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

Starting to make some progess here, the canopy is pretty much cleaned up now though there will be a major fit problem mounting it to the canopy frame. Have begun applying the decals, I was going to use a set I just got from MAW but opted to use the kit decals instead and will be depicting VMFA (AW) 533. The MAW 'Moonlighters' set looks excellent and I decided I will save those for when I later pick up a Hasegawa F-18D. The Hobbyboss decals appears a little thick but they do snuggle down well using the Microscale solutions. After getting a few decals on the lawn dart, she's starting to look pretty good now.

One note about the MAW decal set, they include a detailed F-18D weapons loadout sheet which comes in handy. I have been taking pics along the way and will post them shortly. 

Buddy- Great photos, thanks for sharing them!

Fly-n-hi- Excellent progress photos, lovely work with the PE bits.  Especially those inner doors, wow! Hope it's OK that I added you to the roster on page one.   No worries on the finish date, runovers are no problem.  As a matter of fact, I haven't even started mine yet- YIKES!

Kevin- Nice work on those seats, that sure was a lot of work- especially doing four at a time.

Jarhead93- Hello back, and thanks for stopping in!  As long as you're here, why not pull out a kit and stay a while?

Archangel Shooter- Looking forward to those pics!

Here are a couple of pics of the wingtips.  I accidentally broke one of the slime lights so I had to cut a piece of styrene sheet to fix it.  It wasn't very hard to do, though.  These are the resin wingtips by Wolfpack, btw.

Here they are assembled:

The fuselage and most of the sub assemblies are primed and ready to be painted but I won't be able to get to it for 3 or 4 more days.  I'm also scratch building covers for the engines and the engine inlets.

Thanks I am in the process of odering my next kit.   It will be Hasegawa 1:48 scale F-18D with the wolfpack upgrade and the afterburner green nights iraqi tour.  Hopefully I will get is started in time.  I am going through hireing process right to, so my time is limited.  Thank you though.  I did post some of my previous 2  bugs in my last post.  I will do my best to get started and get some photos up.

Jason

That's a lot of resin on those wings, looking forward to more!  Good save on the slime lights too.

Jarhead93

Thanks I am in the process of odering my next kit.   It will be Hasegawa 1:48 scale F-18D with the wolfpack upgrade and the afterburner green nights iraqi tour.  Hopefully I will get is started in time.  I am going through hireing process right to, so my time is limited.  Thank you though.  I did post some of my previous 2  bugs in my last post.  I will do my best to get started and get some photos up.

Jason

Jason- Excellent!  I just purchased one of those a couple of weeks ago to round out my collection of Hornets.  I went ahead and added you and the kit to the roster on page one, looking forward to those pics!

Jarhead93

 I did post some of my previous 2  bugs in my last post.

You might want to recheck that last post as there aren't any pics. 

Edit:  Whoops, now I see what you did.  Thought the link was to some youtube vids.

Quite a bit of activity in the thread lately, that's great.

I've had glacial progress over the last couple weeks, but have managed some with the longer Easter weekend.

As mentioned prior I had a ton of detail painting to dive into.  First up was painting the Insignia Yellow on the vertical tails and LERX fences.

Next was the refueling probe.

Then the exhausts.  Alcad Pale Burnt Metal & Jet Exhaust used here.  Reefer White for the whitish interior portion.

Finally, the gun shield and Radome Tan nose tip.

I next spent some time sticking a bunch of Eduard placards in wheel wells and on landing gear.  No pics as most are hard to see.  IMHO, they aren't worth the hassle.  Decals would be sooo much easier.  Most are tiny, they are hard to place before the CA glue sets, and those on the landing gear are a pain to bend around the round struts.  Plus the thickness of the PE isn't quite scale in most places.  This was the first time I've gone the PE placard route just to see how they worked out.  Now I know, and I'll pass that info on to you.  Skip 'em.

At the end of the weekend I was well along on installing sub-assemblies, mostly at the rear at the aircraft.  Next are the landing gear.  Woot!

Cheers

Thanks Daywalker.  The styrene "fix" looks better than the original resin.  I think the molds are older and they've lost some of their crispness.  The slimelight panels seemed way to thin.  I kinda wish I had added the styrene to the other wingtip too.

I've gotten alot more work done on it but I haven't taken any pics.  I get back home thurs so I'll get some new stuff up.

So when are you bustin' out that F/A-18D?

Christian, thanks for the comment on the seats.  Much appreciated.

Daywalker, thank you.  I ended up painting a total of 6 seats.  The other two were in 1/48 scale.

Fly-n-hi, nice save on the wingtips.  They look good.

Arki, great progress!  Lookin good sir!

