1/48 Hobby Boss F-111A

Gallery Article by Ian T.M. Holahan on Feb 23 2012

 

 

Being a great fan of the F-111, I finally decided to take a crack at the Hobby Boss F-111A.  The sheer volume of parts in the kit is astounding and it appeared to be as complex as the actual F-111.  I used the kit cockpit parts, but details were added from sheet stock, lead foil and various other details. The first construction speed-bump was fitting the cockpit capsule into the fuselage.  The gap was several millimeters high so I had to grind down the bottom of the cockpit tub and the roof of the nose gear bay, with a Dremel, to get everything to fit.  Also, due to the large amount of dead space in the fuselage, the airframe is very weak and compresses and flexes very easily.  I added various Plasti-Struct I-beams, cross-members and columns to the inside of the fuselage to shore it up. 

 

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Once that was done, the fuselage was closed up and seams and gaps were filled accordingly. The landing gear was then assembled and given a wash of Future Floor wax diluted with black paint. The main landing gear assembly is very weak and flexed from supporting the plane. I had to add metal axles for the main wheels and the landing gear apparatus itself was strengthened with metal rod which was placed in the gear assemblies after holes were drilled in the core parts. That stopped the gear from flexing but involved a great deal of work to get it right. The formation strip lights were sanded off the airplane since the Nellis bird I was going to depict did not have them yet. 

The model was painted with Model Master enamels and the camo scheme was masked using 3M 2090 tape.  The aircraft I was going to depict had the light grey undersides instead of the black so TAC camo grey was used for that.  I used the Mk. 82 bombs from the kit as well as the Rockeyes, but I had to borrow two more Rockeyes from the FB-111 kit since there were only six in this model. Twelve Mk.82's were completed and eight Rockeyes were also added in slant-loads on the outer pylons.  Panel lines and rivets were drawn with a Micron Ink pen and the panel lines were then shaded with Tamiya Smoke.  I used Super Scale decals to depict an F-111A from the 430th TFS at Nellis AFB.  The Super Scale decals laid down flawlessly, but I had to use the Hobby Boss decals for the stencils.  The Hobby Boss decals were very difficult to use and prone to silvering and I actually had to use lacquer thinner to get those to lay down.  The flaps, slats and spoilers were painted separately and added at the end of the process.  I thought the red was a nice contrast with the SEA scheme. I know that mention has been made of the windscreen profile in this kit so I sanded down the bottom edge to "drop" the profile of the windshield.  Two helmets were then "borrowed" from two crew figures and added to the cockpit.  The helmets were decorated with flames and dice decals to give them a kind of custom look.  All in all, this was a very complex kit to tackle, but with some planning and patience it builds up into an impressive "VARK".
Best Wishes, Ian

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Photos and text © by Ian T.M. Holahan