1/48 Revell A-6E Intruder

by Kelly Quirk

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I've been hoarding this kit (and 2 others) for quite a while now, and finally decided to get off my rear and build it.  I've always loved the Intruder, and wanted to do it justice when I built one.

The first thing I did was to sand off all raised detail and rescribe the entire kit.  I've never done this before, and I don't know what possessed me to make my first attempt on an out of production kit.  But it went fine, rescribing is not as bad as I thought.  I used a sewing needle chucked in a pin vise, remembering to change needles often.

Cockpit 

I tinted the very front part of the windscreen with a light coat of Tamiya clear blue.  Also used were the Black Box cockpit, which was a beauty and went in pretty good, the rear decking needed some fiddling, but not bad.  I added 2 prominent levers on the pilot side front console. The Verlinden detail set was used for both sets of steps, and canopy sills.  An Eduard photoetch set was used for various details.  
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Wingfolds

The wingfolds are the beautiful resin inserts made by Paragon.  These things are works of art.  It was my hope all along the mechanisms would be strong enough to stand on their own, as I didn't want to add the braces to support the wings.  I was not disappointed. It did some work fairing them in to the wing, and some very careful cutting.  Adding all the delicate pieces to the folding mechanism took  plenty of patience too, but the end result is very satisfying.
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MV lenses were used for all lights, even the map lights in the cockpit.  The nosegear was repositioned, it was easy to do and I like the attitude it gives the model.  Bombs came from the Hasegawa weapons set.

 

The pitot tube on the tail was made from styrene rod and wire.  And, just to demonstrate the versatility of the A-6E, I mounted a buddy pod refueling system on the belly pylon, taken from an S-3 kit.  The main wheel wells were boxed in with sheet styrene, and plumbing was added with wire and flexible tubing.  I wanted to give the Intruder the typical patched up paint job so common at the end of their career.  Touch ups were done by both airbrush and paintbrush.  Decals came from Superscale, and weathering was done with a wash and pastels.  Some Remove Before Flight flags were the final touch.  After almost 5 months, I'm glad it's finished, but I think it is one of my better projects all said and done.

Humorous sidenote, one of the first things I did upon starting this kit was to put the sprue of clear parts in a safe place, so I wouldn't scratch them up.  I can't remember where I put them, and still to this day can't find them.  I robbed the clear parts from one of my other kits, but when I superglued the main canopy to the rear deck, it cracked all the way down the side.  So I robbed my third kit for that canopy.  I now have 2 more A-6's in my stash, with no clear parts for either one!

Kelly

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Photos and text © by Kelly Quirk