GWH 1/48 A-10C Warthog: UPDATE: 6/25/24 - Moving Forward Slowly.

[Peterpools]

With the Fos Yard Office now completed and ready to be installed on my brother's model railroad, the TIB, it was time to start my next aircraft build: The GWH 1/48 A-10C Warthog. I've had the kit since the day it was released and kept pushing it off to the side as I was waiting for a few pieces of AM to be released for it:

The Quinta 3D cockpit set - due mid July (I got the date wrong!)

ASK mask set - ordered

A 3D Printed Aces II dedicated ejection seat. - on hand.

With the bench cleaned, I am ready to dive in. Growing up on Long Island, anything Republic and Grumman's is near and dear. While the A-10s were the last production airplane built in Farmingdale, none of the production aircraft flew off the runways upon completion, as they were crated up and shipped to Fairchild in Maryland and test flown there (I'm pretty sure that's how the story went). I was very fortunate to have been invited to a family day function at Republic by a very good friend, during the production run of the A-10 and toured the line, seeing all the stages of production. Over the years I've seen many A-10's up close and there just is nothing like the Warthog, a true New Yorker.

While I'm still waiting for the Quinta cockpit set, I'll start with the nose gear bay and then maybe the loadouts until it arrives. So today, the official start of my Warthog. Paints will be mostly MRP and I'm planning on using kit decals as they are from Cartograf (I do have other AM decal sheets in the stash).  Planning on going mostly OOB, as my customary way of building. 

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Nice! I keep putting this in my cart and then taking it out so I'll be following along for sure. 

The last A-10 I built was the LS 1/144 kit way back in the early '80s. 

[belugawhaleman]

Looks like a great kit. I built the tamiya kit in the 80s and would

Like to do a warthog now that the kits are so good!

[DocRob]

One of the ugliest planes ever to my eye, Peter, but when I saw the kit, I was interested, as I have a soft spot for weird designs. There is no form follows function with this one, it´s pure function. I hope the kit is as good as it looks promising on the sprues. Have fun with it.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Carl

Great you're on board for the Warthog build - surely seems to be a fantastic kit and so well done at this stage (just opening the box and peeking in). Of course, like all exceptional kits, they tend to vanish from the shelves too quickly and need to be in our stashes for the appointed time. I've done the same many times and normally wind-up hunting and paying more for a kit when I want to build it because I just didn't pull the trigger when I had the chance. 

Any photos of you 1/144 A-10 - I know it's been a long time since that build.

 

[Peterpools]

Paul

Holy cow, the Tamiya Warthog - I think that the Tamiya kit was the first serious kit of it in 48th scale back in the day and surely, that was a different generation of Tamiya then we're so use to now.

 

[Peterpools]

Thanks, Rob and I'm a Hog lover for sure. From the first time I saw an A-10 up close and crawled all around her, she is literally a tank with wings.  Surely is going to be a awesome build.

 

[Martinnfb]

[Peterpools]

Martin

YES!

 

[Bomber_County]

Always intrigued on how GWH kits and especially the A10 would build up……

[Peterpools]

Phil

The only other GWH kit I've built was their 1/32 P-40 last year. Excellent detail and I had all sorts of issues with the instructions, part orientation and some part fit. I'm now underway with the A-10 and I found the same issues with the instructions as far as part location goes ...  they look good but could be a whole lot clearer in presentation. 

I actually decided to use the kits Aces II ejection seat, as I already messed up the very delicate 3D printed one, I purchased.

 

[CANicoll]

Peter, Sorry to hear about the 3D printed seat, what happened?  I'm finding the 3D stuff easy to sand, but otherwise kind of brittle. Can't torque the pieces at all.

[Peterpools]

Chris

Exactly that. I was way too heavy handed with the ejection rails and snapped them in a few unrepairable parts. Still have a shot at using the ejection seat itself but I've already discovered the kit seat is excellent. 

My biggest holdup right now is waiting for the Quinta 3D cockpit set. Quinta does make sets for the Academy, HB and Italeri kits but I just not sure if I can graft any into the GWH kit. From what I'm seeing in the photos for each set, the side consoles appear to be a bit wider then the kit consoles. I'm thinking of buying the Academy set and if it won't work, saving it as I also want to build the Academy A-10C as well.

Still doing a bit more research before I take the plunge.

 

 

[KevinM]

9 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Exactly that. I was way too heavy handed with the ejection rails and snapped them in a few unrepairable parts.

I have had to buy extra for the Scharnhorst for that very reason my self Peter have to snipe just right.

[Landlubber Mike]

One of my favorite subjects Peter!!  Looking forward to this one!

[Peterpools]

Kev

Right with you, just an expensive way to learn how to handle and work with 3D printed parts. It almost seemed that one time I broke the part, I just looked at it the wrong way and it snapped in half. Just not so sure if I'm equipped to deal with such delicate parts but I know in the future I'll keep on trying.  The ejection seat was fine, it was the rails that caused all the issues for me.   

