The Hornet's Nest GB 10/10-10/11

Nice looking Hornet Archangel.  Those seats look great.  Nice fully loaded jet! 

I was able to get my builds painted but I ended up packing everything away for our move in 2 days.   

Well I finish the Hobby Boss F-18D and here it is. Glad I got the kit when it was on sale from Squadron think I would hate to have paid full price for this one. I have order decals from MAW but decided to save them for when I buy the Hasegawa version. So this kit is out of the box with the exception of the seats from True Details. One of the problems is the fit of the canopies. The decals went on well but I had to go with the darker National insignias since the other set blends right in with the Ghost Gray paint. Have experience this problem with some of the Superscales low-vis decals in the past.

I was able to complete the preshading phase of painting.  My last bottle of light ghost gray ended up being dried up so I gotta head out to get some paint.

Here is a pic of the preshading.  Top side of one and underside of the other.

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I got the seams "good enough".  I will get some preshading done tonight.

I managed to spray some primer on the models last night.  I have a few seams that need some attention.  Par for the course with Hasegawa kits I suppose.

I wasn't able to get to the bench for some time.  I should be able to still finish my builds by October.  It seems as if the GB host is MIA?  I will get some progress pics up in a day or 2.

Nice builds so far everyone.

Just checking in here, I'm nearly finish on the 'D', that's if I can keep my thumbs from knocking off parts. Just a few things left to glue on and do some work on the seats and a little shading and that ought to be it. Hope to have some pics post here shortly.

Hmm, I am checking to say that I am at the priming stage and about ready to paint. I haven't been on in a while but am still plucking away at this bird. I'm liking the finished ones; good for inspiration too!

I think Frank has left for greener pastures. He hasn't posted on this forum in over two months but is active on others. I would say to go ahead and build whatever you want and post pics.

hey frank. I would like to build the revell 1/48 f/a-18e super hornet for the gb. Also, how do you get the gb picture into your signature?

Calling this one done. I wish I had a better camera and some nice lighting to shoot it. Hopefully the pics look better here than they do on my camera screen.

Fun build overall. At least now I know what to expect when I build the Hasegawa C, F, E models. Those seam lines can be a bear. Microscale Decal sheet went on great. I am glad I didn't stay with the Blue Angel color scheme. I think this bird will look good with my other kits.

Hey guys,

I have been plugging away on my early "El Toro" A model. I have all the stores painted and decaled ready to be placed on the bird. I preshaded the lines and will be finishing up the painting in the next couple days.

I did get the bottom color on. I went with Tamiya IJA grey. It does look a little "green" right now but I think that once the other colors, decals and weathering is done the color should be a good match.

I ended up going with VMFA-314 "Black Nights" I loke the markings and the fact the "Marines" is still on the aircraft. The decal set is for a 1983 Hornet when they were first coming on line.

I remember when the Navy base I lived on had 1 of the squadrons make the conversion to hornets from A-6s. The biggest complaint was the "legs" on the bird. Thus the extra tanks and small bomb load. I am arming the plane with 2 Mk. 82s and a AGM-65 Mavrick. It will also carry Sidewinders and AIM 7's. I have so many planes in the works with LGB and guidance systems that I wanted it to be basic, plus judging what would have been on a Marine Ground attack A/C in the 80's.

All comments welcome.

arki30: Great build!

Hey all I have a quick question about the bomb loads for the F-18A. I switched from doing the blue angle to a Marine Hornet from El Toro (one of the early planes). What I was looking for was a wing load diagram or some kind of help. I was planning on using a triple ejector rack with 3 MK82s. This would be on the outer most hard point with a External fuel tank on the inside. Any help is appreciated. I have the bird primed and did some work on the stores yesterday. Thanks

Life has been far busier than anticipated, but slowly I've worked away at the Hornet.  Finally I can say, Fini.

Presenting 1/48 Hasegawa F/A-18C in VFA-83 Rampagers CAG markings.  Ordnance loadout is technically a Marine loadout, but I liked it and went with it.

As always, there are goofy little mistakes but I'm fine with them at this stage.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers

WOW some really great looking builds here!!! Again, dunno if I'm going to be able to get to mine. Some things will be coming up in the near future that may keep me away from the bench long enough to start something else. Got a few I have in the works that need to be progressed more, even then dunno whether it will be in a timely manner lol. Anyways looking forward to seeing much more!!!!

Daywalker: Ok after much debate....on my kit sitting on the "wait to finish" shelf I have decided to forgo the Blue Angel scheme in favor of and eraly "Bug" from El Toro. What can I say, was never too keen on the decals from Hasegawa, and after seeing all these great looking, bomb laden, birds in grey I like that idea better. Maybe now I can find the desire to get back at it!

The Super Bugs look awesome! I gotta know how you got the "Slime Light" effect!!!!!??? That is awesome. It looks liek it should be on a carrier deck at night ready for a mission. Thanks for the inspiration!

