Douglas A-4C Skyhawk VA-144
The contents of Fujimi’s nice A-4 kit. Second time around for me so I know what I am getting into.
First up: cockpit and wing assembly. Sprayed the cockpit dark gull gray and applied the decals. Elected to drop the flaps. Let’s see how long the slat tracks last this time…
Aft fuselage assembled, some filler required. Had to shim the upper wing-to-fuselage joint, should have checked fit during assembly…
Added weights to forward fuselage. Cockpit and wheel well installed.
This time around I first assembled the fuselage using some scrap plastic mating guides so that I could work on the tricky seams
Filling the lower forward joint. Changed assembly order worked out well.
And after more filling, sanding, checking, etc. Installed wind screen and masked the cockpit. Glued a handle in at the rear and ready for primer!
Tamiya primer coat on, flawlessly for a change.
After preshading in black and masking the tiny radome sprayed the white underside.
Followed up by the grey upper sides
Some more masking for the red areas, also sprayed the ordnance which came from a Hasegawa set.
Finishing off with coroguard at the leading edges, painted by hand after masking.
Next up a HG51 gloss coat. Needed several layers to smoothen out the matt paint
And few sessions of decaling. Decals are slightly out of register, with an annoying very thin white edge. And the red is a bit darker than the paint I used. Darn…
After decalling I did some weathering and finished off with a Tamiya flat coat. And one again a few spots apparently did not catch enough HG51 as the Tamiya flat coat ate some of the enamel. Do I ever learn?
Some sanding and respraying saves the day again.
Getting out the temporary paint handle was not as easy as expected. Got me kind of worried I would be stuck with a stick in an unwanted place…
Final assembly is always a bit hair-raising. I always manage to damage a couple of things or mess up bits of the paint. I guess I just get too impatient at this stage…
Almost there! Seat installed and some touch up around the cockpit. Canopy will be closed as I had no more patience to make something to hold it open.
… aaaand done! Fairly happy about the result, much better than my first attempt way back in time.
Comentarios
10 15 June, 12:08
Hans ZwetslootFinished another kit in sort of record time for my standards! Second time I built one of Fujimi's Skyhawk kits which are nice but a bit fiddly. Nevertheless pleased with the result. Next up from the workbench will be another Douglas "4", a Tamiya F4D that is already in the painting stage.
15 June, 12:25
