Taking the rhino by the horns...

1
March 14, 2021
I am not trusting those kind of full length assemblies anyhow, and in this special case its best to not trust anything at all^^ so I divided rear and front
2
March 14, 2021
and I dont trust these as well, its the interior of the upper vents on the LEX supposed to be pressed in from underneath - nah...
3
March 14, 2021
Cut out and glued seperately
4
March 14, 2021
I will be sanding the brick-shaped spine into a more elegant shape and this putty wall will prevent holes there
5
March 14, 2021
nothing big to see here but I sanded a lot of the overdone curvature on this part next to the slats down
6
March 14, 2021
also corrected some important+very prominent panel lines here. Also deepened those on the air brakes
(you often read the super hornet doesnt have airbrakes as it deflects normal surfaces in antagonist order - which it does - but still got those tiny boards in front of the vents on top to deploy -would be cool to have a kit that gives the option)
7
May 15, 2021
dude! who had this brilliant design idea?? Manual says: Please putty! 😄 Ok, I highly recommend doing that before the full assembly! Trying to save some of the mesh detail with the tape...
8
May 15, 2021
..but this leaves a step as I feared
9
May 15, 2021
Filled and sanded, now onwards with the construction
10
May 15, 2021
the side parts did fit surprisingly well, mostly the weak point in hornet kits.
just hiding the joints with dissolved putty
11
May 15, 2021
as the manual states: remove 0,5mm on the upper bridges...I decided to remove everything. Note the gap between the tubes, this is very important for the flexibility for marriage with the top
12
May 15, 2021
A lot of work went into smoothing these out, looking ok-ish now
13
March 14, 2021
drilled those open - more cleanup still needed
14
May 15, 2021
fit is good, hiding the seams is necessary though
15
May 15, 2021
the LG doors generally fit well, that is a plus - I might even forgive that they forgot a quarter of the door here
16
May 15, 2021
but I am well stocked on putty and sheet. My advise if you build this: glue the underside LEX pieces to the top part first, use super glue on the edge to fill and sand. Then marry upper and lower fuselage and then do the nose as last. Dryfitting is extremely important! You will have massive gaps between nose and LEX but much easier to treat those there than to have those on the LEX-edges
17
May 15, 2021
to reduce the large distance between the exhaust pipes I sawed out a generous gap. (I also prepared a gap between the 2 inner burner chamber pieces as my first step)
18
May 15, 2021
Clamped, glued and restored later on - quite an easy fix for a big shape issue
19
May 16, 2021
There should be no visible rivets on the slats. I may leave some very shallow ones because it adds interest. For this purpose I covered and wiped with acrylic putty
20
May 16, 2021
Dry fit with the driver -canopy fits on top as well without further modifications.
(The dude is not included in the kit)
21
May 16, 2021
So this is my heavily sanded nose cone as it looked terrible OOB. I am happy now with it being much pointier.
Also important to note here: If you leave the instrument panel as is, the HUD wont fit. Here it is already fixed...
22
May 16, 2021
...by sawing the panel in two halfs and glueing the top panel directly on the bottom part without any space in between. some milimeters won for the HUD
23
May 24, 2021
Going full bernhard on the seat 😉 - that must be six cables and 2 sheet-pieces
24
May 24, 2021
but still a bit of work adds a lot
25
May 24, 2021
apart from the MFDs those are all kit decals. They are much more detailed and accurate compared to what the cockpit plastic offers. I used some puzzle pieces of different spare decals to add some life to the MFDs
26
May 24, 2021
with the seat
27
May 25, 2021
used a piece of cereal packaging for the mirrors
28
May 25, 2021
Still refining my holo-powder technique, since this jet will come with a lot of bling, I think the effect will blend in nicely 🙂
29
May 25, 2021
Doesnt look that far from the real thing
30
May 29, 2021
crew assembled - VX-9 sometimes wears black flight suits, MIB 😎
I used a guitar string with an extra wire for the o2-hose
31
May 31, 2021
20:29:45: I declare - the battle is won!
(not the battle against the desk chaos...)
32
May 31, 2021
Had to scratch my own HUD with little sheet strips and spare clear parts as the one in the box is ridiculous. Also applied the greenish holo foil
33
June 2, 2021
Didnt expect everything to be ok after the first primer coat after that much putty-work, surprisingly its all looking good 👍
34
June 2, 2021
totally skipped the documentation of me sanding the spine, sry. Lets say it was a good idea to put putty under the plastic before construction as I went right through the plastic
35
June 2, 2021
happy with the shapes -at last
36
June 3, 2021
37
June 3, 2021
38
June 6, 2021
LGG ...
39
June 6, 2021
and DGG applied, using the AK RC colors again
40
June 6, 2021
trying some colored shading
Ah btw: if you see the rivet line on the inner edge of the stabs, this was the original size. The added part I made from sanded putty, otherwise there would be a huge gap, partially revells fault, partially a result of my surgery to get the engines closer together.
41
June 6, 2021
The coloured shading works nicely and is very subtle as I hoped. The paint at the rear part of the stabs looks "fresher"
also some touchups in LGG
42
June 9, 2021
Used a spray can for the gloss black
43
June 9, 2021
basic painting finished (except nose cone)
44
June 9, 2021
looks quite cool already
45
June 9, 2021
46
June 19, 2021
using those stencil masks by eduard is really fast and authentic as well
47
June 19, 2021
huge recommendation for this ammo mig product, easy to apply and looking super anti-slippery 👍
48
June 30, 2021
49
July 2, 2021
50
July 2, 2021
51
July 2, 2021
52
July 2, 2021
53
July 5, 2021
Scratching off the sensor plates with a toothpick. I first painted it beige, then gloss coat and after that acrylic gun metal which is extremely easy to remove on gloss coat
54
July 5, 2021
done and closs coated again for securing the metallic coat for weathering
55
July 5, 2021
dryfit

