Larry Wolf Memorial Close Air Support Group Build 2021 Needs YOU!

Looking good FF and G.

shot the black gloss enamel in preparation for the Alclad paints. Will let this one cure for a few days then polish up the paint to get a smooth aluminum finish.

Some detail parts arrived for the A-4, so progress can be made.  I got an Eduard color PE cockpit set, along with their leading edge slat set and their resin MERS and Mk82 bombs.

I'm not sure I'll be using the L.E. set in its entirety, but it included teeny tiny vortex generators which will be tedious to install, but will really look better than the kit's molded in "candy bars".  The MERS and bombs were brought in because the kit parts look weird.  The MERS are notiecably skinny and the Mk82s have an overall shape that just looks wrong.

I also got a Quickboost pilot, because I like crew in my models:

And I started by gluing in all those annoying separate service panels all over the fuselage, and did a quick test fit to identify problems.

And a slight change in plans - the kit will be an A-4E, not an A-4F as advertised on the box.  Why?  Well, I have aftermarket markings for an A-4E, and the kit is missing some A-4F specific details like the cranked refueling probe and steering mechanism for the nose gear.

In addition, the F9F Panther has received many layers of MM Dark Sea Blue and now the airplane is sitting while the enamel paint cures. Right now the enamel paint smell is still very strong. Maybe next week it gets the Tamiya Gloss Clear then decals.

Take a look at the picture. Is the paint too faded? In real life, it doesn't look that faded. Just wondering.

Let's see, for some additional Close Air Support, I pulled an AMT F7F Tigercat out of the stash. It's been laying around for a few years and I thought this Group Build would be a good opportunity to get it built. Below are the cockpit with home made shoulder harness and lap belt made from Tamiya tape and the R-2800 engines. The engines are painted AK Dark Aluminum with Tamiya Black Panel Liner to give the cylinders some depth. I'll be hanging rockets and bombs under the wings and I'll make cannon barrels from tubing instead of using the kit supplied barrels.

More progress on the Eagle for me. Got the titanium sprayed and started on the gray for the upper side.

Another session or two should see the bottome finished up. Then I can paint and add the drop tanks as such.

I managed to get some darker gray on this morning. Still have the engines to mask and spray. So maybe more progress by Tuesday.

A little more progress this week on the cockpit.  Got the tub touched up and the Quinta Studio side consoles glued in (used clear epoxy for that).  Also did a wash on the wire bundles with Tamiya Hull Red mixed with lots of Vallejo Airbrush Flow Improver to simulate the coating (fire retardant?) on the wire bundles in the real thing.  

Got the glareshield all painted and detailed.  The HUD lens was domed resin in the middle, but I chiseled that out and made a flat recess that I dabbed a little clear epoxy into for a more realistic-looking lens.  Tried the Flory Grime Wash for the first time, and its going to be my go-to for cockpit weathering from now on.  Didn't require any protective coating on the paint work and appears to have even eliminated the need for a follow-up dry-brushing.  

Great stuff so far.  Loving the 119 Drums.  Boris I have that Stuka on my shelf.  Haven't been bold enough to start it yet.  You're off to a good start.  Good job on the Cobra O.  Always like the Marine scheme on that chopper.

As for my Super Bug.  It is glossed and decaled.  Inching closer to the finish line.  I'm a little nervous about pulling the mask off the canopy.  To get in to place I had to apply some pressure and heard something crack.  Hoping it isn't the clear plastic.  Fingers crossed.

Some great work here. I haven't received yet an oficial green light for close air support from the boss so I am engaging on my own free will and cracking open this one

I was hoping it can be built with folded wings as shown on the picture but it does not come with that option. Oh well...

Short update on my F84, ready for gloss black enamel then some Alclad paints for a nmf.

Got the clear parts masked. The upgraded canopy had reinforced tape which was an off white color, not silver as the main frame is so I have those masked and after spraying them will mask again to shoot the nmf for the main frame.

The rear canopy deck got some scratch built additions and pe parts to add more details

OK gang, I'm posting some (OK, a lot!) of photos of my finished AH-1J from HMA-775 circa 1991. 

This is Fujimi's kit in 1/48 with Cobra Company's resin cockpit. It's the first time I used a resin cockpit in one of my builds. It was a challenge, and a great learning opportunity, for me. The ECS hoses (wire wrapped in finer wire), turret-opening cover/cannon surround (sheet styrene), pitot (styrene rod and very fine tubing), RHAW receivers on the nose (punch sheet stryrene), FOD covers (red napkin soaked in diluted white glue) and rotor tie down (paper strip with a random PE buckle) are scratched. The whip atenna on the tail is painted monofilament. The blade antennae on the belly are from the spares box. The CC resin set comes with some chaff dispensers, but I swapped them for the plastic ones from Italeri's AH-1W boxing. The tail's squadron code and the nose's MODEX are painted on using home-made stencils. The branch markings on the tailboom and national insignia are decals from the drawer. 

It's painted using MM enamels and weathered with pastels and Flory washes. 

