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DigiHell & the F/A-18F Super Hornet - 3rd Wire & On The Deck


themongoose

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So while I’m waiting on replacement IP decals for my F4 phantom I decided to start on my Hornet. My buddy over in Louisville and I have been looking at these and got a great deal from the LHS! So we bought a pair and we’re gonna work them together although I will be a little slower ha ha :D i’ve had a picture of the digital camo from the 100th anniversary of Naval aviation in my albums forever and this is a great chance to go ahead and try and do this. It’s gonna be all about the paint as usual for me and I’m going to be doing it with thousands and thousands of rectangles all done in Tamiya tape in order to come up with this pattern! So I won’t bore you with a lot of details but I will try and catch the intricate assembly steps for a couple of the quirks in assembling this kit.

here’s the kit on the shelf at the LHS with my buddy’s 

EF764E6F-BAE7-4650-A5D7-B710DB7BF77B-338


working on the cockpit of course this week. It’s a nice little subassembly that I felt like I could do in between other things. I’m doing everything pretty much out of the box maybe just a little ad here or there but nothing major. For instance I added some Tamiya tape straps here to accentuate the photo etch seatbelts but that’s almost the only thing I added in the cockpit except that safe latch on the right side of each seat. 
when I was working on my aircraft carrier I bought some 60 mash flour sifters in order to use for screens and vents. I was looking at the seats in the Burt Kinsey book and thought hey, I have another use for those…

93069761-053B-4A3B-999E-EC786E170187-600

 

95993B36-968C-4C8E-94BA-A426264801B9-338

 

and here’s where I’m at today. I used glazes on the seatbelts to try and get a little bit of depth to the color. I used Bondek to make the glass for the instrument panel. Some air scale decals to add to what came with the kit and a lot of little detail painting to close it out.

 

ECC2F00C-7003-4ECE-B6E5-DC171E330F98-338

 

07659975-FACC-49A7-ABF4-1C2466595403-338

 

4BF7F07F-C996-4C7E-BBEA-3720C9983D4E-600


 

B509C801-3397-4ED1-AB1B-1AB7B478ADCF-338

 

F52155E1-EA7C-4142-A6B3-EAD237FFB795-600

 

and that concludes the cockpit walk around for this week! Now I rambled on about this cockpit and I didn’t really show you a picture of what that title really means so here’s a teaser, probably for the end of the summer

2EA38C0B-3FD3-42CD-8D35-7254A213102F-600

 

Edited by themongoose
My poor typing skills
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9 hours ago, themongoose said:

So while I’m waiting on replacement IP decals for my F4 phantom I decided to start on my Hornet. My buddy over in Louisville and I have been looking at these and got a great deal from the LHS! So we bought a pair and we’re gonna work them together although I will be a little slower ha ha :D i’ve had a picture of the digital camo from the 100th anniversary of Naval aviation in my albums forever and this is a great chance to go ahead and try and do this. It’s gonna be all about the paint as usual for me and I’m going to be doing it with thousands and thousands of rectangles all done in Tamiya tape in order to come up with this pattern! So I won’t bore you with a lot of details but I will try and catch the intricate assembly steps for a couple of the quirks in assembling this kit.

here’s the kit on the shelf at the LHS with my buddy’s 

EF764E6F-BAE7-4650-A5D7-B710DB7BF77B-338


working on the cockpit of course this week. It’s a nice little subassembly that I felt like I could do in between other things. I’m doing everything pretty much out of the box maybe just a little ad here or there but nothing major. For instance I added some Tamiya tape straps here to accentuate the photo etch seatbelts but that’s almost the only thing I added in the cockpit except that safe latch on the right side of each seat. 
when I was working on my aircraft carrier I bought some 60 mash flour sifters in order to use for screens and vents. I was looking at the seats in the Burt Kinsey book and thought hey, I have another use for those…

93069761-053B-4A3B-999E-EC786E170187-600

 

95993B36-968C-4C8E-94BA-A426264801B9-338

 

So you woke up one morning and rummaged around while making coffee and found an old flour sifter and some tape and a crappy kit seat and came up with this.  Twice.  That’s your story, right?

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2 hours ago, Oldbaldguy said:

So you woke up one morning and rummaged around while making coffee and found an old flour sifter and some tape and a crappy kit seat and came up with this.  Twice.  That’s your story, right?


To quote an old Saturday Night Live skit, “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!” :frantic: :D

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1 hour ago, Youngtiger1 said:

Nice choice of scheme. Are you going to mask all of the marking or are you creating your own decals?

Yes, going to be a triumvirate I think - I’ve found the eagles in color on another decal sheet, most of the stars and bars type I will work in with the masks, and i think I’ve found the Dept. of the Navy emblem as a decal but need to see if available in 1/32, and as a last ditch effort i will try to print some on the work laser printer. The 100th anniversary lettering I’m still debating. I think i could do better with a mask than a decal. So far my experience is that decal film for printing is quite thick. It’s really hard to hide it under clear coat. This one especially because it will be no less than a satin coat of clear. I looked up some alternatives for decal film Nd have something identified. Now to find it and order a package to try out.

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  • themongoose changed the title to DigiHell & the F/A-18F Super Hornet

Hey Guys here's the 1st of a 2 part fuselage assembly. I've got a few things to show for my efforts so far. You definitely feel like you need 4 or 5 hands during this assembly. Let's jump right into it - I read a few build threads and my buddy is done with this part so I got his insights as well. There's 2 trains of thought on assembling the intake itself, attach the inside wall 1st or last essentially. I took the approach of attaching it 1st.

the bottom goes together well

A8247D49-11CF-429F-B9F2-6E07D1696D86-338

 

the top not so much. It's a uniform gap that will take some filler if not using FOD covers. It's pretty small so no big deal. given I'm assembling them with no stress on them there's just no way to improve this without shaving some plastic off. 

