1/32 Academy F/A-18A Part 1

built as VFC-12 from F/A-18C kit

by John Wolstenholme

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Aftermarket items used:
Decals TWB32004; Black Box BBCS32012 Exterior Set; Aires 2038 Wheel Bays Set; Cutting Edge Cockpit set CEC32119; Eduard 32058 Placard set, 32105 Exhaust set, 32106 Exterior set, 32111 Mesh, 32510 Interior set.

PART 1: FRONT FUSELAGE & COCKPIT

[A] CE Cockpit Set


Note: If you have had the CE cockpit set for a few years you may have got the ‘Late’ FA18C front page instructions, although it says FA18A!
#1 0.25mm card packing. The CE tub fits well, but unless you add some card, the fuselage is slightly narrow with respect to spine H1.
#2 Cyano short lengths of sprue, slightly high, to support tub at correct position. Being round you can easily file to get exact height fitting on closure.
#3 The CE canopy lock eyelets are the wrong shape (and shown in wrong positions); made some out of scrap resin.
#4 0.5 card to match tub.

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#1 Drilled out fixed ‘axle’, so that canopy strut can be ‘hinged’ using rod, allowing removal during construction.
#2 Significant discrepancy in fitting equipment bay to tub decking. Need to remove ~1.5mm at outside top all round, so that it comes through to fit flush and not recessed. It breaks through at left and right sides, but can be done and is then supported when fitted.
#3 Looking at photos for RHS console, I don’t think CE’s arrangement is correct. I ended up applying pieces from both AMARC and non AMARC sections.
#4 Apertures were made to take canopy lock, so canopy would close; later filled in as it was noticeably inaccurate.

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#1 Made new canopy locks, as CE look wrong shape
#2 Cut a slot in the top of part J52 to take a piece of shaped PE fret to engage in canopy mechanism.
#3 Canopy strut ‘tensioner’ made from 0.5 brass rod, 1.0 rod and 0.25mm card. Total length is 7mm.

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CE Main Instrument panel went in the bin. My preference was to use kit part G26. Cut/sand flat at back, then cut out/file for CE HUD. The photo below shows hybrid, with only base colours. Sprayed with gloss acrylic white, then enamel gloss black when fully dried. After overnight drying, raised details carefully wiped with small pieces of kitchen paper in tweezers, barely wet with enamel thinners, to reveal detail.

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NOTE: I found the 5 thou pieces of card to be an impediment to fitting the HUD ‘glasses’; better with nothing; check parallel spacing for top N6 and lower N8 glasses.

Equipment Bay

(i) Boxes. Looking at the photos, in Daco Pub., p86:
-the large box sits too low (used 1.8mm packing)
-small box is too big (I reduced to 6 x 4 x 4.5mm), added 0.25 card plate.
-VTR was thinned and mounting plate reduced at RHS; moved to stbd in bay.
(ii) Netting
Using a leftover from net curtaining material fixed to card and sprayed with Citadel Bleached Bone. Cut to shape, orientated for ease of ‘folding’ material, and tacked in place with CA.

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[B] Black Box Exterior Set
I opted to hybrid kit part E13 with Black Box part H to save filling and re-scribing, but this was not easy.
#1 Kit part E13 is shaped to fit fuselage exactly, whereas BB resin part is straight/flat. NOTE: The panel lines return to the refuelling compartment at each end. There is no panel line to the underside of the compartment.
#2 Removed door section and thinned inside with SM No10 blade to receive #3.
#3 Piece removed from BB resin part H; thinned at top to account for E13 thickness.

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[C] F/A-18A Nose, except for antennae etc. These are fitted last thing before painting, to avoid mishaps. Some selective sanding was required to get the radome to fit well.

#1 Kit parts B24 & 25 need a little work to fit flush.
#2 Some panel lines are missing/need extending in this area. (refer to scale drwgs.)
#3 ‘Bumps’ removed from port and stbd sides.
#4 Structural strips from 5 thou card. This does not seem to be on all –A’s, check photos.
#5 Drilled/filed out to give depth to vent. Prior to fitting B16, fitted 0.25 card to inner fuselage to
cover seam/gap.
#6 Photos (Daco p49) do not show a panel around these vents.
#7 Antenna shortened, looks too long compared to photos.

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[D] Front to Rear Fuselage joining. This was not the best of fits. To minimise filling/sanding, I joined front and rear as below. When viewed from the nose, the order of gluing is indicated as a clock.
i) Solvent glued port side from 12 to 6 and starboard side from 9 to 12.
ii) After setting overnight, solvent glued 6 to 9, after using a piece of sprue (#3) to ‘push-out’ this section to achieve a better fit. Basically, the front was shallow w.r.t. rear. It is essential to use a piece of 0.75mm card to spread the pressure and a block to ‘lever’ against. I successively used slightly increasing lengths of sprue, with warming from outside using a hair drier. Do not attempt to do in one go. A faint ‘crack’ was the front bottom seam parting slightly, but easily re-glued/filled.