Daniel
Since the mig is done but the dio stuff seems to take forever to arrive I am now moving on to something that will probably keep me busy for a while...

Big thanks to mr Petiers over at largescaleplanes who built a fantastic super hornet out of this mess and also did a fantastic documentation:
forum.largescaleplan..ith-lessons-learned/

Will keep close to his advice and hopefully come out victorious 🙂

14 March 2021, 17:57

Daniel
cheers roland!

My suspicion: "We need a large super hornet that is cheaper than the trumpeter one" was the only thought that was really persistent throughout this endeavour. Probably also written on a golden wall plaquette in the design bureau 😄
But its still some weird kind of fun to work through it once you have accepted that it sucks and also have the tricky parts pointed out by someone before you start

15 May 2021, 13:44

Stefan Schacht
nice start, count me in.

15 May 2021, 15:30

Juskifo
I always admire when I see a difficult assembly that requires a lot of work: putty, engraving, scratch ...
was the ECS late pipes in the kit or is it from the aftermarket?

15 May 2021, 21:46

Daniel
Welcome Stefan and Juskifo and thanks!

The kit comes with both ECS exhaust versions and lets you choose. Thats good. Bad: In 1:32 scale I would have expected some real pipes with a hole at the end...but I had to carefully drill them out myself.

16 May 2021, 21:25

Sarunas D
This will be a good reference when building this beast of a kit

24 May 2021, 12:14

Daniel
thanks mates and welcome sarunas!

I can really recommend the link from my 1st comment if you plan to tackle this mother. Helped me a lot and is much more step-by-step than my posts here.

some work finished on the canopy, really happy with the result! (now careful not to damage it...)

25 May 2021, 18:12

Juskifo
the anti-reflective glass roof adds a touch of realism;
followed by mirrors at 32 which are perhaps easier to mount than at 48 Thanks for work idea

1 June 2021, 05:53

Jorge Ferreira
I`m so glad I didn`t buy this kit. Thank you Daniel. I hope God gives you all you need to finish the model.