Well, it's another 3-footer to lay on the shelf. Here are the photos. Remember, you were warned. There are a lot of 'em...

Just for fun, here are a couple of "buddy pictures." Here's one with an AH-1G I kitbashed a couple of years ago.

Here's one with the AH-1(4B)W I Frankensteined using Italeri's AH-1Z boxing.

I realize that the dihedral on the stub wings is a little steeper than it should be. That was the angle I had to use to keep the gaps to a minimum. It's something I'll just have to live with.

Thanks for looking and thanks to lewbud for hosting the GB. Feel free to share you comments, questions and/or criticisms. Now to move on to my AH-1G!

Happy modeling!

-O

PS: lewbud, here's the glory shot for the main page:

No worries. It does seem like they should be left and right. I have built 4 87G's and i have to check every time.

Bish

Boris, i am afraid the instructions are wrong. There is no left and right gun. The ammo feed clips, the larger of the 2 parts sticking out the side, should be on the right side. This means they are on the outside on the right wing and inside on the left.

Nice work though.

 

Well poo.  Live an learn :)   Thanks Bish.

Peace-

Boris

Boris, i am afraid the instructions are wrong. There is no left and right gun. The ammo feed clips, the larger of the 2 parts sticking out the side, should be on the right side. This means they are on the outside on the right wing and inside on the left.

Nice work though.

From the photos on the box and the painting instructions it seems as if there should be a right and a left gunn-pod.  But the kit did not build that way.  So I had to file out one of the gun pods so that little wing thingie would fit in the proper way.  You can see where I've been working on filling that out with putty.

I'm also trying to smooth out the joins of the wings to the body.  I didnt notice until I took this photo, but I dont have the gun pods on very straight, and those littel wings look crooked.   I'll have to pay attention to that closer on a future build.

Peace-

Boris

I like that scratch building O. I've been delving into scratchbuilding much more over the years and now have quite the Evergreen and thin copper stock built up.

Ben, I can see the panel lines. Looks enough like the real thing to pass just fine. That's what the manufactures of those cast resin display planes do for their panel lines.

Looking great "O" as its those little things that always bring a model to the next level, and the F-18 is starting to have the evil look as well PhillyPfan.

One more step forward, OK perhaps a couple more steps.......

1) I think I mentioned this much earlier in the build, but this kit has raised panel lines (RPL). I thought that since it was 1/72 it was not a major issue (not as if it were 1/32). So there are no recessed panel lines and no rivets, fabric, or anything but those RPL's. When I was assembling the kit in order to clean up the seams some of the RPL's were removed. Perhaps a better modeler would've kept them while cleaning up the seams (?). Since I am not a fan of RPL anyway, regardless of scale, I was not worried. Prior to the camouflage paint I sanded down most of them to a more acceptable small bump as they looked out of scale anyway. 

So, how will I show the variation of panel lines in 1/72 without looking further out of scale? I decided not to pre-shade them by airbrushing over each RPL as that would be to large in 1/72. My solution was to use a straight edge and a extra fine lead pencil. Once I had them drawn I lightly airbrushed the same color over the lines but not to obscure them, but rather tone them down. Once again Jarrod got bored quickly watching me draw all the panel lines, but he did like using the airbrush to lay down the ghost spray over the top of them. 

While it was drying we looked at more photos of the black paint treatment.

lazy waterfal with ripple waves


tall even waves


erratic waves up into the cockpit glass


busy even waves:


So the next question is which style do we want on our aircraft? My choice was to merge a couple together. We are going for the lazy even ripple wave in front and something similar but a little busier in the rear. 

Once the camouflage was dry we began masking for the black camouflage. Next was helping Jarrod spray black on the lower fuselage, lower wings, jet engines, and tail. Now we need to let it dry a day or two before we gloss coat it for decals. So, after several hours drawing panel lines, painting over them, masking, and painting the black, this is where we are at the end of the day...

Hopefully, if you stand on one leg, close the left eye, and tilt your head just right, you can see the panel lines in this picture. Oh, and sorry for the cluttered dirty hobby table. I'm getting a new cutting mat as that one is several years and many models old:



And here is a picture of some of the black camouflage. And yes, that is a very old Testers airbrush cleaning station behind the model; then no, there is nothing in the Sprite can except Sprite:



Well, not much more to do at the moment than wait, so we say good bye for now.

Ben and Jarrod

One of the benefits of working from home during this pandemic is the bench time. When I have a virtual meeting and listening to someone ramble, I can do some modeling while "listening." 

I'm working towards the finish line with my AH-1J. I'd say I'm in the last turn before the final straight. Now I'm at the point where I'm thinking the whole, "Oh, yeah, I still need to do that." before I get to the final assembly. While sitting at my table today, I tackled two of those "little things" that needed to get done.

The -1J had a shroud or shield (for lack of a better term) covering the canon's opening in the turret. The Fujimi kit does not have that covering.

Some -1Js during ODS did not carry them, but the airframe I'm modeling did. So, I scratched one from some stryrene.

