Darren,
Glad you can make the party. Nothing I've done is anything out of the ordinary, just basically some enhancing, and having the good fortune to have made online friends with Scott who spent the last 12 years as a A-6 and F-18 crew chief. the A-6s were by far his favorite aircraft.

As for my eyes, about 7 years ago I developed Retina Edema, which is the rupturing of the blood vessels in your retina. I have the disease in both eyes, but the left was much worse with a lot of bleeding. The area was right where the cornea focuses. I've had 3 laser surgeries in the left eye and one in the right. Fortunately, the right eye issue is to the right of the focus area. The bleeding blood vessels were sealed with the laser, but the swollen walls of the retina slowly shrunk back to it's original size. The problem is that it never returns to the same smooth concave shape. The end result is that out of that eye I see wavy shapes like in a fun mirror. I can't even read the big E on the eye chart. My lenses for that eye is just a duplicate of the right eye. The good news is that the brain does compensate to a great degree so I see ok straight ahead and to the right, but to the left can be a major issue depending on how far I need to look. I see well enough to drive (you only need one good eye for a drivers lic in NY).

Joel

Well let's hope they come up with a way to cure the problem soon.

Darren,
Thanks. I've been hoping for years.
Joel

Dammit Joel:



You're just making it that much harder for us mere mortals to keep up.

I've just got old eyes with floaters, and I can't come anywhere near that quality of work.

Well model on, I'll keep trying too.

Mark,
You doing just fine.
Joel

Well, it's time for another update on the A-6E Build. I've been diligently working on decaling the basic air frame, slats, and flap assemblies. It's literally taken me 5 work sessions of a min of 4 hours each to get this far. Just as a note the close up of the intakes has the Red intake plate decaled but I still need to paint the sides. As you can surely tell by now I'm one of the slowest builders here, yet I think I'm moving at a decent pace. Go figure.

When I first planned out my build, I decided that I wanted to replicate one of the colorful paint schemes that many of the A-6's wore back in the 70's-80's. Fightertown Decals makes a few sheets that meet my needs, so I decided on their # 48063 sheet, and then the specific aircraft #501 of the VA-165 Boomers from the USS Constellation circa 78/79. The sheet requires that you use the stenciling from the kit decal sheet, which I did.

The good news is that the Figthertown decals were in perfect color registration, not to thin and not to thick, as were the Hobby Boss decals, so that they both worked well with the Microscale system over a gloss base. I did find that the Fightertown decals colors seems more intense in their color, while the Hobby Boss decals were some what softer in intensity. Since part of my weathering plan is to apply a very thin air brushed wash over them, this isn't a big issue to be concerned about.

The bad news is that I did have two issues with the Fightertown decals. The fuselage Stars and Bars are just to big, so I used the kit decals. The same issue and solution was needed for the red triangle Danger Jet Intakes. Comparing them to pictures, they just seems way out of scale. Needless to say that I was very concerned about the highly detailed tail decals. They and all the other decals on the sheet fit perfectly, so I'm at a lose as to why I had those specific issues.

I'm certainly not looking to bash fightertown as I really like their decals, just curious if anyone else had that issue with their A-6 decals, or did I screw up. This in no way would deter me from using their decals on another build.

I still have to decal the 4 pylons, build and paint, and decal the bomb loads, so I have a long way to go. Here's a few pictures of the decal process before sealing in a few coats of Testors Glosscoat.

Joel

An awfull lot of work, but an outstanding result. Your finish is about perfect

really great work here Joel ! I have been following this for some time. Really making me want to buy this kit! superb decal and markings choice. look forward to more !

best
Mark

Drabslab,
Thanks so much for those more then kind words. It's been a labor of love that finally starting to look like it.
Joel

Fantastic work Joel, I really hope you are sending a build feature of this work to Andy and Jess when it is completed.

Darren,
Thank you so much for your really positive comments. I've been doing Feature Articles on my last few builds, and if the A-6E turns out as I hope, I'll do one on it as well.
Joel

Time for another update,

I've been working on the front and main landing gear sub assemblies. Hobby Boss correctly decided that the finished model with the needed weight would be to heavy for just solid plastic struts, so they made them with a white metal core, then a plastic 2 piece claim shell, and a lot of detail parts. I added some additional details including hydraulic lines and brake lines. Here's the front strut assembly prior to painting:







Then I primed all four wheels with Tamiya Gray Lacquer primer, then air brushed the wheels Tamiya Flat White. When dry I masked them using Tamiya tape and then air brushed the tires with Tamiya Nato Black.