1 June 2021, 13:15

Daniel
Primer down, the hard part is finished. The fins took a LOT of super glue, putty and sanding at their roots, they seem to be designed for a completely different model...

@juskifo: thanks mate, everything is easier at 1:32;) But mirrors in 1:48 are not that uncommon. My tip if you cut mirror foil: try to do several strands with a bent nail-scissor choose the one thats most parallell and cut it into smaller pieces. easy. 🙂

@jorge: Thanks !May God help me 😄 Its not that bad, as you see I got it going together 🙂 I wouldnt recommend that kit to anyone of course, but its far from unbuildable, most italeri-kits I've build so far gave me more trouble... I just feel the need to correct some issues with the shape, thats the main prob

2 June 2021, 18:49

Jorge Ferreira
For me the major problem is time spend. Unfortunately I`m not getting younger but the stash keep on growing. So when I know about kit`s like this I have to get away. I`ve done a few like this or even worse so I know what it is like. Of course we always have the feeling of the challenge , the acomplishment of a hard work etc etc........don`t care with that anymore...????

3 June 2021, 09:50

Juskifo
?Thank you very much for these very precious information for my model assembly

3 June 2021, 11:10

Daniel
shading applied to create some depth later on, generally this will be a rather clean specimen.

@jorge: pragmatic approach, I see the reasoning: To many good kits out there to waste time on bad kits... If there was a Tamiya 1:32 version of this bird I wouldnt be doing this as well. Well maybe yes, as I am sold on this livery 😉
(ah yes, theres the trumpeter, but is not a joy to build as well, though not this bad...but here the surface detail is much better)

3 June 2021, 17:14

Sarunas D
Seems like you're progressing at a good pace, considering a complicated kit.

3 June 2021, 17:26

Juskifo
I imagine that one will be represented in flight !?

3 June 2021, 22:58

Daniel
Jep, after all the tedious sanding I am now in the lane and making good progress, no landing gear is also a huge time saver.
Gonna stick this on a pole in a steep climb, this looks cool + saves the most horizontal space. Still plenty of vertical space left in my little room here...

6 June 2021, 10:06

Daniel
Thanks Roland!

Some updates on painting

9 June 2021, 23:04

Alexander
Definitely some very nice porgress you made with tackling this controversial kit. 👍 Joining the seats and stay for the rest of the ride.

26 June 2021, 19:51

Daniel
Welcome Alexander and thanks!

29 June 2021, 08:41

Wayne Digby
Awesome work

29 June 2021, 08:42

Daniel
thanks wayne! 🙂

29 June 2021, 19:09

Daniel
some outdoor decaling done on the balcony. Did I already say that I am sold on that livery? 🙂

30 June 2021, 17:33

Daniel
you could, as an alternative, rename yourself to roland vampire for some months 😄
I was also really tempted by it as I prefer actual fleet squadrons - but the vx-9 looked just too cool 🙂 thanks!

30 June 2021, 17:56

Daniel
spent some time on the pipes, sadly this is not that much visible in there later...its not a mig 25 🙂

2 July 2021, 18:21

Konrad -
Awesome progress on this super bug?! Looking forward to the final rollout 👍!!

2 July 2021, 18:21

Alexander
It looks very realistic though, so nice work!

2 July 2021, 19:15

Juskifo
?Nice stencil: "No step" home-made I imagine ?
this marking is all in color, it changes after the "low visibility" version

3 July 2021, 08:51

Daniel
Many thanks Konrad Alexander and Juskifo!
Roll-out or fly-out in this case is just a matter of days 🙂
The metal stencils are from an eduard set, I dont regret that purchase, especially as I got more 1/32 Hornets waiting in line

5 July 2021, 18:35

Daniel
the bug is operational!

VX-9 Vampires Triple Sticks | Album by halohead (1:32)

7 July 2021, 20:08

Daniel
thanks everyone for stopping by 🙂

7 July 2021, 20:08

Juskifo
nice reference pic 49

7 July 2021, 20:47