Hog's firepower display - A-10C - Full makeup

[A-10LOADER]

" Other specific details are missing such as the double dots in the middle of the sway brace on the left of each weapon (no idea of the name and purpose of that recessed area with these 2 dots, lights on pylon 1 and 11 and bumps and fairing on various pylons. "

 

The "double dots" are the impulse cartridge retainers, which hold the carts. The carts kinda look like small shotgun shells. Any weapons station, that has a "jettison-able" store on it (bombs, fuel tank ) will be carted. Those cart retainers get torqued to 275 inch pounds and the bomb rack will have a MAU-40/50 safety pin installed with a "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" streamer attached to it. Stations that carry "non jettison-able" items ( DRA for the AIM-9's, LITENING pod, travel pod ) are never carted. The cart retainers are installed hand tight and safety wired to keep them from falling out. Those MAU-40/50 pins are installed in the bomb rack without the RBF streamers and get safety wired to the rear cart retainer.

The A-10A and C pylons/bomb racks are the same externally, the difference with stations 2 and 10 is that they were modified ( wired ) to carry the Litening pod, along with other stations making them JDAM capable. Also some of the sheet metal openings on the bottom of the pylons, were made larger to accommodate the 1760 cable that gets used with the JDAMS.  HTH.

Steve

Edited November 7, 2023 by A-10LOADER

[red Dog]

great stuff as always Steve, I knew you'd chime in with your knowledge  Thanks

[red Dog]

Pylon #1 & #11

 

The outer pylons suffer from the wrong decelerons structure line on the bottom of the wings

 

 

The rear fairing must be cut at the end of the wing, the decelerons attachement point moved forward a bit and the pointy end of the pylon shortened as well.

 

From the picture above you can also see that the distance between the two sway braces is way too long and must be shortened. It's the case on all pylons.

The rear one must be moved forward. The original was filled with styrene bits and sanded smooth. The new one was just created with a file.
The recessed rivets and panel lines were all filled with Water based Perfect putty in 2 subsequent applications. 

The impulse cartridge retainers were created on the left of each panel by first making a rectangular recess and then gluing two large dots moulded in the Green stuff rivet silicon moulds I used earlier in this build. 

 

The rear of the pylon has been modified by cutting the hydraulic decelerons arm, which will be lengthened and replaced inside the new pylon opening. 

 

The MAU-40/50 bolts were added (I will detail the process with another pait of pylon work) and the pylons were engraved for panel lines.

Before adding positive rivets I always gave the modified pylon a coat of gloss X-22.

Then using different size rivets I tried to replicate the real rivet patterns. It's not 100% perfect but IMHO close enough.
After the rivets were all placed and given 3 coats of daco ultra strong decal solution, I applied again a Coat of X-22 to seal them

Small door hinges were created with stretched sprues and holes for the safety pins were drilled.

 

An interesting feature missing from the Trumpeter pylons 1 & 11 are the refuelling lights located on the fuselage side of each pylon. They illuminate the nose for the boomer I guess. 
These were added from scratch

Edited November 8, 2023 by red Dog

[A-10LOADER]

Jeez, just re-doing all 11 pylons will be like building a whole model by themselves.

Looking good so far Red Dog.

Steve

[red Dog]

Yep, I am afraid so

 

Station #2 and # 10

 

 

I have a feeling these 2pylons are not high enough. But I won't correct that.

The reason I feel that is the way the bump at the wing junction is implemented by Trumpeter.

The bump is very small and when compared to the real picture above, it seems it's been cut with the whole top part of the pylon missing.

I have no way of checking this, so I decided to compromise and implement a larger bump and leave with the probable smaller pylon.

 

The same conclusion was done for pylon #4 and #8 which also have a very small bump where they should have the same one as above. They were modified as well.

 

Correcting the bump was done with white milliput on one pylon.  It's done by eye with no accurate measurements.

The other corrections are done as well

- filling the rear sway brace location which is too far apart from the forward one.

- digging the rectangular hole for the impulse cartridge retainers, Filling all rivets and panel lines with putty and sanding 

 

The bump was then replicated with thermoplastic with the pylon placed on the wing.

 

And Tamiya light curing putty was used to duplicate the bumps to be used on the other pylon (same was done for the #4 & #8 pylons)

 

 

Next: drilling the holes for the MAU-40/50 racks and, making new panel lines and adding rivets. I usually use Archer's for the biggers ones, Quinta 1/24 for the middles and Quinta's 1/32 fo rthe small ones. Before painting these gets at least 3 coats of decal solution and 2 coats of X-22 gloss.

