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Every year the IPMS FAME CITIES Ed Kinney Chapter sponsors a contest theme for – ‘Anything USMC ‘- in memory of Ed Kinney. This year I'm determined to have an entry. With the parts from spares and the Academy kit supplied by red dog and Dragon plus a detailed review of The Designers page I think I'm ready to turn Hasegawa's prototype F-18 into a Desert Storm F/A-18A!

I picked up an Avionix cockpit and tail modification kit, got some stainless screens from AMUR.Reaver, now I just have to decide which Flying Leathernecks decal sheet to buy. I've got to have it ready for the September meeting. I've spent the last couple weeks pouring over Pete's Scale Hornet guide so I'm totally psyched. This will also be my first big effort at weathering so please feel free to throw out any guidance as we build this one together 😆

 

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Nothing like a 93deg day to drive you into the model room! Caught a car show and then had time to play. I worked on dry fitting the cockpit. Could use some input on it's position. I'm just holding it in with a finger in these shots so it might be off side to side but I tried to get it in position front to back to see if it will look ok stuffed into this fuselage.

Right off the bat i think I may have to source the acedemy coaming as the Haz one is too rounded and won't let the pit go all the way up. Take a look and let me know what you guys think?

 

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Detail on all the other parts is great so it looks like the avionix IP was just a weak one. Since i have the acedemy one i think I'll cut those boxes off the bottom of the resin IP.

 

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Dang, Seems like this is a long one for sure. Thought I'd post a few progress pics although neither is done yet. Here's the cockpit at about 70% done. Im painting and retouching, then retouching. Long process but it feels like it's worthwhile. I'm trying out the AK pigments. Just the 1st coat on below. Needs lightened up and layered up 😆

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I also started detailing the nose well. I need this in to set the cockpit height so i figured to work on it in parallel. I tossed in some F-4 and F-16 parts to simulate some of the valve bodies i saw in pics. Tried my hand at wiring while I was at it. Going to need more practice on this. Need to work on straightening them don't I?

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So I've tried posting this twice and it never shows up so...if it's a triple later maybe the mods can delete the duplicates

My seats are ready for a clear coat and some warning decals! A final weathering and then I have to decide, to pilot or not to pilot, that is the question. Now looking at the pic my seatbelts seem rather blue as opposed to being in a green tone. The paint in the mix cup seemed to match the pic well, but is doesn't look the same on the seat, huh? Let me know if you have the same opinion, that the colors off for an f-18A? Maybe I'll be doing some touchup before that clear coat.

 

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Making alot of progress this week. The Academy intake trunking is fitting in surprisingly well.

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After staring at both sets of intake ports i thought the lesser of two evils was to use the Academy ones and fill and sand around the outside of them. It just made sense to keep the inside transitions as smooth as possible. I also trimmed off the Haz missile locations where they tried to match the missile profile rather than that of the actual fuselage.

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I also got started on the fuselage in ahead of the front bay. I made atracing of the acedemy part. My plan is to cut out the vent sections so the Amur Reaver piece will fit nicely over the existing fuselage section. This should save some sanding and make the metal overlay look better since the Haz fuselage is devoid of any detail, baby skin smooth lol

98BCE6E2-6786-4180-8F91-7E2373912E7C-XL.

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Looks good so far. Metal overlay/PE can be tricky

Thanks! You made me think i better Get out ahead of the ball on the metal overlay. Will have to toss out a request for tips and tricks with it vs PE.

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Some mighty nice progress on the Hornet.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

Valuable encouragement, lots of fitting and refitting that you know has to be done but I never think about up front! Probably good though or I'd never start anything lol Edited by themongoose
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