino ones are one-part intakes which makes painting more difficult; the problem with them is the fact that the mesh pattern is not properly molded. I will probably use Eduard PE meshes on the Rhino intakes.

[VintageEagle]

Thank you Starfighter for the helpful information. As far as I could find out, the owner of DMold is based in Russia and is therefore not likely to sell anything to Europe or NAM anytime soon. Are the Rhino intakes also one-part intakes? The GT resin intakes also seem to be one-part intakes. So maybe it's the best option to combine them with Eduard PE meshes as they are available.

[Starfighter]

You are welcome. The Rhino ones are one-part intakes. No idea about the GT ones; having seen some of their other parts, I am not going to spend any money on their intakes. 

[Neo]

I just used the Sierra hotel model ones on my hornet. Really beautiful casting mesh is sharp, but i ran into some fit issue but it could be 100% my fault. I think i should have trimmed the back end where it touches the gear bay.

I ended up with a large gap between the intake lip and the model. 

They are one piece, painted the lip then dipped to get a good line pretty easy to paint. 

[VintageEagle]

3 hours ago, Starfighter said:

You are welcome. The Rhino ones are one-part intakes. No idea about the GT ones; having seen some of their other parts, I am not going to spend any money on their intakes. 

Thank you for your opinion on the GT intakes. 

 

44 minutes ago, Neo said:

I just used the Sierra hotel model ones on my hornet. Really beautiful casting mesh is sharp, but i ran into some fit issue but it could be 100% my fault. I think i should have trimmed the back end where it touches the gear bay.

I ended up with a large gap between the intake lip and the model. 

They are one piece, painted the lip then dipped to get a good line pretty easy to paint. 

Than you Neo. I hadn't had that one on the radar yet. Unfortunately, it is sold out on their website. In the meantime I could buy a D-Mold intake from a LSP member (thank you!), but would be nice to have a one-piece intake for comparison. If anybody has a Sierra Hotel intake for sale, please let me know :-)

[Neo]

So here is the result I got, bear in mind its my first time using seamless intakes in 1/32 (did a 1/48 A-7 years ago) and only my second Jet in 1/32 first being a T1 hawk so a more skilled modeler probably could have gotten these to fit well

 

I based the position of the intakes on the fit from the back of the intake to the fuselage, and glued them in before the wings and the side panel. having the winf in place i would have noticed the it needed to come up more to be snug with the wing. 

 

 

 

[chrish]

8 hours ago, Neo said:

So here is the result I got, bear in mind its my first time using seamless intakes in 1/32 (did a 1/48 A-7 years ago) and only my second Jet in 1/32 first being a T1 hawk so a more skilled modeler probably could have gotten these to fit well

 

I based the position of the intakes on the fit from the back of the intake to the fuselage, and glued them in before the wings and the side panel. having the winf in place i would have noticed the it needed to come up more to be snug with the wing. 

 

 

 

Stealing/ borrowjacking the thread  a bit, the Dmold intakes fit very nicely but can be improved by sanding the back of the flange for the intake mouth to make it fit more tightly against the fuselage sides. As well, trimming the inside of the riser (for the metal landing gear skeleton) allows the Dmold intakes to sit down closer to the gear bay interior, you also have to trim that landing gear metal insert post part as it goes in far enough to interfere with the resin intake as well.

then there’s a small overhang at the rear of the gear bay with a relief in the intake trunking (that I also trimmed deeper) to allow the intake trunks some wriggle room, all this learned from previous attempts at installing the Dmold intakes.

[VintageEagle]

18 hours ago, Neo said:

So here is the result I got, bear in mind its my first time using seamless intakes in 1/32 (did a 1/48 A-7 years ago) and only my second Jet in 1/32 first being a T1 hawk so a more skilled modeler probably could have gotten these to fit well

 

I based the position of the intakes on the fit from the back of the intake to the fuselage, and glued them in before the wings and the side panel. having the winf in place i would have noticed the it needed to come up more to be snug with the wing. 

 

 

 

 

Many thanks Neo for sharing your experiences and photos with the Sierra Hotel intakes. It's great to see the actual parts "in action". 

 

9 hours ago, chrish said:

Stealing/ borrowjacking the thread  a bit, the Dmold intakes fit very nicely but can be improved by sanding the back of the flange for the intake mouth to make it fit more tightly against the fuselage sides. As well, trimming the inside of the riser (for the metal landing gear skeleton) allows the Dmold intakes to sit down closer to the gear bay interior, you also have to trim that landing gear metal insert post part as it goes in far enough to interfere with the resin intake as well.

then there’s a small overhang at the rear of the gear bay with a relief in the intake trunking (that I also trimmed deeper) to allow the intake trunks some wriggle room, all this learned from previous attempts at installing the Dmold intakes.

 

Thank you as well Chris for sharing your experience with the D-Mold intakes. I will make sure to follow your advice. It would be great to see a picture of them on your build for comparison with the Sierra Hotel intakes. 

[chrish]

13 hours ago, VintageEagle said:

 

Many thanks Neo for sharing your experiences and photos with the Sierra Hotel intakes. It's great to see the actual parts "in action". 

 

 

Thank you as well Chris for sharing your experience with the D-Mold intakes. I will make sure to follow your advice. It would be great to see a picture of them on your build for comparison with the Sierra Hotel intakes. 

I used Dmold intake trunks on a previous build CF 188 “60 Years of NATO” a couple of years ago (apparently I somehow deleted all the pictures) and a recent build (still in the works in progress section) Academy 1/32 Chippy Ho. 
I didn’t get many pictures of the fitting out though.

[BloorwestSiR]

Here's the Rhino intakes I used on my Tiger Meet CF-18.

 

 

I installed them first before I put either side on 

 

 

 

 

This seemed to give me the cleanest fit when I did it.

 

 

 

Carl