I started this one a while ago, and had needed to get it finished by the first week of June, which I did, just haven't had much time to post up anything recently. Work and family stuff have kept me occupied for the past several weeks. Anyway, here goes.....
The kit is more like a limited run than a Hasegaw or Tamyia kit, but it does have a very nice decal sheet and resin detail parts like the nose, wheels, and ejection seats and exhaust.
I started with the cockpit, originally I wanted to build a B model, but this is the original issue of the kit and only has the A instrument panels. I was going to modify the kit panels but in the end left them and built the kit as the A model. Isracast has the kit available with the updated B model panels and HUD for the front cockpit.
I added a large nut/bolt/washer to the center leg of each instrument panel for the cabin environmental control vent, and scrap photoetch for the landing gear lever, and also the parking brake leaver on the front panel. The instruments are a combination of kit, Airscale, and Mike Grant decals.
The seats are resin are pretty good. I added the support rod between the tall canopy breakers on the front seats, and the leg restraints on the bottom or each seat using thin strips of Tamyia tape painted blue. The center pull loops were made from stretched sprue painted yellow.
The cockpit looks decent enough for viewing under a closed canopy.
The kit comes with a pair of vacuformed canopies, and once trimmed up fit very well. The real canopy is a single piece that opens to the side so it would be easy to pose it open, but I like the way the canopy in the closed position adds to the lines of the aircraft, and so decided early on to mount it closed.
Paint going on, good ol' Model Master Gloss Sea Blue. You can see in the pic of the bottom of the model how "soft" the panel lines are, fairly wide and definitely not as crisp as other manufacturers panel lines.
Decals going on. I used Two Bobs decals for the Centennial of Naval Aviation T-6A. The nose checkers were the most challenging part of the process. The checks are single rows, until the fuselage diameter tightens up toward the bottom of the nose, at which point they become individual checker decals. Also the row of checkers has to follow the edge of the anti glare panel, which must be masked off by eye. Fortunately I seem to have gotten it right as everything lined up
All the decals on, it was naturally at this point I had a minor disaster....I somehow splashed a couple of drops of lacquer thinner on the wing which ate through the gloss coat and paint :tomato I sanded it out and resprayed, but the gloss coat I had been using kept beading up over the repairs, even after letting the base coat dry for several days
I sanded and resprayed the base and gloss two more times with the same result, on the third try I switched to Model Master Gloss Coat and that worked
I built a small base for the model to sit on and made a small name plate for it from a piece of Evergreen sheet plastic and the header decals from the Two Bob's decals sheet, and along with a set of Wheeliant wheel chocks and an Aerobonus fire extinguisher called this one done!
The fire extinguisher was all resin with the exception of the hose, and was quite fiddly and delicate to put together, but I have always wanted to paint something in that funky safety green color, so had to do it!
Thanks for looking if you got this far :Hiay
The kit is more like a limited run than a Hasegaw or Tamyia kit, but it does have a very nice decal sheet and resin detail parts like the nose, wheels, and ejection seats and exhaust.
I started with the cockpit, originally I wanted to build a B model, but this is the original issue of the kit and only has the A instrument panels. I was going to modify the kit panels but in the end left them and built the kit as the A model. Isracast has the kit available with the updated B model panels and HUD for the front cockpit.
I added a large nut/bolt/washer to the center leg of each instrument panel for the cabin environmental control vent, and scrap photoetch for the landing gear lever, and also the parking brake leaver on the front panel. The instruments are a combination of kit, Airscale, and Mike Grant decals.
The seats are resin are pretty good. I added the support rod between the tall canopy breakers on the front seats, and the leg restraints on the bottom or each seat using thin strips of Tamyia tape painted blue. The center pull loops were made from stretched sprue painted yellow.
The cockpit looks decent enough for viewing under a closed canopy.
The kit comes with a pair of vacuformed canopies, and once trimmed up fit very well. The real canopy is a single piece that opens to the side so it would be easy to pose it open, but I like the way the canopy in the closed position adds to the lines of the aircraft, and so decided early on to mount it closed.
Paint going on, good ol' Model Master Gloss Sea Blue. You can see in the pic of the bottom of the model how "soft" the panel lines are, fairly wide and definitely not as crisp as other manufacturers panel lines.
Decals going on. I used Two Bobs decals for the Centennial of Naval Aviation T-6A. The nose checkers were the most challenging part of the process. The checks are single rows, until the fuselage diameter tightens up toward the bottom of the nose, at which point they become individual checker decals. Also the row of checkers has to follow the edge of the anti glare panel, which must be masked off by eye. Fortunately I seem to have gotten it right as everything lined up
All the decals on, it was naturally at this point I had a minor disaster....I somehow splashed a couple of drops of lacquer thinner on the wing which ate through the gloss coat and paint :tomato I sanded it out and resprayed, but the gloss coat I had been using kept beading up over the repairs, even after letting the base coat dry for several days
I sanded and resprayed the base and gloss two more times with the same result, on the third try I switched to Model Master Gloss Coat and that worked I built a small base for the model to sit on and made a small name plate for it from a piece of Evergreen sheet plastic and the header decals from the Two Bob's decals sheet, and along with a set of Wheeliant wheel chocks and an Aerobonus fire extinguisher called this one done!
The fire extinguisher was all resin with the exception of the hose, and was quite fiddly and delicate to put together, but I have always wanted to paint something in that funky safety green color, so had to do it!
Thanks for looking if you got this far :Hiay
