F/A-18: 30 years of Ala 15, Tiger Meet 2016
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David R. MeizosoThank you, guys! I'll update this album with some WIP pics, as soon as my PC comes back from hospital.
David R. MeizosoThanks, mates! Cuajete: yes they are. They're a little bit short of stencils but the principal ones are there.
David R. MeizosoThanks everybody for your kind words and likes also, I really appreciate it! I just uploaded some WIP pictures as promised. This was a very demanding project and I was so into it that forgot to take pictures of many important steps... Happens to me all the time, not only when modelling!
Spanjaardvery demanding, but really beautiful result. beautiful cockpit! great job David!
Chan LiHaha man, after I saw this I almost want to quit my own build of hornet, this is simply masterpiece, it looks like 48 scale.
David R. MeizosoThanks, Chan! I really hope you stick with the "almost" and don't quit your superbug!
Rui S@ Chan, this should be inspiring, not the contrary. At least to me, scalemates masters motivate me to try to achieve the Next level. I'm with David.
Album info
Today I finished this project after intermitent progress during the last 4 years. It is a gift for a (patient) friend who works at Airbus. Lucky her, who can watch Hornets and Eurofighters from her office windows every day.
It was my first attempt of using aftermarket cockpit and landing gear wells (from Aires, to be used in Hasegawa kits). The cockpit fit was very good and the detail is impressive. As for the wells, I recommend using a powertool to thin the plastic. I didn't have one back then so used a N.11 blade, scalpel and sanding paper. The main difficulty was to adapt the Fujimi main gear legs to the Hasegawa-ready Aires wells. I was really afraid they wouldn't hold the weight of the kit, but there it is!
I also posed the flaps and ailerons down with some surgery and epoxy resin sculpting. That was also new for me and I'm really happy with the result.
Getting a seamless intake trunks was also hard, and needed a good amount of putty and sanding.
Since the cockpit was full of detail, I decided to improve the canopy with scratch built structure, wiring and equipment as per reference pics.
The commemorative decals are a beauty, but I was not able to convince them to adapt to the underlying detail. Some colors where a bit thick since they're printed one over another, I don't know how to make it, maybe next time I'll try the hairdryer method.
