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

Jeff, Wow what an amazing build and such a good looking bird to boot. Love the looks of this one and its well built and finished and the marking option makes it stand out. Great job my friend and that one is definetly a showcase member. By the way what scale is that thing. Well done.

Steve

Thanks guys. Steve, its 1/32 so it's pretty freaking big.

Regards,

Jeff

Nice work Jeff.  Colorful markings, nice loadout.

Some miniscule progress on my end.  Started painting the cockpit parts, all Aires resin except for the seat from Wolfpak.

Installed underside of wings.

Typical Hasegawa kit, contains no weapons.  I've decided upon a weapon loadout, and first up is assembling the Sidewinders.  The ordnance will all come from the Hasegawa weapon sets.

First major cutting involved to fit the Aires cockpit is removing the front coaming, highlighted in blue.

Couple of quick swipes with the X-acto and voila.

(2) fuel tanks are also assembled (kit supplied) but forgot to take pics of those.  Fit is surprisingly crappy on those.

Next is to continue painting the cockpit pieces.  A lot of detail and work involved here.

Cheers

Long overdue for an update on my end. 

Cockpit is painted with Promodeller wash applied for depth.

Ejection seat is painted, washed, and Eduard placards applied.  Some PE can be fiddley and pointless, but I like the placards.  Nice touch.  Granted, once the seat is installed those on the lower part won't be seen but I still like them.

IP is painted as well.  Not my cleanest work, but I'm resigned to move on.  The rudder pedals are folded PE included in the Aires set.  Nice, but you'll be hard-pressed to see them once everything is installed.

Seams on the fuel tanks has been filled, sanded, Mr. Surfacer 500 applied, sanded again.  Ordnance loadout from the Hasegawa weapon sets has been assembled, seams filled and sanded. 

Next is to fit the cockpit into the fuselage.  Past experience with Aires products tells me sanding to fit is in my future.  We'll see.

Cheers

arki- That is gorgeous work, it looks real!  Especially those consoles and IP, incredible stuff.

Great job on you Hornet Jeff!   

The cockpit looks awesome arki!  Keep up the good work!

I will get to this GB soon enough.  I promise.

Thanks gents.

Is it too late to join this Hornets Nest GB ?

I was going through some storage box's and found a Airfix F/A-18A [FSD Hornet No.3] and a partly completed Idea F/A-18 [TF-18].

Both kits have the LEX slots and notched leading edge wings .

The decals I have are similar to these two pic's ;

Is it okay to join in with these two Hornets .

                                        John .

John- to the GB, glad to have you!

I added both kits to the roster on page 1.  Looking forward to those pics!

Thank's Frank ;

I'll paint up both cockpits today , I'll use some cockpit decals from a Hasegawa F/A-18B Hornet for the Idea TF-18 .

                                John .

Looking good guys! I better get my butt back to the bench.

Looking good guys, a lot of nice work going on. I know I finished a while ago but I have a pic of my new F-18 with my very old blue angels version. I may be on a slippery slope with these Hornets now that I have two and may have to fill in the gaps and build the rest of them.

Just a few shots of the photobooth pics I took today

Steve

A little progress on my end.  Cockpit is installed and fuselage top and bottoms are together.  I also removed the casting blocks from the resin nose section and attached it.  Thankfully no resin shrinkage, great fit, only a little filling work will be required at the joint.

Started assembly of the intake sections.  Decided it would easier to paint the white portions of the intakes at this stage rather than later, so primed each intake and sprayed my preferred white, Floquil Reefer White.  I then masked off the white portion from the rear with Tamiya tape and sprayed the underside color, Light Ghost Gray, into the front portion of each intake.  All went well...until I removed the masking tape.  Clearly the primer didn't adhere as nearly all of the white came up.  !!  So, I have to redo the intakes.

Cheers

Arki30, cockpit looks great all buttoned up.  Too bad on the intakes   At least you had that to deal with early in the build.

Very nice work Arki,that IP looks terriffic in the pit

Steve

Nice work so far Arki and John.

Great Super Hornet Steve!

I have not left. I have never signed up for a GB I didn't finish on time(this one is no exception). I have been so dang busy!

I am going to start to work on the weapons first. I will post questions soon.

Other than that, I hope to see more work!

Andrew, nice to see you checking in.  Thanks for the kudos.

Progress update, no pics for the moment.  Intakes are repaired, assembled and installed on the fuselage.  I've assembled the flaps and slats, but will hold off on installing until I complete the next step.  One of my least favorite activities, filling and sanding.  Thankfully fit has been good so far, but there is some work to be done.

Cheers

arki- Lucky on the fit of that nose, could have been a real bear if it had shrunk.  Who makes that one?

Sorry to hear about the paint on those intakes, not an easy place for repairs.

Andrew- Good to see you!  No progress pics yet?

I should be finished with the B-1 tonight....Finally.  Here are a couple pics of the kit I will be build for this GB.  I will attempt to get 2 built.  I picked these up for $10 each at Dragon Models USA.

The box art.

[View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

Here are all the sprues.  All the gray sprues are in one bag and the clear parts are in another. 