[A-10LOADER]

Nice work on the pylon corrections, this will be a great improvement for the overall build.

Steve

[red Dog]

Station #3 & #9

 

This pair has the more or less correct fairing but the particularity is that both location for the sway brace need to be moved. 

The forward one is just a bit too forward and the rear one is as always way too much aft. 

 

 

The MAU-40/50 bolts location must all be replaced alongside the sway brace location. 
I first mark the new 4 bolt locations, then drill 4 holes taking care not to go through the plastic. It happened quite a few times and in that case I had to slide a thin piece of styrene inside the pylon. 

 

The inner bolt recess shape is made more pointy 

 

Then I simply placed the moulded bolt I created with Tamiya light curing putty in the drilled holes

 

 

 

Once in place, the bolts are given a quick dip of Tamiya ultra liquid cement which is usually enough to hold them in place. 

 

 

Repeat the operation for the other side of the pylon... and then repeat the whole process for the other 10 pylons

 

 

It's rough in Macro, but looks much better painted and attached to the wings

[red Dog]

Station #4 & #8

 

These pylons are almost identical to station #2 and 10 and needed the same process, so nothing much more to add

[red Dog]

Too bad I already have one specific A-10 chosen. I just found this and with the old tail camo and the flying tiger, it is very appealing

But no ... No way I'm building another one 

[Derek B]

Nice work Oliver! (I bet that you are glad that those pylons are now done - they must have been a pain for you!). The Blue Stuff thermoplastic is good isn't it!

 

Cheers

 

Derek

[red Dog]

You bet Derek

I started working on these pylons back in July on the holiday bench without most of my tools. 

I worked on one pair, did something else and then worked on the next pair.
I think you can't really do all of them at once, you'd turn crazy and change hobby quickly. 

 

The blue stuff became a permanent resident on my bench. It's great stuff

[thierry laurent]

You're very brave Olivier!

 

I hesitated before ordering the 3d printed ones for weeks but took the plunge when I saw your posts! This won't be cheap when I will add the customs cost but I'm not really willing to go through a similar nightmare....

[red Dog]

That's very wise  

 

Station #5, #6 & #7

 

Station #5 and #7 are identical and station #6 is the central pylon which is left empty when both outboard fuselage pylons are loaded.
 

Same treatment as the other pylons: Fill the panel & rivet lines, drill the bomb rack goodies and fill the rear sway brace location to recreate it at the right distance

 

Then positive rivets. 

Station #5 and #7. The pylons are symetrical but different from right to left side.

 

Since Station #6 is left empty I added a bit more details on the underside drillin holes, adding rivets and engraving the bomb rack which I'll paint in a trompe l'oeil.

 

 

There is another thing to correct with fuselage pylons:

 

The locating tabs on the Trumpeter fuselage are wrong. 

If you place them as Trumpeter wants you you will have two visible issues:

 

1. The Pylon forward tip will not be hidden by the ventral strake as it should be.
We know the central strake is undersized. I didn't really correct that but I did place it more to the rear to overcome the issue a bit.
So one might think that the pylon location is right but the visible issue is a consequence of the ventral strake simply being too small?

 

Fair point but no, at least not only - as confirmed by issue 2:

2. As you see from the following picture, the forward sway braces of pylons 4/8 and pylons 5/6/7 are not perfectly aligned.

the 3 central pylon forward sway braces are sitting just a bit behind the alignement line of pylons 4&8 forward sway brace

Another reference line is that the rear end of pylons 5/6/7 are more or less aligned with the flaps bay which you can see on the above model picture is not the case.

 

 

On Trumpeter model the distance separating the 4/8 and 5/6/7 reference point is 10mm, which is way too much to my eyes:

 

 

So the 3 fuselage pylons need to be moved forward by approximately 6mm

 

That will solve issue 1 & 2 by aligning the pylon with the underscaled ventral strake and aligning the rear end of the fuselage pylons more or less with the flaps bays 

and will also solve the sway brace issue by placing the 3 fuselage pylons forward sway brace just the right distance from the station #4/8 line

 

It was harder to point out the issue than correcting it

 

[chuck540z3]

Great attention to and modification of pylon details!  I moved some stuff around on my build, but nothing like this, which is excellent.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[A-10LOADER]

Good eye catching the alignment of the pylons Oliver, they are looking so much better.

Station 6 was used 99.8% of the time for carrying a fuel tank, we NEVER loaded on 6. If I remember correctly @ the early 2000's they were noticing stress cracks around stations 5, 6, and 7 when the jets were going to Depot to get their wings fixed.

Steve