#1 Width here is greater than that of part H1. Cut to aid width reduction after front/rear joining.
#2 Removed this area (stbd) so that sprue (#3) would distend this section with pressure and
warming.
#3 Resin piece, 0.75 card and sprue.

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[E] LERXs
Parts B30a and B30b were fitted just prior to fitting LERXs. I did not fit these as instructions (Step 11), because they would be in the way for front/rear fuselage finishing. B30b needed to be longer to achieve the angle shown in photos (Daco p18, 19)
More work was required to port than starboard.
#1 Sanded, with test fitting, as shown in photo; it was too wide w.r.t. ‘fuselage’. Masking tape protected top edge. The best fit was achieved by securing aft end first, and only then fixing remainder, as a little persuasion was required.
#2 Cut thro’ inside lugs with 10thou saw, to match thickness of LERX to that of ‘fuselage’.

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Top and bottom views of LERXs.
#3 LERX fences moved slightly rearward. The rear fixing is just forward of front/rear fuselage split.(Daco p28).
#4 Outboard edges of LERX, adjacent to fences should be more rounded (Daco p30); kit edges are ‘square’.

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The ‘panel’ lines (red parallel lines) were taken around under LERX, after filling gap between front and rear LERX sections. I also filled some ‘panel’ lines on u/s of LERXs which are not apparent on photos, or drawings.

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[F] Cockpit, Windscreen & Canopy

The ‘arch’ PE detail (Eduard interior set) was attached using CA. My preferred method, instead of Future, is to polish the clear styrene with Bare-Metal plastic polish, thereby preventing fogging from CA fumes, but still sticks very well. Also, if I get any marks during construction they can be polished-out.
I annealed PE to aid shaping and give a ‘key’ for CA. PE tacked with small pieces of masking tape at bottom and applied CA with thin width of paper, working top to bottom to get exact fit.

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On dry fitting the windscreen (not a perfect fit to fuselage) it did not ‘clear’ (by at least 10 thou) the HUD top glass. Since the HUD was already in place, horizontally filed part N6 until there was a clearance, checked with a strip of paper.

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Manual release handle markings using ~3.5mm strips of 0.2mm wide black decal (cut excess carrier film), wrapping underneath, then applied 2x yellow decal strips on top of handle.

[G] Antennae, Probes etc.

(i) The forward ventral and spine aerials (kit parts D36 x3) look stubby when compared with photos. New aerials formed from scrap resin and 0.25mm card mounting plates. Raised areas for aerial location on fuselage removed. Insert photo shows comparison.

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(ii) AOA probe/transmitter (see Daco p6). For this –A build, there is an AOA probe on the stbd (formed from 0.75mm rod) and an AOA transmitter on the port (kit part B27).

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PART 2: INTAKES AND JET PIPES

[A] Intakes Trunking

The trumpet(er) style intakes are really bad. I finally came up with a solution that may not be 100% accurate, but is considerably better. There is now a CE seamless intakes set available.

#1 Assembled kit intakes were joined with 1.5mm card and then the front section removed/cut/sanded at an angle parallel to rear face, leaving a 78mm rear section of intakes. Temp screw fitted in place to shape #5.
#2 and #3 Kit parts B31 and 36 ‘tacked’ in place with CA. Part B31 (#2) has had the rear 12mm removed and the inside bottom intake lip at rear sanded to an edge, to reduce the ‘rise’ into the intake trunking.
#4 Aires wheel MLG bays fitted to make sure mod fits.
#5 Resin male plugs shaped from odd resin blocks for inside fit to #1 and #2. Each plug consists of ‘tacked’ halves, so that they can be split for fibreglass moulding.

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Turned out to be a PITA, with the 4 step process, but decided resin casting was beyond me.

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The intakes were split and formed/finished separately. i.e. attached to parts B31/36 and B32/37
NOTE: The intakes were fitted to the lower fuselage and initially rejoined at the rear, but this makes fitting the side sections A3 and A4 more difficult, so temporarily detached from lower fuselage.

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#1 Eduard PE 2(3). Scribed here and then removed material with SM No10 blade to produce an edge, then sanded the rest of the area. A pitfall to avoid when fixing with CA; use only around periphery, otherwise you fill-in the bleed holes.

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Might not look pretty from the outside, but looks good where it matters.

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Intake Lips
The shapes of the vertical and bottom edges do not look correct, when compared to photos (Daco p.52). This modification hopefully looks more accurate!
#1 ‘Crescent’ shaped piece of 0.5mm card (1.5mm wide) held in place to outside with sellotape; solvent cement fixing.
#2 Isopon P38 filler is a 2 part compound, which can be shaped before it completely cures using a sharp blade to minimise sanding and produces a smooth finish.

John 

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Photos and text © by John Wolstenholme