I like thoughs seats as well they give me a good idea of hwat to do on the D bug I am starting.  I have a question as well of anyone.  I use Mr.Color paint for my kits.  I am going to put the Afterburner green night set thea that is the 2007 bird with all the mission marking that were put on it shortly before the returned.  My question is can anyone tell me what that green is in the Mr.Color line.  I am useing the solveant base paints.  I would prefer to paint the green tips on the tails instead of the useing the decals.  Just haveing some porblems matching the paint and need some help.  Thanks guys for the help.

I have finally got around to uploading some of the earlier pics I have of the Hobbyboss kit. I will take and post some new pics in a couple of days.

Initial work up on the cockpit.

The kit seats and it's of two different types so I went with the True Details SJU-17 seats.

Being able to have drop flaps and slats was a nice touch.

Starting the pre-shading.

The dreaded seam down the center of the canopy.

Made short work of the seam using sandpaper from 1800 up to 12000 grit.  

I might be making faster progress if my darn fingers can stop bumping and knocking off gear doors and such. I still need to finish applying the remaining decals and get the ordnance load painted up and mounted, I did get the centerline fuse tank on this evening and reattach a main gear strut. I believe I would go with the metal struts when I do the Hasegawa kit. I hope to be finish with this build by the end of next week if all goes well.

Jarhead93

I like thoughs seats as well they give me a good idea of hwat to do on the D bug I am starting.  I have a question as well of anyone.  I use Mr.Color paint for my kits.  I am going to put the Afterburner green night set thea that is the 2007 bird with all the mission marking that were put on it shortly before the returned.  My question is can anyone tell me what that green is in the Mr.Color line.  I am useing the solveant base paints.  I would prefer to paint the green tips on the tails instead of the useing the decals.  Just haveing some porblems matching the paint and need some help.  Thanks guys for the help.

I'm going to come off like a jerk here, but the rampant spelling errors make your paragraph difficult to follow.  Please make an effort to check your spelling, it will help us help you.

That being said, I believe I might have a link to help.  Click here.  If you know or can find out the FS color number of the particular green, you can cross reference that to the Mr. Color line.  It's a handy chart, hopefully it can help.

First let me apologize for my sloppy last post, it won't happen again.  That being said thank you for the link that you gave me.  I was unable to find a FS number for the green I was looking for, but I think I found something close enough that I can work with it.   My kit is do in tomorrow and I will be weighting for the Eduard interior set and the wolf pack seats.  So I should have something to show by early next week.  Again I apologize for that last post.  I look forward to showing my work I only hope it is worthy of being on the same build as the others I have seen. Thanks.

Jarhead

I just received my kit in the mail.  However I am still waiting for some of the cockpit parts so I can get started.  Hopefully I will be able to complete the kit  before the build is over.   If anyone in this build was effected by the tragedy in the south, my thoughts and prayers go out to you.

Ok, I'm back in town and I've gotten alot done on the -C.  She's mostly painted and almost ready for the decals, landing gear, etc...  

It's the 1/48 Hasegawa kit which means that there are no intake trunks but that's ok because I was planning on setting her up as if she's tied down on the deck of a carrier or something.  So I scratch built some engine covers for the inlets and the exhausts.  

The intakes were pretty easy to do.  First I cut out some card paper to resemble the shape of the inlet to give me a template to work with.  Then I folded some foil tape over itself and cut it out so that the round edge was slightly larger.  Then I cut several slits in the round part so that they would be easier to fold around the lip of the intake.  It looked like this:

Then I painted over the covers with thinned putty to give it rigidity and texture:

After that I painted the covers Tamiya red:

Obviously I used glossy paint so I have to dull them down a little but so far I think they turned out pretty good...and the price is right.

I did the exhausts too but I didn't take any pics of them for some weird reason.  All I did there was to tape off the holes in the exhaust nozzles and cover the nozzle with a thin layer of epoxy putty down to about where the covers should end.  The covers don't cover the entire nozzle.  Then I painted over the epoxy putty with dissolved seam filler putty and painted them red.  They look pretty good, too.  I'll get some pics of the finished nozzles later.

Archangel shooter- Excellent progress, looks like a great kit!  From the photos, the surface detail looks much better than the Hasegawa offering.

Fly-n-hi- Awesome tutorial, I have saved those photos for future reference!  I have bought a few sets of Steel Beach resin covers, but I like your approach much better.  Thank you so much for sharing it!

 To Daywalker and the rest of the group build.  I will be bowing out of this build.   I am waiting for part that will not be in until around the 14th.  Also I am not anywhere close to the caliber builder you have in this build.   This is some of the most spectacular work that I have seen.  I hope to be as good as all of you at some point.  My apologize I will post this hornet in the planes forum when I am done.  Thank you for opening the door to this work I have already learned allot.

