Hasegawa F/A-18 (CF-188) 1:72

[JMac]

I've nearly finished up two of my 1:48 builds (the P-400, and an A-4) so I thought I would try this out.

Now Hasegawa and I have never really been friends, I know a lot of modellers love their releases but the kits I've built have been old, over priced and poor fitting. I picked this up at a club swap meet for cheap, so I figured what's the harm?

As an added challenge I'm truing to finish it up before our next local meeting in about one months time.

Yesterday I had some basic cockpit / fuselage assembly done. Today I filled some fair sized sink marks and seams, as well as started priming the cockpit parts.

Jason

 

[smokeriderdon]

the kits I've built have been old, over priced and poor fitting.

I am glad to hear I am not the only one! The A7 of theirs I built years ago was NOT worth the 30 extra bucks I paid over a Revell kit. That being said, I do have their 1/48 Hornet from about the same time period sitting in my stash, so it will be interesting to see how yours goes.

 

[JMac]

the kits I've built have been old, over priced and poor fitting.

I am glad to hear I am not the only one! The A7 of theirs I built years ago was NOT worth the 30 extra bucks I paid over a Revell kit. That being said, I do have their 1/48 Hornet from about the same time period sitting in my stash, so it will be interesting to see how yours goes.

Smokerideron-I'm not sure if the 1:48 Hasegawa Hornet is laid-out the same as the 1:72 version. There was a really good thread here on SMA some time back of a Hasegawa 1:48 Bug (in Canadian colours), when you go to build yours you should check that out.

I did assemble the lower fuselage half yesterday morning. It was super fiddly. It's made up of seven parts, with no real locating features between them. (individual parts are hard to see in the picture). I ended up just tack gluing a part in place and then after forcing a correct(ish) alignment I ran Tamiya extra thin down the joint - holding the parts until they set. A hassle. Putting those seven parts together was the lions share of my modelling activity this whole weekend.

When I mated the top and bottom fuselage halves together for a test fit I found that the twisting and forcing I had done to the bottom left steps or gaps at the joint line. I added PS tabs to both top and bottom halves to aid in a better fit.

Jason

 

[JMac]

Slow forward motion here. The cockpit is installed, the fuselage has been closed.

This thing is super fiddly. Currently I'm filling seams/gaps with Vallejo putty - in and around the intake area. I've found about a half dozen or so sink marks that have been filled and sanded back - I'll have to rescribe a bunch of lost panel lines next.

Jason