It's not perfect, but I think it looks the part. 

Also, I realized that I lost the pitot for my kit. When I went to look at the one in AH-1G project to measure, I realized that one was missing too. So, I used the one on my USMC -1G for measurements and scratched one...er...two. 

Here's one. Again, not perfect, but I think it'll look fine under some paint.

I hope to have this kit wrapped up over the weekend. I just have a few odds-and-ends to wrap up before final assembly. Once it's done I'll be able to turn my attention to my AH-1G kitbash.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Cheers,

-O

That thing is BOSS Ben 

Phillie, that's looking great

Love the builds going on here.  Great work everyone!  This is my first group build and I am really inspired and motivated by your work.

Quick update on the hornet.  I painted the black pattern on the dorsal hump (no idea what the technical term would be!).  

I think she is ready for some gloss and then on to decals and weathering.

Looking good "O", the soft camouflage and home made stenciles look great.

Wow! I like the look of that Stuka with the wing cannons Boris, keep up the great work! 

cbaltrin, what did you come up with regarding the instal of the guns? Perhaps you can add the gun mounts and pods (less the barrels) prior to fixing the fuselage halves and just add the barrels to the gun pods through the windows later? 

And eagle cash867, that cockpit looks all the business, nice modifications and detail painting. I'm looking forward in seeing this come together. 

UPDATE:

Jarrod and I masked the windows and door openings. He does not like the masking part at all as he was already ready to P-A-I-N-T!. So after some time we mixed (thinned) the Model Master enamel paints and sprayed the initial FSN coded dark green, medium green, and dark tan as called out on the painting diagram. Because of his lack of fine motor skills I had to assist him some but he enjoyed it all the same. Like the masking, Jarrod does not like cleaning the airbrush components after each spray either, but he sure does like the airbrush painting of modeling. 







You may have noticed that since the last photos we also posed the plane in an attack vector on the stand. 

I still have much more to do including the painting of the black, gloss coating, decals, pencil panel lines, marking control surface points, another gloss coat to seal the detail, flat coating the top surface, adding the engines and props, adding the small antennas and misc. parts, weathering, rigging the antenna array, final dull coat to seal the weathering, removal of the masking, gloss coating the windows, painting the nose cone, detail painting (exhaust, chipping, stains) and touch-ups, on and on, etc, etc.  

We are having fun in this GB and enjoy looking at the variey and progress of everyones builds.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and critiques...Till next time...

Ben and Jarrod

Boris,

Just to add to what Modelcrazy said...

You'll have times where you might not be happy with how something came out during your build, but don't get discouraged.  Just stick with it and with each model you're going to learn something new that you'll apply to the next one.  That's what makes this so much fun, you'll always be experimenting and trying out new techniques.  Your Stuka is looking really good so far!

BorisBaddenov

I'm a little shy about posting photos of my models, they don't hold a candle to the work I see the other posters put up.  But here goes

 

 

We all started somewhere and some of us can't hold a candle to the rest either but it doesn't matter. The Fourm isn't called Fine Prefectly Made Scale Modeler and I for one have posted some real dogs. Your Stuka looks great! Once you get rolling you'll learn techniques and before you know it, you'll look at some of the posted builds and while very nice, you'll know exactly how they did it and know you could replicate it if you wanted.
If you want to learn a technique just ask. Someone will answer. Usually many ones will answer.

Hey Boris, no reason to be shy. I've always liked the looks of the Stuka. Your build looks great from here. Keep it up! I'm looking forward to seeing more.

I've managed to make a little progress on my AH-1J. I got the elevators and stub wings installed. Also, I've got the markings on it too and started a little weathering.

The airframe I'm working on didn't have a lot of stencils, at least not that I could see. The other airframes in the squadron wore minimal markings too. I didn't have decals to match the squadron code nor the modex, so I has to make stencils and paint them on.

From what I could see in my references, not all airframes in this squadron had their serial number painted on, and it looks like the airframe I'm modeling didn't either. Although they did have the MARINES stencilled on the tailboom and a stars-and-bars on the fuselage. Again, markings and styles varied from airframe to airframe, even within the same squadron, but it looks like this is how my subject was painted up. On my build, the MARINES and national insignia are decals from my pile.

This one's nearing the finish line. I hope to have it wrapped up over the weekend.

Thanks for looking. As usual, comments, questions and criticisms are welcome.

Cheers!

-O

I'm a little shy about posting photos of my models, they don't hold a candle to the work I see the other posters put up.  But here goes

Buddy can we change my entry. Gonna go with the Hobbyboss 1/72 Hawker Sea Hawk. Thanks 

Hey, lewbud, I re-read the list again of attack aircraft and decided to pull my AMT F7F-3 out of the stash. Don't know what it will look like yet, most probably something during Korea though.

Fantastic work guys specially your recovery Ortiz!

got the wings together 

And the fuselage closed up

For some reason the clamped fuselage reminds me of Uncle Fester when he needed to clear his head in a head clamp.

Double post cause things are acting up again.