A-4SU 95% complete

nice modifications... what did u use or do? care to share? and what is the original kit?

original kit is a hasegawa A-4E. All the mods were scratch built with plastic cards and epoxy putty.

The nose was also shortened to somewhat downgrade it to A-4C standards. I will post the full build process later.

Started off by sawing off about 1 cm off the nose of the fuselage halves.



Made a compartment using balsa wood. Then I added superglue and talcum powder into the compartment.



Sanding commences. Managed to make a pretty general shape. But the nose looks a little bit too rounded.



Sand A little bit more...seems quite ok. Maybe i have to sharpen the nose a little more.



Comparison of my new nose to the template i printed from my computer.



Taped the 2 fuselage halves and sand somemore. Try to get them rounded.



Top view.

Cockpit and pilot done.



Cockpit mounted into the fuselage. Nose reshaped again.

A-4SU update.

Intake conversion

This is the original intake


It is longer than the A-4C's intake and it doesn't flush to the fuselage. So i saw off a portion of it as shown in the next picture.



The top and bottom of the fuselage is tapered down and the lip is rounded off.

As the intake is seperated from the fuselage as opposed to the A-4C, which is flushed, I sawed off one side of the fuselage wall and sanded down a piece of plastic that seperates the intake from the fuselage.

Here is a Before and after pic.

Before:



AFter:



The Intake seems a little too thin. I think i might have sanded too much. Maybe I should use styrene plates to bulk it up? Somebody advice?

Special avionics bulge.

I used the tamiya epoxy putty to create this bulge. This is the first time i used this putty. The overall shape seems right, but the position is a little off. shucks.

Mega update...



Made the drag chute housing

i took 2 pieces of sprue of 2 different diameter, drilled a hole in the larger sprue and pushed the smaller one in. After that i sand it to shape.



Made the secondary intake.



Preshading



bottom coat



First coat



Second and third coat. I didn't like the tan so i lighten it. Ended up being too light. The dark green didn't show very well too. Looks like one homogeneous green.



Finally added a darker tan on it. Darkened the dark green and lighten the light green. So better contrast now. However with so many coats of paint on, the preshading dissappeared. Have to do post shading when i have finished with everything.

New update

Completion 90%



did some of my home made decals scratch build some antannaes.

Painted the anti slip patch by putting some liquid putty on the area then airbrush black.

slats and air brakes painted red. I glued the slats in open position.

postshaded the panel lines and rivets. Decided against washing becos the rivets are really deep this time round.

Did the weapons. However the weapons are not very accurate. Nvm, looks good to the eye can liaow.

Canopy painted, added another antannae on the front landing gear door.

Made the winscreen wiper by stretching a few sprues.

Added some decals. Speaking of which, the box that i bought did not come with the data stencils like no step, and stuff. Damn fustrating to see it all in the manual and i see no decals.

Other than that i have to do the clear parts and the airbrake mechanism.

Excellent work Cmbt! Where did you get the reference to design the 142 Sqn insignia on the tail?

But just a point to note man, for the rear fuselage numbers, 'A4SU' should be above the '960' not below.

Hi Cbmt & Kace,

Kudos to both ! Very nice stuff, alot of dedication...

Airbrush work is neat man!

haha ok thanks for telling me, i just corrected it. Thank goodness i haven't over coated it


As for the picture, i actually optained a very small sample on the internet, den i blow it up to 1/32 scale.

After that i slowly use graphics program to smoothen out the curves and sharpen it. It itsn't very accurate, but good that pple recognize it as a 142 sqn.

haha thank you very much. Your encouragement will spur on more dedication.

that's fantastic surgical work on an A-4E and the research u did to be accurate. i'm not into major fuseluge shape changes.

thanks for your shots and update... we got a little collection of SEA camo birds. (next project is A-1J, guess what, SEA camo scheme) :))

haha i feel that your surgical work on your F-15sg was fantastic too. The equipment mods were good.

thanks cmbt for the compliment. it was a spur of the moment project b'cos i had a 1/32 F-15E hatching for a long time. it was surprising, i didn't expect to have such strong response from the modeling community.

there are some post withdrawal syndrome... i would like to have
1. 2xdrop tanks on the wings (that is available on the bunker buster kit, not my older release);
2. replace with a sniper XR pod that lots of people is talking about;
3. smaller JDAM

so, what is your next project?

Hi Kace,

Some links for your reference .....for the A1J Project

Which kit are you thinkin of?

This one is a thread from another forum on the A1..Plenty of tips...Enjoy !

http://s102164210.onlinehome.us/forums/ind...opic=87176&st=0


http://hsgalleries.com/skyraidersm_1.htm

http://hsgalleries.com/a1hrf_1.htm

http://hsgalleries.com/a1hgg_1.htm

http://www.hsgalleries.com/gallery04/a1jha_1.htm

http://skyraider.org/

http://skyraider.org/skyassn/index.htm

http://www.pbase.com/chickg/to_soar

http://www.pbase.com/image/50680676

http://www.pbase.com/image/60339686

http://www.pbase.com/image/41624579

http://www.pbase.com/image/54062010

http://www.pbase.com/busch/image/46608333

http://www.pbase.com/image/52557379

http://www.pbase.com/image/37266882

I have an F-18D 1/32 on my shelve, not yet opened. Unfortunately I have to serve the nation , so i dun have much time to do it.

I am pretty interested in the bengal tigers paint scheme for that.

Another one which i am pretty interested in would be the hawker hunter. Add in to my rsaf warbird collection.

There is some guy who did a spare drop tank in the aircraft resource center website. You might want to check it out.

F-15 fuel tank

tks 24 siera for your links.

i am going to start a thread on arc with the viet gb. that's the other bird on my viet gb, having complete my betty lou clear nose. i have not decide what markings, most likely OOB unless someone can spare me a 1/48 markings for another bird.

i have seen the arc F-15 drop tanks resin link. unfortunately i'm not into casting. did some Aluminium castings for uni research but that's enough of that ;)

i have got a suggestion to start a gallery on rsaf only... i have seen so many F-16A/B/C/D/52+, A-4SUs, Blacklions, Hunters, Chinooks, Apaches, S211s, RF/F-5Es and coming F-15SGs :rolleyes:

wouldn't it be great to have one gallery to showcase them all. how about that!!! B)

Haha that will be great!!! Provides good reference to all those who are interested in rsaf plamo.