[View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

Here is the decal sheet which was tucked inside the instruction sheet.

[View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

In my opinion, these kits look quite good.  There are over 100 pieces per kit which seems high for a 1/72 scale kit but that is Hasegawa for ya.  I heard the canopy doesn't quite fit in the closed position though.  I was going to have one canopy open and another closed. 

Hey Guy's ;

I've been struggling to get things going on my two prototype Hornets .

I was trying to find some cockpit decals for both aircraft , without much luck but I wasn't really happy with both cockpits on the Airfix and Idea kits anyway ;

So I'm now thinking of backdating two Hasegawa [F/A-18C and F/A-18D] Hornets ?

Interestingly both sprue frames are maked as "F/A-18A TF-18A" ; included is a seperate sprue with the 'C' and 'D' tail fins .

I don't think it would be too difficult to drill and file some LEX slots and add some plastic strip to the outer wing leading edge . I also noticed that in Squadrons F/A-18 Hornet in action book it shows the "Dog Tooth" leading edge extends past the outer wing hinge fold line but on the Airfix and Idea kits it stops at the hinge line [too short]

I'm not 100% sure  but it looks like the TF-18A didnt have the dog tooth leading edge ;

I wonder if the LEX slots were filled in on the two seat prototype ????

Anyway , I have built some of Hasegawa's 1/72 Hornets in the past and have been quite happy with the results , I'm fairly confident I can drill and file some slots and add a strip of plastic to the wing leading edge .  I feel a lot happier if I go in this direction , the Airfix and Idea kits are rather crappy and wouldn't make for two nice prototype's .

                                            John .

Hi Frank ,

I'll have to withdraw from your GB .

Some family health issue's have come up .

Good luck to everyone with their builds .

Kind regards ,

                         John .

Sorry that you have to leave John, but I understand!  Family ALWAYS comes first.  If things level out, we would love to have you back.

Progress update with pics.  As noted last update, intakes are installed and I've begun the dreaded filling and sanding.  Little bit more work to do on the underside.

Meanwhile, I've also turned my attention back to the top to finish the area behind the cockpit.  That requires some surgery first.  The colored areas have to be removed for future Aires resin and PE.

Some quick work with the Dremel and sanding sticks...

Behind the cockpit is an avionics storage area.  I believe it's called the "hell hole" on F-15's, no idea if the Navy calls it the same.  It's also where the canopy mechanism sits.  First up for this area is the Aires resin top glued to the piece I just modified.

Here is the Aires resin avionics detail.  This will be glued to the underside of the Aires top portion.

There is a mesh screen represented in PE that goes in last, but I need to paint it first.  I'll install it toward the end of the build.

And lastly install the completed assembly onto the fuselage.  Now I can finish the seam work on the top of the aircraft.  Joy.

Cheers

Oh, there's a break-down of AM manufacturer's for this effort back on page 17 with pics.

Very impressive!

Especially that area behind the seat, wow!  Are you going to put the screen over it as supplied, or anneal it and fold it to make it partially open?  I love the way that looks when done.  Great progress there!

Daywalker

Very impressive!

Especially that area behind the seat, wow!  Are you going to put the screen over it as supplied, or anneal it and fold it to make it partially open?  I love the way that looks when done.  Great progress there!

  That looks awesome!  Nice work 

I started work on the 2 Hasegawa F/A18F's.   Typical Hasegawa fare with a lot of parts and mediocre fit.  I will post some pics tomorrow I hope....

Daywalker

Very impressive!

Especially that area behind the seat, wow!  Are you going to put the screen over it as supplied, or anneal it and fold it to make it partially open?  I love the way that looks when done.  Great progress there!

As supplied.  Once the canopy lift mechanism goes in place plus the canopy there won't be room for the screen to be folded open.

Thanks gents.

I am having some trouble with the camera.  So I will just tell you what I have completed so far. 

I got all the fuel tanks and AIM-9 and AIM-120's assembled along with the wings and main fuselage's.  The forward fuselage containing the cockpit tubs are together.  I just need to place the decals used to represent the instrument panels and side console areas and glue them to the main fuselage parts. 

I had to use some putty and CA glue to the the upper and lower fuselage parts together.  I have to do a little rescribing to replace lost panel lines. 

All in all these kits are going together pretty good.

I hope to borrow a camera so I can snap a few pics for the GB.

Filling and sanding....

Sanding and filling....

arki30

Filling and sanding....

Sanding and filling....

=my least favorite part of a build.  How bad is it on your kit?

I been plodding along with the Hobbyboss 1/48th F-18D, I just have not had the opportunity to post any pic's yet for it's been one thing after another as usual on this end which requires my time. So with the exception of the Eduard ejection seat detail set, I'm just doing an out of the box build this time.

 I bought the kit from Squadron during one of their sales and glad I did, I would have been upset shelling out around $80 for the mfg listed price. There are a couple of nice features like drop flaps and slats but I would consider buying the Hasegawa kit if I were to add another 'D' to the collection. I been tempted to pull out the Academy 1/32 F-18D but would not be able to finish it in time.

Scott