1/48 Hasegawa F/A-18F

Diamondbacks Anniversary Scheme

by Scott Vomacka

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This is my Hasegawa 1/48 F/A-18F "Diamondbacks Anniversary" Superhornet. I did not build it OOB, but made some small additions to jazz it up. I added:
  • Tape seat belts.
  • Steel Beech ECS blankets.
  • Steel Beech exhaust covers.
  • Steel Beech intake covers.
  • Wiring to the gear bays.
  • Adjusted the rudders for a more dynamic look.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

The kit went together ok. I had to use putty on all seams, especially around the nose pieces where there were large seams/gaps due to bad fit. The fit of the intake pieces was good (better than the nose pieces). The one area that gave me the most trouble was cutting and attaching the folded wings. The wing fold piece that Hasegawa gives you seems too small and does not have enough of a "tab" to attach to the wing.  The tab is so small that I could barely get enough glue on it. Because of this, the bond would not be very strong.  I applied two coats of CA glue to the attachment point in the wings to make the wing fold joint stronger.  Hopefully it will hold.  I wish Hasegawa would have made the part with a larger tab to make the attachment stronger.  It would have made it allot easier.

I airbrushed the bottom of the model with MM Acryl Light Ghost Gray.  Then my Aztek AB stopped working, so I had to hand paint the top using MM Acryl Dark Ghost Gray.  When this was dry, I applied three coats of MM Acryl Insignia red to the spine and tails, then the model was gloss coated in preparation for the decals.

The decals are from Two Bobs and work great!  I had no trouble at all.  The hardest part was applying the wing tip decals. Each wing tip has 7 decals (4 on top, 3 on bottom). It took me two weeks to get these on and lined up properly, but it turned out good.

The Steel Beech exhausts are actually for the Revell kit.  So I had to cut off the "petal" detail on this kit so they would fit right, which they did with minimal fuss.  The intake covers fit without any problems.

This model took allot of filling and sanding, but it turned out great.  The hard work paid off in the end.

Scott 

Photos and text © by Scott Vomacka