1/72 Revell A-6E TRAM

Gallery Article by Dave DeLang on Nov 10 2003

 USMC 228th Birthday!!!  Semper Fi 

 

There's a long story associated with this one. I used to work for a company who's major cash cow was refurbishing A-6 wing pylons. One of our QA guys built a Revell 1/72 A-6 in honor of that. He built it with more enthusiasm than skill. It was kind of slapped together, gaping seams, hand-daubed coat of gunship gray and white for paint. The bombs were black with red tips just like the instructions said. He made a little stand out of a coat hanger and had it proudly stuck up on the top of an equipment rack. He went on vacation one week and I took it down and brought it home. I bought the same kit and assembled it as a facsimile of his kit complete with hand-daubing of gunship gray. Except...I used Elmer's white glue to put it together and only the absolute minimum amount of dots of glue to allow it to barely hold together against the force of gravity. I brought it to work and put my fake up in his model's spot on the rack. Our victim returned from his vacation and suspected nothing amiss. I waited for my chance and plotted with co-conspirators. A few days later we had a new employee come in to work and as was done from time to time we took the model down to show the newbie what exactly these things we worked on were. I set the fake down on our victim's desk and after a bit he went off for a smoke or something. He was kind of well known for extended smoke breaks and the manager was kind of an A-hole about it so it wasn't suspicious for the manager to be waiting for our victim when he got back and not at all out of character for Mr. manager to start hammering on our unsuspecting victim as soon as he returned. Mr. manager is hollering at our victim and as he does he picks up the fake A-6 by the wingtip and smacks it against the desk for emphasis (he's in on the joke) and only being held together by tiny drops of white glue, it shatters! Victim sees this and his eyes bug out, he can't yell at or punch the manager over a stupid plastic model so he storms off in frustration. A little while later he comes back and sees his model back up on the rack all in one piece as if nothing had happened. I told him what we'd done and for some reason he didn't think it was funny. Years later he still didn't think it was funny.

 

Click on images below to see larger images

Anyway, I had gathered up the pieces of my decoy and brought them home. Eventually I decided I might as well glue it together for real and finish it up. I used it as kind of a test bed for new techniques (several of which were learned of here on ARC). I figured it was a good candidate for experimentation as it wouldn't be much of a loss if I screwed it up. I smoothed and filled the canopy/fuselage seam so I had to polish the canopy afterward. I had to fill the seam down the middle of the two piece canopy as well. I used epoxy to make the frame down the middle. I added a little bit of detail to the cockpit: piping, ejection seat handles, decal consoles. I used liquid glue and an old toothbrush to add the "thermal coating" texture to the MK-82s after working a little bit on them to correct their shape and thin the fins. I scribed a groove around the bombs where the bomb body meets the tail section to act as a barrier to the liquid cement and brushed on a couple of coats to soften the plastic. Then I tapped the bristles of the toothbrush until it picked out peaks in the softened plastic. Then another coat of liquid cement to smooth it down a little. Tips are squared off and a bit of rod used to make the fuse. The rods were about an inch long at first and served as handles while I did the rest of the work on them. The stripes are hand painted and I dry-brushed with a lightened olive drab to highlight the texture and to dull down the strips. Pictures show that the yellow strips are often pretty rough. The MERs in the kit are horrible. I didn't have anything in the spares box so I worked on the kit pieces. I used rectangles of plastic card for the shoulder station ejector racks and putty to build up the nose fairing. Thin solder represents the ejection gun firing cables. I added tiny bits of strip for the sway braces. Brass wire was inserted in holes in the racks and eventually the bombs were glued to the wires by way of matching holes in the bomb bodies. This allows the bombs to be aligned after they're glued on the MERs as well as being an easy way to make a firm connection.

I drilled out the landing and approach lights on the nose gear door using drill bits of the appropriate diameter. I just drilled in enough to get the "V" shaped depression in the door the right diameter. I painted the depression silver along with the beacon and then filled the depressions with Micro "Crystal Clear". I think I should have used epoxy because the Crystal Clear shrank as it dried and I had to use about four applications to build up the landing light "lens". It didn't end up being completely smooth. I tinted the approach lights red, orange and blue with transparent metallic paints and also painted the beacon with the red. I used Model Master paints in the FS colors described on the decal sheet. The markings are for an A-6E TRAM of VMA AW 533 during Desert Storm. A coat of Future to seal the paint for decals and another coat after to seal the decals. I tried a sludge wash using acrylic paint, water and dish soap but it didn't wipe off when dry like I thought it would! It looked like Hell; I thought I'd ruined it! I quickly ran into the bathroom with it and used Windex to strip the dried sludge wash off. It took most of the Future off as well but didn't harm the decals much. I think I hadn't used enough dish soap in the wash so it was really just a messy coat of dark gray paint. I used a pastel sludge wash after that and it behaved much better. A final coat of Testors "Dullcoat" and attach the pylons and after only twelve years it was done.

Dave DeLang

      

Photos and text © by David S. DeLang