Jarhead 93

Jarhead, if you wanna "back out" well that's ok but don't do it because you think you aren't the caliber of modeler that you've seen posting in here.  I don't know if you are relatively new to modeling but nobody starts out as a prize winning builder.

In fact, I'd say that you are better off building your -D and posting your progress/pics.  That way some of the seasoned modelers can help you when you get into a jam...if you don't mind getting advise or constructive criticisms.  You're building a Hasegawa kit, right?  Heck, everybody in here has built one and can give you a good heads up on the troubled areas.

Obviously you won't make the May 31 deadline but I don't think Daywalker really cares.  One of the points of group builds is so that people can see similar works in progress.  I say do it.

From one Jarhead to another...don't punch out of the build, I been building models for some 50 years now and I certainly don't consider myself an expert builder, maybe if I was able to put more time and effort into a project but alas I never do. The F-18D I'm working one for this here build is lucky it hasn't been tossed out with the trash but I'm slugging away on it. If you're waiting on a part to come in you can maybe start up on the sub assemblies and get those ready?

Scott

Jarhead- Please don't be scared off, this GB is all about having fun building and learning new ideas, regardless of experience and skill level.  Also, I am in no way even close to finishing up by the deadline either, so don't let that stop you either.  End dates are more of a guideline than a rule around here LOL...

If you still want to bow out, I certainly will remove your entry from page one, but I really hope you stay.

No I am in.  I thought I was going to miss the deadline date.  I am in the process of doing some of the other stuff until my parts are in.   I am all about learning, so my first question to all is what putty do you or dose everyone use and what application tool do you use.  What I am doing is using a toothpick in small areas and my squadron tool for large areas.  I am using Mr.Hobby white and have some tamyia white on order to try.  Just wondering what you guys use and do.  I should get my Eduard color etched interior mid week and when I get some of it done I will post some pictures.   Thanks.  I am most definitely in.

Jarhead

Jarhead93

No I am in.  I thought I was going to miss the deadline date.  I am in the process of doing some of the other stuff until my parts are in.   I am all about learning, so my first question to all is what putty do you or dose everyone use and what application tool do you use.  What I am doing is using a toothpick in small areas and my squadron tool for large areas.  I am using Mr.Hobby white and have some tamyia white on order to try.  Just wondering what you guys use and do.  I should get my Eduard color etched interior mid week and when I get some of it done I will post some pictures.   Thanks.  I am most definitely in.

Jarhead

 

Excellent, glad you stayed with us.  I use the Squadron putty tool myself, it works.  As far as brand of putty, meh, it's a personal choice.  I use Squadron's white putty.  Most brands will do just fine.  YMMV.

If you want a good tutorial on how to putty seams, look no further than Swanny's site.  Link

Big progress milestone on my end.  She's sitting on her own legs.  Er, wheels.

Apply a gloss coat, and it's time for decals.  Woot!

is it too late to join this?

eatthis

is it too late to join this?

Not at all, welcome!

If you would give me your kit specifics, I will add you to the roster!

arki- I always love that moment when they are up on their gear, really makes it look almost finished.  Well done!

jarhead- Glad to hear that you will be sticking around!  I suspect that we will extend the end date, as there are a bunch of us who haven't started yet.

extending the deadline will help me out ALOT lol

You got it!

Whaddya think, a couple of months fellas?

Daywalker

You got it!

Whaddya think, a couple of months fellas?

I started back at the beginning and it's still sitting where I left it.

Marine Sniper

 

Daywalker:

 

You got it!

Whaddya think, a couple of months fellas?

 

 

I started back at the beginning and it's still sitting where I left it.

Same here Mike LOL.

Alrighty, I've got a pic of the scratch built exhaust nozzle covers.  I explained how I did it in another post but I'll explain it here, too.  It was easy.  I just covered the openings with masking tape, covered the nozzles with a thin layer of Aves Apoxie Sculpt, trimmed the Sculpt with an Xacto knife, then painted on a thin layer of dissolved filler putty.  After a few coats of Tamiya red this is how they look:

I only took pics of the finished nozzles, though.  Sorry.  

I'm pretty satisfied with how they turned out and it sure beats spending $10-$15.  I just have to dull them down, paint the metal part, touch them up a little, and they should be good to go.

The F/A-18C itself has all the decals applied and is ready for weathering.

They look great.  I have an off topic question.  I am useing photobucket for photos.   The problem is I can only post the link to photobucket instead of posting the photos you guys do.  How do I post the photos?

Jarhead

When you are in your album in photobucket and you roll your mouse pointer over one of you pictures you should get a sort of pop up menu.  One of the choices is IMG code.  Just click on the writing in the box, for example  [IMG]blahblahblah[IMG], and it should say "copied."  Now you can paste it (control-v) to your forum reply.