Finally made a big push over the past couple of days to get the plane wrapped up. Usually, this is a time of celebration the completion of another project, and shipping it out to another anticipating customer, however, I still have the second half of this project, which will be the flight deck display.
Being that this was my first try at the Hasegawa legacy Hornet, I now have enough information to compare it to other relevant Hornet kits that I've put together thus far. For starters, I'd compare it to the Hobby Boss A/C kits, which are virtually identical. The engineering on the two kits is strikingly similar in almost every essence of the build. If I had to choose to do another tomorrow, I would hands down reach for the Hobby Boss kit. I'm disappointed in the fact that Hasegawa continues their neverending pattern of stuffing new decals in a new box, and calling it new. The molds could stand to be brought up to date, especially if you're still going to charge me 70 dollars. You can get the HB kit for about 15-20 dollars cheaper, and lets not forget that with the HB offering, you get a full compliment of weapons, which Hasegawa has also grown notorious for. To my dismay, I was shocked to find that they didn't even offer missiles in this kit, which is one thing that they usually do in an attempt to throw you a bone weapons wise. I understand their notion for wanting to make additional revenue by selling weapons sets individually, but again...I'll refer back to the point that they're charging modelers extreme high end prices for next to nothing. So lesson learned, stick with what works. And if it's cheaper, nearly a spitting image, and comes with weapons...it's not hard to figure out which one is the easy choice.
Anyhow, decals went on without a hitch. Had a couple of issues with the rainbow decals that go across the tails..I believe the decals were a little old, and perhaps brittle. I didn't panic, and I let Mr. Mark Softener do it's work, and they laid down nicely over the tails, which fit very well.
Performed additional weathering with oils, and Tamiya powders, and was ready to seal everything off with a flat clear coat, and move onto gear. I did like the fact that the stock gear were metal. Saves you a little bit of headache with having to wonder if the model is going to get limp in a few years, and start sagging on it's plastic gear. Is it worth the ridiculous price?? I don't think even metal gear justifies it, but that's simply a side thought. The went in very well, and built up nicely. Gear doors on the other hand weren't as friendly to work with . It's a very delicate thing when working with plastic that has a lot of flash, because you're never sure if the plastic that you're sanding off is required, or just left over injected plastic. There was tons of evidence of flash along the mating surfaces of the gear doors, which by the way are usually always my least favorite part of modeling. Don't know why, but gear doors just annoy the hell out of me. Especially when they were like they were in this kit, and unwilling to cooperate. I essentially had to sand off flash on all the door pieces before I could get a solid flat surface to help get a good bond. With that also came having to go back and touch up the red trim around the doors. But with some patience, and lots of test fitting, everything fell into place as advertised.
All I had left at that rate was the final install of weapons, probes, and lights. I drilled and pinned the GBU's and Centerline tank as I normally do to help reinforce the weapons. The bombs went off without a hitch, but as usual, the centerline pylon wanted to be the problem student. I wound up having to glue, and remove, and sand and drill, and reglue just to get it back in place as it should be. I think this is one area that far too many companies overlook, as I don't think that I've ever had a really nicely engineered centerline pylon on ANY model of ANY subject that requires one. Perhaps that's always the last thing on their list, and they try to come up with how it's supposed to go at ten minutes til' closing time. Nevertheless, the tank went on without a hitch, and moved onto lights. The anti collision lights over the LEX didn't fit anything like they were supposed to, so I threw them in the garbage and filled in the light housing with Krystal Klear. I prefer that method anytime I can use it anyhow. The strobes on the vertical stabs went in with very minimal effort, and everything else from there was a wrap.
In the end, just had to come back over a couple of spots with some further flat clear to take some of the glint off of a few spots that required glue that had hardened with a shiny finish. Pulled the masks and was slightly disappointed to see that the micro mask had shrunk slightly around the contact area with the masking tape, so a few slivers of paint made it's way onto the aft portion of the canopy and the forward part of the windscreen. Using a wooden tooth pick, I just gently scraped until the paint came loose. Once I had it all off, a quick swipe of future over the clear parts again with a Q-tip brought out the clarity again. I really do like the overall look of the kit, but there were more moments of frustration than I usually encounter - even with more complex builds.
I am hopeful that this carrier display will work together with me better than the plane. I'm excited at the opportunity to be able to bring a piece of carrier aviation together. This is my first attempt at this carrier deck, so it'll be nice to be able to spin an artistic touch to it and see how well it all comes together.
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