I wanted to all the various lines on the front landing gear to have a constant curvature to them, so I opted to use stretched sprue rather then copper wire. I think that the effect was worth the extra effort.





For the main landing gear, the brake lines were made from thin copper wire as they take a rather complex path up and or through the strut assembly.







I weathered the landing gear with a simple wash of Model Master International Black diluted with Odorless MIneral Spirits. Still have one main gear assembly to finish, and then it's time to see if the A-6E will stand on it's gear. Lets hope that it does, as I added a lot of weight to the nose.

Joel

Nice work Joel!

Richard,
Thanks. Much appreciated.
Joel

Thought I would do a quick update on my A-6E Grumman's campaign build, as work continues at my usual snails pace.

The basic weathering is now complete with a overall acrylic dark gray sludge wash, followed by using enamels to apply a finer, more controlled wash on the flaps, and slats to simulate the force of the air flow over and under the wings.

After the washes had dried, I glued on the Flaps, Slats, and Flaperons to finally get an overall visual view of what the Intruder will look like.

Next up was to attach the landing gear. The moment of truth had finally arrived. A: Did I add enough weight so that it sat on its gear, & B: Was the front gear really straight, so that both tires were flat to the ground. Well, it appears that I succeeded on both counts this time.

I really struggled with all the gear doors, as CA glue just doesn't stick very well to paint or sealers. For my next build I'm going to make my own mounting pins from stainless steel wire, then glue in place with CA glue. None of the hydraulic pistons have been installed as yet.













I've also been working on the 5 stations and their respective out loads. I know that the main loads out for the A-6's were usually dumb bombs, but I just wanted to do something a little different for a change, and go all high tech. So here's a picture of the loads I'm planning on using.



The loads out are:
Stations 1 & 5: AGM-84s
Stations 2 & 4: GBU-8s
Station 3: Centerline gas tank.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my work.

Joel

Nice work. Good to have a large scale A-6 finally. Unfortunately, Trumpeter seems to screw up the main wheels.

Wish I chimed in earlier, as these are now available:





Mike V

MIke,
Thanks for stopping by. The A-6E is the 1/48 scale Hobby Boss kit, which I believe is directly scaled down version of the Trumpeter kit. Those wheels, and tires looks great. The kit wheels are really nice, it's the tires are really needed an upgrade.
Joel

No problem, as these will be scaled down to 48th later this year. In 48th scale, I only found the main wheel hubs to be close to accurate as the brakes and nose wheels are fictitious. There will be A-6 wheels for the Rev/Mon, Kinetic, and HobbyBoss A-6A/E and EA-6Bs.

Nice work; love the A-6.

Joel, the A-6 really looks nice. Love the hi-viz markings. In regards to the loadout, I don't believe the A-6's were wired for GBU-8/HOBOS. I think the USAF was the main HOBOS user. I think USN opted for the WALLEYE as their glide bomb system. Once again, great build sir.

Best wishes,

Ian

Mike,
Will be doing two more Intruders over the next few years, so I'll be needing those up graded AM Wheels and Tires.
Joel

Ian,
Thank you for that information on the loads out. Both the instructions and the painting guide have the GBU-8 shown, additional research doesn't bare that out. So the Hobos are back in the spares box for now. The kit not my very limited spares don't have any Walleyes, so that option is out as well. The kit does contain M117s and MK20s. There are also what looks like GBU-12 Paveway 11s, which is what I'll go with.
Joel

Hey Joel.......Trumpeter and Hobbyboss are notorious for throwing ordnance in the boxes that don't go with the airframe. Great for the spares box, though! WALLEYES would be perfect but don't know their after-market availability, off the top of my head. The HOBOS will be good for a USAF F-4, if you ever do one down the road.
I think the Harpoons, regular LGB's or MK 20 Rockeyes would be in line for what you are building. I think that weapons tree is what they had put in their F-111 kits.

Best wishes,


Ian

Ian,
Thanks again for more info. I'll be saving those GBU-8s for my F-4C build coming up mid 2015.

If figure it's either the GBU-12s or a pair of MK117s. Just trying to say way from multiple racks bombs as that's the route I went with on my F-4B.

Joel

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Great work Joel. You're inspiring me. I might get back to my Bearcat this week.

Joel----Those MERS are a real treat. Used them on my F-111. I was tearing my hair out with the sway braces. I can see your "one piece of ordnance on the pylon" perspective. Looking forward to the rest of your build. No plane like the Iron Tadpole.

Best wishes,

Ian