Bill_S

I think I have a plan, Gazz. I'll post when I'm ready.

Those tiny PE pieces are all the same size. Unfortunately, the spacing on the kit is not uniform. Out with the calipers, quite a bit of variation - I'll have to cut each piece to size. I just need to figure a way to hold them. This is going to take a while.

Those screw holes on the bottom of the fuselage bother me. I cut some sheet plastic, and chucked it into a dremel bit. I don't have a lathe, so I use what I have. Glued in place, with some 0.060' (1.5 mm) rod to fill the hole. A little sanding, and I've got this. Thankfully, I only had to do three of them - it was pretty time consuming. And some white...

The post man left a few items for me today. Some AM for my Academy Hornet... And I got a very good price on this...

Nice haul, Mark! No comment on the SAC landing gear.

Viet Nam, John.

One of the last seams to be filled. I think. I had one area that I should have sanded prior to installing the intakes. I had to fashion a sanding tool out of Evergreen strip. There are a few small panel lines that I missed while scribing. Once I take care of those, I'll need to do some final surface prep and off to the spray booth.

Looking good, John. I've got the Navy version in process, and I just received the toilet bomb. My static dischargers are intact, but I did manage to snap off a cannon barrel.

It looks great, Phil! Trumpy's 1/32 kits can be hit or his; they definitely used their A team on the TBF/TBM kits.

As usual,a job well done!

I was very pleased with the Quinta Studios set for the Tamiya Tomcat. I just ordered the cockpit upgrade for my Academy F-18.

Welcome to the Forums, Ernie!

Back after my camping trip... some minor masking. Nearly done with the missiles. Lots of decals.

It was like Christmas here today... I find that I use these a lot. Never for paint or CA.

Back at it. Got some PE work done on the gear doors. Some of the hinges are tiny, with multiple folds... Plenty of PE for the main gear. Thirty pieces to dress up the engine bay. I probably should have added these prior to attaching the tails. Only five more weeks until the PE nozzles are due to arrive.

Success. Now to put it away until I determine how much nose weight will be required.

Sad news indeed, Ernie.

Compressor faces painted and glued... And intakes installed. She's starting to look like a Tomcat! I had to apply a little pressure to get the intakes to bottom out. One of these days, I need to get some lightweight bar clamps. While I'm waiting on the intakes to cure, I took a look at the nose. Master Models would have you build up the nose on the Trumpeter kit; no mention was made of the Tamiya offering. There's a definite step there. It makes me wonder if the AM part is off. A hole drilled in a piece of 0.020" (0.5 mm) sheet stock. Once dry, I'll trim and sand. Hopefully it's thick enough.

In between filling and sanding, some minor progress. Intake interiors are done; They're satin white AKA Tamiya rattle can primer. Ordnance ready for paint. And some fiddly bits...

A quick update. Future works well for the task! I've got my fingers crossed that it's a bad batch, and that I don't have to use Future on every data stencil!

Looking forward to this build. The Stuka is one of those planes that screams "Buy canopy masks!"

I got the aftermarket decals from Milspec (formerly CAM Decals). They're nicely printed, with vibrant colors - but there are issues. 1. The tail emblem seems to me to be either too large, or the illustration is off. The same for the "USS Enterprise". 2. As supplied, I've been unable to get them to stick. Out comes the future.

Smitty, I never applied for the Academy. I was NROTC.

Do you mean white plastic, Harv? If so, the answer is yes!

Another backstory... It was January 1976 and a group of fellow midshipmen and I hopped on a 4 engine prop driven military transport for a ride from Albany NY to the Naval Air Station in Beeville, Texas. It was a long, uncomfortable ride. When spent 3 or 4 days there; the highlight of the trip was when I got a ride in the back seat of a TA-4J. The pilot did his best to get each of us to puke (I didn't). The box is a little bruised, but everything inside is mint. Now if I can just locate an Avionix cockpit set for it...