Trumpeter F/A-18E Super Hornet 1/32

[BarryW]

The box

The extras, no cockpit detailing set sadly.


These big Trumpy kits are always thoughtfully packed, lets hope the contents live up to the packing.


Apparently the weapons are an issue, I will need to be selective over what I use. These have a box all to themselves.



Hopefully I can make a start later today. I love all this extra time at the bench thanks to lockdown....about twice as long as usual....

[BarryW]

I have made a tentative start to this one.

Interesting to compare the resin seat with the kit one... You can see how much nicer the resin seat is.

The seat came away from the block with no issues and, I have to say, this is the nicest molded of all the resin ejector seats I have had for these modern jet builds. After a test fit I had to do a little light sanding to the sides of the seat to improve the fit tolerance into the tub.

This seat, unlke the others, does not have any seatbelts molded in. Instead there are some p.e. belts included with quite a few parts including resin. It was clear to me when I started removing the p.e. from the fret that these belts are not practical to use.

Consequently I will be using the kit's p.e. seat belts, these are a bit too stiff and need painting but are definately the better more practical option.

[Steve Brodie]

Tagging along for the ride. Shame no one makes modern seat harnesses in cloth the same way they do for WWII aircraft.

[BarryW]

Tagging along for the ride. Shame no one makes modern seat harnesses in cloth the same way they do for WWII aircraft.

No loss to me. I have never yet succeeded with the micro cloth ones and have just wasted my money. I vowed never to buy one of those sets again.

[BarryW]

Played hooky from work (making the most of working from home) with an hour at the bench.

the cockpit subs ready to spray the colours below:


the Desert Tan is a good seatbelt shade. The Olive Drab is for the seat cushion and back, the black will be sprayed in my next session after I have masked the tub and seat.



Ready to be masked tonight....

Trumpeter provide some pretty poor decals for the sidewalls and i.p.


using poor quality decals over raised detail rarely turns out well. I am planning to paint the side walls using the decal as a guide. For the i.p. I am hoping to use some elements from the decals, it will partly be painted. Pity that I found that the Eduard detailing set for this kit has been discontinued and I could not find a set Googling.

The detail painting Instructions for this kit, typically for Trumpeter, are very poor and incomplete so a lot of the painting will be from Googling.

[Jim R]

Hi Barry
Another masterpiece in the making.
Jim

[BarryW]

You may notice that I have not primed the interior as I usually do. I am experimenting to see whether internal prIming is necessary with MRP, I believe not, as these modern jets soak up a lot of paint. This is only for the internals, priming is defiantly needed for the exterior if only to check seams and pre-shade. I may not black base this one as it is a freshly painted ‘celebratory’ scheme and I want a cleaner look. The weathering will be more subtle.

[langy71]

I'm gonna lob a chair in the corner and watch this with interest, always liked the look of an F-18,
looking good so far though... :thumb2:

[scottie3158]

Barry,
I will tag along for the ride and watch another masterpiece.

[BarryW]

I have done a spot of work to the wheel well/fuselage fit. Some seam treatment needed there.


progress on the cockpit, the i.p.

Side panels

As you can see the up and side panels were mostly painted. Using decals for this over the raised detail rarely turns out well, a pretty dumb idea really. Using poor quality Trumpy decals is a recipe for misery. So I used the decals as a guide for painting. I did get a couple of small sections of decals used though. Overall the decals are poorly sized. I am happy with the painted look, not perfect but when in situ it will look effective. Gloss varnish was used for glass.

The seat in place

The Trumpy seatbelts are not easy to fit and make natural. Moulded in seatbelts would look better. However after a brown wash they don’t look too bad at all.

[BarryW]

I have been getting on with some sub-assemblies.

The front undercarriage ready for paint


The main undercarriage under construction currently waiting for the cement to harden so I can sand seams before attaching smaller parts.


Engines under construction. Fit is OK but it lacks the refinement and thoughtfulness of a Tamiya kit.

[BarryW]

I got to the fitting of the trunking and engines to the lower fuselage and ended up having to walk away from the bench. Quite frankly, I am stumped and right now don’t know exactly what to do.

The trunking looks as if it don’t belong to this kit.

You can see above how different the plastic looks to the drawing.

The positioning of the engInes is very vague in every respect. No positive locations and the position would no more than a rough guess. Attaching the trunking to the engines might help but there is no way to see exactly how that should be positioned either. Get that wrong and it knocks on else where. In fact nothing has a definite positive location that I can work back from. The exception being the side panels but they don’t fit and I cannot glue them into place until the engines and trunking is in position. Every dry fit I attempt has failed to give me a solid basis on which I can proceed. Nothing really looks right.


I will take another look tomorrow.

[scottie3158]

Barry,
That does indeed look very confusing. I'm sure you will manage to figure it out.

[Gary MacKenzie]

I got to the fitting of the trunking and engines to the lower fuselage and ended up having to walk away from the bench. Quite frankly, I am stumped and right now don’t know exactly what to do.

The trunking looks as if it don’t belong to this kit.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1125461[/ATTACH]
You can see above how different the plastic looks to the drawing.

The positioning of the engInes is very vague in every respect. No positive locations and the position would no more than a rough guess. Attaching the trunking to the engines might help but there is no way to see exactly how that should be positioned either. Get that wrong and it knocks on else where. In fact nothing has a definite positive location that I can work back from. The exception being the side panels but they don’t fit and I cannot glue them into place until the engines and trunking is in position. Every dry fit I attempt has failed to give me a solid basis on which I can proceed. Nothing really looks right.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1125462[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]n1125463[/ATTACH]

I will take another look tomorrow.

Might find some useful info @ http://www.ipmsusa.org/reviews2/airc...r_32_fa18e.htm

[BarryW]

Thanks Gary, that link is uselful and it does give me some clues about how I can proceed. I am not entirely sure what it all means as he is using some technical jargon I am not familiar with but I will see if I can work it out when at the bench. Trumpy have poorly engineered this kit though, no doubt about that.