C5991BF2-6FDA-472D-95D3-915E49BF9D74-338

 

My buddy did the opposite as I understand it and glued the back panel to the lower fuselage 1st (before gluing it to the intake). his turned out great as well so there's 2 options here.

I did some dryfitting and put it together with tape to decide how to tackle the rest.

5206A606-A370-4CB9-A47C-E91E47DEC117-600

 

The best way seemed to be starting at the back and working forward. I sanded and got ti all to fit nice 1st, then tacked the back corner with CA. Came back around after that dried and used cement and some plasticard to stiffen up the joint.

11BBB946-1BA7-4920-94EA-F43DC9B9BA17-338

 

E93A7A0D-8BF6-42E6-A866-1529E758A51D-338

 

working my way to the front in the same manner it all lined up pretty darn great.

0FC6E96E-CC41-4A26-BA84-7FC1F78C95E7-600

 

224C6367-10FF-44C6-9FFE-62B42F62F519-338

 

Next up was some alignment tabs. Caution on the ones I did in the 1st pic below near the wing joint. I didn't realize at first that the top and bottom tabs are different thicknesses. For the final fit the alignment tabs had to be bent inward some to get everything to fit. Works but, would have been better a different way from the beginning.

0261DCB3-2BC5-4522-BC78-AAB88AE98D18-600

 

then the back half

E8A59F75-9A83-4CBF-BDC4-ABB471FDC581-600 0CD41BDE-A271-4B3A-ABFE-44BFE4832D27-338

 

And the reason I'm doing it as a 2 parter...there are a number of vents and things I wanted to modify and those are best done before all the assembly so the parts are easier to manipulate in my opinion. 

Those very large and obvious ducts into the intakes on top of the fuselage. Left side is thinned out here to show the difference.

1D1D3CDE-387A-4CF3-A0E6-7D7B3744452D-600

 

And here the right side is completed vs the left side stock.

F3EED8AE-8BDC-4FEE-A540-597EB38C7EA5-600

 

Similarly I added some depth to the vents on the sides of the intakes as well. Will clean these up before paint.

7C52245A-BEA4-4241-8F51-146E74A8EF1F-338

 

then I wanted to give some depth to the ECS vents - opened up on the left, stock kit on the right

B46A4BBB-82BE-41A0-9C50-82FC167D44BF-338

 

And last, even though it will be hard to see without a mirror I really thought the large vent on the lower fuselage needed opened up. 

028593BB-CB38-4F68-8D65-1AB7ED15EED4-338

 

3D64526D-2AA4-4792-9A52-B8566FA50FDD-338

 

A little cleanup and fill to finish it up and it will be good to go.

CFAF0C05-A2E9-467C-936C-08CFEB13A3CA-338

 

 

All done for the moment. I'll return tonight I hope with part 2 of Fuselage Assembly :-)

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  • themongoose changed the title to DigiHell & the F/A-18F Super Hornet - Fuselage pt1

Gentlemen glad you're enjoying the scenery here! I'm onto joining the top and bottom halves of the fuselage together. This is coming together nicely. I feel like I keep saying that :unsure: This is just one of those models that needs caressing and talked to, like a good Stock Car to perform best (flashback to Days of Thunder movie lol).

The dry fit was looking good and aligned without a lot of pressure required to hold the joints together so I marched forward...although I started at the back :rolleyes:

So the joint looked just a litttle off with some small gaps. When I looked close these weird ejector pin marks were in the plastic right on the mating surface. Blown up here quite a bit but believe me sanding them down helped the fit.

F1532D34-0560-4DC9-82AF-5B94974A154A-338

 

Some supports for the stabilators

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Starboard side a clean joint front to back, no fill yet but there may not be any after I sand the surfaces down a little. They are pretty much flush with each other. I used the slot for the vertical fin and some curved tweezers to push the lower portion of the joint out a little till the cement dried so that they stayed aligned. Pushing on the top and bottom to pinch the joint together seemed to push the surfaces in at an angle and throw the alignment off. I had put tape on the joint and then noticed it was causing the joint to dry with a step in it. BAD JUJU :fight:

281F4D3D-6FEF-48D3-B9ED-29FB0E329451-338

 

E2C275F7-4EB1-46D4-8F53-965BFC92444C-338

 

Port side joints were great except behind the wing. Clamping them together seemed to change the alignment so I decided it just was better to follow Dad's old addage and "don't force it". a piece of 5 thousandths sheet slid right in and closed it up. Ended up not requiring any clamps, just some tape on this one end to close the whole thing up.

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37AF076D-2E8A-4DF3-A075-EDD2BF51E42E-600

 

Now the very very last thing to do is close up the intakes to the fuselage sides. This is the step Trumpy has you do 1st. Last definitely seems to work better.

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8B17E9ED-C7F0-4611-8BAB-8A773E31BF13-338

 

You'll notice I had the wings glued to the upper fuselage already. I was test fitting and ran into this quandary...

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No way to get these to fit if you put the fuselage halves together 1st. Reading the instructions a 3rd time, after talking with my buddy cbowling about how he did it, I realized Trumpy is trying to tell us to put the wing in 1st. It just plain isn't clear. Definitely a watch-out for you future builders.

 

Now to let it all dry for an hour and then onto the forward fuselage assembly. Cross your fingers it still lines up as good as it did when I had it taped together :please:

Edited by themongoose
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