1/48 Tamiya AD-6 Skyraider Part 4

Gallery Article by Vince Pedulla on Feb 11 2014

 

 

148 AD-6 Skyraider converted from the Tamiya A-1H kit, with Cutting Edge conversion

AD-6 Skyraider, US Marine Corp Engineering Squadron Quantico, VA, 1960 - Part Four of Seven 

The AD Skyraider - A Modeling Journey in 1/48th Scale in Seven Parts 


Preface: All my Skyraider models share a few common traits. All of them (except the AD-6 & AD-5W, which were unarmed) have gun barrels & pitot tubes made from hypodermic needles. All were painted with Testor’s Model Master or Tamiya acrylics and weathered with oils. I also used AK Interactive washes to replicate the always present oil and fuel stains on this dirty bird. Aerials were created with EZ Line strands. Beyond that I used a variety of aftermarket parts & decals as described in the model’s article.

A word about the Tamiya kit…wonderful! Goes together without any drama and is very nicely detailed straight out of the box. But like any kit…there’s room for improvement! 

 

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OK, now we are getting serious…I really wanted a folded wing Sandy, and the only game in town was the Cutting Edge resin conversion, long out of production. Well, I got lucky on EBay and bought one, though it was expensive! But an addict has to have his candy, right? (Of course, Wolfpack has just released a new folding wing conversion in the $20.00 range! Typical….) The differences between an AD-6 and an A-1H?…not much. Remove the rudder top beacon, along with an antenna from the spine, and the “conversion” was finished. The airplane’s designation was changed from AD-6 to A-1H in the early 1960’s, and some AD-6’s had no armor plate. However I left it on this model.

These clean looking planes were used by the Marines as test and training aircraft, and also as demonstrators for new weapons and technology. As part of this project I also got a nice Cutting Edge decal set (much cheaper than the folding wings set!) which included four different aircraft, three of which I have now depicted. The set included a very cool white and orange training scheme, so I decided that my next Spad would be this colorful Marine bird. As these were typically unarmed, I had to replace the Tamiya pylons, which have no underside detail, with resin versions from True Details (very nice). These have excellent details on the bottom depicting the mounting point’s hardware. This plane also had no guns installed, so I filled the wing cannon openings. Another CMK cockpit went into this bird. 

The Cutting Edge instructions are fair, at best, but I figured out where everything goes using reference pics. The resin wings are very heavy though, with frail mounting points, so I used hypo tubes to create the telescoping braces often seen on parked Skyraiders, to add support. After construction was complete, I primed and pre-shaded, and used MM Gloss white as a base. After allowing it to dry for about a week, I used lots of Tamiya tape and masked off the Orange areas. I am not used to colors this bright! I finished by masking off the black anti-glare panel, walkways and exhaust areas and painting these areas with Model Master Aircraft Interior Black. I over sprayed panel lines and recesses with thinned Tamiya Smoke, followed by a light wash of Sepia oils.

The bright high visibility paint scheme is a striking contrast to the drab grey and blue Skyraiders I had previously built. The pictures actually make the orange look a bit brighter than it actually is on the model. Weathering was kept to a minimum. The Cutting Edge decals went on fine, although the white was a bit opaque over the orange. I should have masked these areas off and undercoated with white, but it’s not too bad. These aircraft appear to have kept cleaner than normal Sandys, so I added restrained post shading and minimal oil and exhaust stains. The helmet on the cockpit edge is a True Details product. A nice, colorful bird to sit next to the grey and blue ‘Raiders! No bombs or weapons, only a single fuel tank made this a nice break from painting ordnance!

Next up…we return to the blues and enter the night skies over Korea!

Vince Pedulla

ModelerV Studios

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Photos and text © by Vince Pedulla