1/72 Hasegawa F/A-18F Super Hornet 

VFA-41 Black Aces

by David Bey

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Hi there,
 
I wanted to do an OOB build, and also have been eyeing this 1/72 kit that has been sitting in my stash for a while. I normally build 1/48, but I'm also running low on display space, so I figure if I'm going for variety in markings....I might as well build more 1/72; it'll save me many dollars anyway. When I mean OOB, I really did try to be OOB, except for a little sheet styrene and clay. In the end I also used Steel Beach FOD covers, which I'll review later.
 
I was quite surprised by the kit - rivets galore! Also, it's pretty expensive for a 1/72 kit I'd say, and I think Hasegawa could have included say photo-etched for the pit for the price they're selling it at. Much has been going on in the forums about Revell's 1/48 E model, flaps and all, so I decided to try my hand at cutting the flaps on this one. One thing about fowler style flaps like Hornets have - it's not such an easy task as just cutting and reinstalling the flaps at a different angle - you need to do some major grinding and reshaping, of which I have not done entirely. I also cut the rudders, and the slats for repositioning - the rudders were scored with an x-acto blade then bent to the angle desired, instead of removing them totally.
 

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I did all the cutting and filing before painting, with the flaps off. Cockpit installation needed a few bits of styrene, sheet and bars, to fill up gaps between the tub and the fuselage. I had to make some seat belts from tape, and busy up the area behind the rear seat. I also attempted to fill in some of the panel lines and rivets to make it more "in scale", but in the end I succumbed to temptation and rescribed them all back in, albeit a little smaller (i used a finer needle). I also filled in the gun port and drilled it out facing the right way - otherwise the pilot would be shooting upwards!

Weathering was kept to a minimum - it's a CAG show bird! I was running very low on gunze 36375 (but I have restocked since then, though I had to ship 4 bottles in from spruebrothers.com, not local stores) so painting a 1/72 bird really helped me to economise on my paint. I masked with blu-tac snakes, but then went back and sprayed diluted 36375 all over to kinda' blur the edges... I kept the loadout simple, so I have extra 1/72 AIM-9X, AIM-120s, and fuel tanks for future use I guess.

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Decalling went fine, but in this scale, Hasegawa's thick decals look thicker than ever. They were set with micro set and sol, and then I used this opportunity to try out a chalk pastel wash also (I normally use oils, but sometimes I don't like how the oils permanently stain the paint a little), and I quite liked the relative easiness that I could sludge it on and wash it off. Clear coats were future, flat was gunze flat clear. Bare metal areas I painted using Gunze's lacquer metalliser line - I used aluminium for the gun port, dark iron for the exhaust. The exhaust FOD covers were made from modelling clay, sculpted and then painted red.. I think they're still a little out of shape to me. The intake FOD covers were from steel beach - not easy at all to put them on, especially since my intakes were already on the aircraft. There was a little bit of fitting problems that I managed to hide, but overall, a bit disappointed there as Darren usually maintains sky high standards.

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoy it. Next of this kit I build, I'm gonna attempt a wingfold!

David

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Photos and text © by David Bey