Freewing 80mm A-10 Modifications

[RCjetdude]

thankyou, I appreciate that. yes, I think with a little work they will look great. The painted samples on their site dont do them justice at all.

Here are some size shots of mine against a ruler.







If you cut some of the bottom of their seat off you could set it lower. Notice that my seat is not full depth.

[TSHobbies]

Let me get some dimensions off of mine to compare and get back to you but it looks like the 1/10 figure might work fine. They all look decidedly "British" and very real.

thankyou, I appreciate that. yes, I think with a little work they will look great. The painted samples on their site dont do them justice at all.

[RCjetdude]

It was a pleasure meeting you at Nall Steve. How is she coming? I want to see her in green!! I will be doing desert camo on mine when she arrives with the Termites from Operation Desert Storm. Going to do some weathering as well. The only mods I am planning is to order two more weapons packages and make triple ejector racks for the Mavericks out of the Sidewinder rails and the station 1 pylons.


Steve and Kelly (Legman01) right after the wing autographing at Nall!!!

Hey Michael, that is a good picture. I love it! Thanks for sharing. It was good meeting you as well. I had a blast on the one day I was there. Meeting you and Kelly and some of the others from the forums, seeing you present the A-10 to him and then watching Kelly and Rich fly in formation really made it memorable. I came very close to doing the desert camo myself but in the end the Euro green won out. I am close to being done with it. Just trying to sort out the radio/electronics installations and then add some weathering and a clear coat and she is pretty much done. I too will be doing some ordnance mods later if all goes well. I look forward to seeing your Desert Storm paint up.

[RCjetdude]

hey dude, loving your work so far..very inspiring. Now that youve been working on the cockpit, wonder if you could tell me if this figure might work in this plane? not sure how much room is in there

Let me get some dimensions off of mine to compare and get back to you but it looks like the 1/10 figure might work fine. They all look decidedly "British" and very real.

[Kloverzero]

It was a pleasure meeting you at Nall Steve. How is she coming? I want to see her in green!! I will be doing desert camo on mine when she arrives with the Termites from Operation Desert Storm. Going to do some weathering as well. The only mods I am planning is to order two more weapons packages and make triple ejector racks for the Mavericks out of the Sidewinder rails and the station 1 pylons.


Steve and Kelly (Legman01) right after the wing autographing at Nall!!!

[quitcherbitchen]

Interesting website. Too bad they all look like really old men. Most of these pilots were just kids.

[TSHobbies]

hey dude, loving your work so far..very inspiring. Now that youve been working on the cockpit, wonder if you could tell me if this figure might work in this plane? not sure how much room is in there

[RCjetdude]

Regarding the water slide decals, I use a product called Solvaset that softens the backing allowing it to snuggle down over details. It will also allow direct contact between the decal and surface so you don't have the cloudy film look you sometimes get when there is air between the decal and surface. You will find it in the model railroad section of your LHS or you can buy it on line from Walthers.com

Make sure the decal is where you want it before you apply this product. Once it starts to work softening the decal you are limited as to how much you can move or adjust the decal.

Jim

Thanks Jim. I have been using Model Masters decal setting solution with good results. I need to try the Solvaset.

I will be reporting more soon. Right now I an trying to sort out the wiring to permit easy access to my powder canon components and I need to make some improvements after my first crack at it.

[wvrailfan]

Regarding the water slide decals, I use a product called Solvaset that softens the backing allowing it to snuggle down over details. It will also allow direct contact between the decal and surface so you don't have the cloudy film look you sometimes get when there is air between the decal and surface. You will find it in the model railroad section of your LHS or you can buy it on line from Walthers.com

Make sure the decal is where you want it before you apply this product. Once it starts to work softening the decal you are limited as to how much you can move or adjust the decal.

Jim

[MikeT]

Wow, looking good.

Mike

[ULTIMATETWO]

Tx so much again for the info Steve..
Best regards.
Manolo.

[RCjetdude]

Superb detailing job Steve... tx so much again for sharing your artwork... just let me ask that on one of the pics I see on.. maybe 6S batt. that you installed XT90 antispark connectors.. I do the same with all my 6S batt. cause hate sparking when connect them... must then to change the EC5 con. that comes with the A10 controllers too?...regards.

Thank you UT. Yes, I have changed the connectors to XT90S as it is what I standardized on some time ago for my larger packs. I will be running separate packs (one per motor) on this bird and installing a Scorpion backup guard.

[ULTIMATETWO]

Superb detailing job Steve... tx so much again for sharing your artwork... just let me ask that on one of the pics I see on.. maybe 6S batt. that you installed XT90 antispark connectors.. I do the same with all my 6S batt. cause hate sparking when connect them... must then to change the EC5 con. that comes with the A10 controllers too?...regards.

[Clearblue]

Really sharp! Thanks for your insight about the decals.

[crxmanpat]

Awesome work Steve! She's really coming alive with the markings applied.

[RCjetdude]

With the decals going on I wanted to take just a moment to comment on them. The decals that come in the box are a combination of water slide and vinyl. The nose art decals are water slide and get applied to a compound curve. Needless to say they are not very flexible and if you have never used WS decals before you could be in for a frustrating experience. I applied the Tiger Shark decals for my subject livery and had to trial fit them to the best of my abilities to pre-trim them to fit around the gun. If you take your time you will get it just like I did but I had to also cut the decals into sections or slit them to overlap. The goal her being no wrinkles.



The vinyl decals can be trimmed and slit to fit contours as well. Most all of the text and detail decals are a dark gray, almost black color which unfortunately rendered then invisible against the darker colors of my particular scheme so I ended up using a combination of decals from the kit, some I made myself and some from Callie Graphics. I had to make the 'I' just ahead of the refueling port because Callie's was way too big and the one that came in the box was not the right style for my model. I also made my own refueling port



Overall the paint stuck very well that I applied directly to the original gray paint. I do think wiping it down with alcohol helped and being very careful to keep my bare fingers off of it during the process. Wearing Nytrile gloves if you do have to handle it makes a huge difference. So far I am liking how this is turning out.

[RCjetdude]

I just received from Kelly the shot of him signing my wing at the Nall. Thank you again sir.

[Jpahemi1]

Sounds great you sure do nice work. For me I really enjoy the design challenges. Painting us fun too.

[RCjetdude]

Steve
for me the tough part of building an opening canopy was designing a lock system to secure the canopy at the front to ensure it doesn't open in flight or place additional load on the servo driving the canopy. I've been thinking about using a gear door sequencer to drive the canopy servo and lock pins with a separate servo.
The other option would be too have the canopy move forward at the end of its cycle locking the pins.
im looking forward to how you design the opening and closing mechanism. Weight is a consideration on planes this size but not so much on big jets
thanks
John.

Hey John, the geometry of the mechanism is tricky for sure. I have mine sliding back to disengage a strip that is attached under the edge of the front canopy frame. The strip slides under the edge of the windshield frame to lock it in place. In addition the mechanism also secures the canopy from opening quite well just by itself. I will get into the detail of this soon.

[Jpahemi1]

Steve
for me the tough part of building an opening canopy was designing a lock system to secure the canopy at the front to ensure it doesn't open in flight or place additional load on the servo driving the canopy. I've been thinking about using a gear door sequencer to drive the canopy servo and lock pins with a separate servo.
The other option would be too have the canopy move forward at the end of its cycle locking the pins.
im looking forward to how you design the opening and closing mechanism. Weight is a consideration on planes this size but not so much on big jets
thanks
John.