Wow, those are some sweet builds, fellas!

Christian, Jarhead & Fly-n-hi - Gorgeous work gents!   All three Hornets are worthy of recognition, and you all knocked them out in relatively short order once beginning.

Work, travel and family visits have kept my bench time to a minimum.  But I can report decaling is finished and I'm applying a wash.  Still have a lot of little stuff, but I'm on the home stretch.

Cheers

Thanks for the info.   I think what I am going to do is leave this one as is and stockpile all the info for the C that I am going to try to start here in a couple of weeks.  What are your recommendation of the panel wash and weathering, and how did you do those reflectors.  Thanks again for all the tips.  I typically work in cycles of four doing an E,F,D, and C.   So I would like to but all these info to use on that C. 

Jarhead

Great looking builds guys, you are really driving me to want to get going on mine!

raptordriver

Hey Frank!

Can you offically extend the deadline on the front page? We need a moral booster every now and then.

Great idea Andrew!  End date officially updated, as well as new badges to boot.

Hey Frank!

Can you offically extend the deadline on the front page? We need a moral booster every now and then.

Very well done Fly-n-hi! That surely is one to be proud of.

Gonna leave her clean, eh?  That's cool.  I have an -E that I left clean as if she just came out of the paint shop.  No bombs or anything.

Oil washes for the gear are really easy to do.  All you have to do is get some Black and Burnt Umber artists oils and some turpentine to thin them in.

I typically use a lid from the top of a Mott's apple juice or Ocean Spray Cran-Grape bottle and squirt about 2 eye droppers worth of turpentine into the lid.  Then I squeeze out some oil so that about 1mm of oil is sticking out from the container and scrape that off with a toothpick and mix it into the turpentine.  Do this with both colors.  Mix the paints into the thinner so that it looks really dirty water.  The more paint, though, the more contrast you'll see in the gear.

Now all you have to do is dip the tip of a fine paintbrush into the thinner.  The dirty thinner will whisk its way up into the brush.  All you have to do now is touch the tip of the brush to various parts of the gear, wheels, gear doors and gear bays.  The thinner will leave the brush through capillary action and whisk its way into the joints and seams, etc...  

Just make sure that you do it on glossy surfaces before you apply your dull coats so that the thinner will run smoothly along the joints.  And, if you use too much you can just clean it with some turpentine.  Easy as pie.

Fly-n-hi,

Thanks,  the reason I left it clean was that this Green Kit scheme was put on shortly before their return from their 2007 Iraq tour.  It flew with the 1st Mar Div crest only for most of the deployment.  So I figured would leave it clean this round.  Plus all my other hornet are armed so I thought it would be a nice change.  As far as the wash and weathering I have never done it, but would like to.   I am just not willing to sacrifice my hornets.  I am looking at weathering some of my off hornet kits to practice before I try it on my hornets.   I would love to know how you do both so I can have some more info moving forward.  How do you oil wash landing gear and bays.  Your hornet looks great and thanks for all your pointers I will definitely take those into the next kit I do.

Jarhead

Alrighty, she's officially done. I ordered the Hase Weapons set D off of eBay so I could get some GBU-12s and I got the GBU-38s from Shull24.  The "Remove Before Flight" flags are just pieces of paper that were printed off of Swanny's site.  The AIM-9 seeker head covers were scratch built with Aves Apoxie Sculpt.

Nice job jarhead.  You got her done pretty quick.  Which kit is that?  Hasegawa?

Painting the green edges on the vertical stabilizers was definitely a good call.  Looks better than decals IMO.  Now you need to put some bombs on those empty pylons.  I've seen several pics of Marine F/A-18D's with a LANTIRN pod on the center pylon.  I think that would look good on yours since you left the center vacant.  (You do whatever you want to do, of course.)

Are you going to weather her or leave her clean?  The one thing that I would do for sure if I were you is to give the landing gear and the gear bays an oil wash.  It will give them more detail and contrast between hinges and joints, etc...

OK so here she is.  Not sure of the picture quality.  I am try to get a tarmac base.  If anyone has some suggestions on photo graphing kits please share.  Hope fits in with the build it is my best D to date.  Thank you to everyone who gave me some insight in to building.

Jarhead

Thanks for the compliments everyone.  I think I might have posted it before somewhere amongst the pictures but just in case anyone stumbles across the thread and is curious how I built it, here's a link to my build page on FSM.

/forums/t/137064.aspx

raptordriver

Thanks a million Lewbud. Do you know what color the tip of the missile is. If so, I will be good to go.

Andrew,

Don't know what color the tip of the missile is.  My guess is maybe a mix of steel and gunmetal.  Here's another pic of an AIM-9X training shot.

Since there's been talk of an extension, I really need to get started on mine.