[Peterpools]

Thanks Mike

Moving ahead slowly as I'm still hoping for the Quinta 3D cockpit set to be released in the next two or three weeks, as I'm planning on doing as many sub-assemblies as possible and literally buying time for the Quinta set. As a backup plan, I bought the Academy set and just might have to see if I can graft it into action when the time comes - hopefully I won't need to do this. Yup, I have plans to also build the Academy A-10C and the HB A-10A down the road, so the Quinta set I bought for insurance will be put to good use no matter what.

 

[Peterpools]

Change of plans. Decided to wait until the Quinta 3D cockpit set is released so I can continue in the correct build sequence. Looking at the Academy Quinta 3D set, the side consoles appear wider then the kits and the panel also seems to be a bit wider. No sense in 'fudging' it and shoehorning it in and won't look good. What I should have done is wait until I had everything in hand before starting. lesson learned as usual. 

 

[Peterpools]

VERY SLOW PROGRESS

AND

LET’S TALK HERSEY BAR WINGS

Not much bench time these past few weeks as my wife’s medical issues have occupied most of our time.

I started the front office and right from the start, the parts orientation that comprise canopy mechanism aren’t clear in the instructions with lots of arrows and not exactly sure where they actually point to – pretty much the same deal I had with their P-40 build last year. Checking references and photographs were needed to resolve my questions.   

I decided to use the kits Aces II ejection seat rather then the 3D Aces II seat as it is very well detailed and no issues in assembling it. I had already broken the ejection rails in numerous spots on the 3D printed seat and will wait for another A-10 down the road to use it.

The HUD is made up of all clear parts and there was no mention in the instructions it was meant to enable the builder to replicate the open grid framework that supports the HUD. I didn’t realize this until after I had painted the assembly flat black and then had to strip all the paint off, starting over.

The first assemblies in the instructions are the nose gear bay and the front office. Since starting the Warthog, I hadn’t done any air brush work at all and began to have second thoughts about trying to shoehorn in the Quinta Academy Cockpit Set rather then wait until mid July for Quinta to release the designed GWH kit as noted on the Hobbynut website. So, I put on the brakes on this portion of the build and decided to wait for the correct Quinta Cockpit to be released.

The Warthogs” Hersey Bar” wings are the next major assembly and all seemed simple when I reviewed the instructions: little did I know what was waiting for me.

After cleaning up and gluing the two part wing together, the split flaps were the next step. Seemed simple enough but only two of the four sets fit well and the other two required hours to finesse them into place. The flaps aren’t a flush fit on the upper wings and duplicating this required some unique decisions by GWH. Personally, I would have preferred them to be simply molded in details, but GWH decided to make each of the four flaps from two parts, which left a seam at the rear of each flap needing to be filled with CA and removed - of course, this method does allow for a sharper trailing edge. The flaps can only be installed in the raised position and are not movable – so why bother? Could it be there was no way to mold it as part of the wing and maintain the detail? Who knows.

The main gear wells with the refueling parts are nicely detailed and the instructions for some parts suffer from the vague arrow syndrome again, as to part location and orientation. Even the detailed CAD drawings that are included in the instructions were almost to the point of being useless in helping me determine how the parts were to be actually installed.

There are seams to remove, clean up and a good number of the of the location holes for the locating pins needed to be widened so parts would fit better on my kit.

Well, this is my progress to date – slow but moving forward.

 

 

 

 

[JohnB]

Looks to be coming along well Peter. 🙂

[Peterpools]

Thanks John, glad you like the small progress I've been able to make. Hopefully I will be able to pick up my pace a bit in the coming weeks.

[CANicoll]

Peter, That issue with wings and flaps is a strange one. Like you said, they are not posable, so why not just mold them in?  And we really don't expect to have major fitment issues with kits these days.  Not everyone will be at Tamiya-level of precisions, but decent fit should be expected from a major brand.

Good luck!

[Peterpools]

Thanks Chris and I completely agree and of course with a kit around the $100 mark, I would have thought I wouldn't have run into these types of issues as I go. Guess when you are a Tamiya fan boy, I sometimes expect too much.

 

[DocRob]

Looks like a flying cross for the moment Peter, a rare sight. Some modeling companies out there seem to completely rely onto cad systems, for designing the kit, as well, as for producing the manual. Generally these kits look great on the sprues, like your A-10, but I guess, they were never build by a real person with the manual at hand. Knowledge about how to put something into CAD doesn´t lead to a good result, without the knowledge what is necessary for a thorough kit design. 
I hope you fight your way through this one and not without fun, doing so.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Thanks, Rob and you absolutely hit it right on the head. The CAD instructions look good but miss the mark for accuracy in location, part orientation and ease of use for me. All the hard work that was put into the kit design and manufacturing, gets lost in poor instructions.