Tamiya's 1/48 scale Prop Action
Douglas A-1H Skyraider

by Le Thanh Tung

Tamiya's 1/48 scale A-1H "Prop Action" Skyraider is available online from Squadron

Here is Tamiya's 1/48 scale A-1H "Prop Action" Skyraider.

I just finished this bird on Sep 10. This one was built straight from box.

This kit is really beautiful, with nice details, good decals for famous subjects, reasonable parts arrangement, and last but not least, the instruction are always clear and detailed per Tamiya style. At the very first step, I predicted a future treatment to antenna wire so I decided not to glue fuselage and wings together.

Upper fuselage was painted with Humbrol code 129 for Flat Gull Gray. Lower was with Insignia White of Model Master.

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Bombs were painted with Olive Drab of Model Master by airbrush and the yellow circles were with Flat Yellow (XF-3) of Tamiya by brush because Tamiya did not provide decal for those circles and they were too small for airbrush and masking tape. Therefore, painting by hand is the only and last resort.

Oil leaks on landing gears, external fuel tank, wings and engine are simulated by thinned Clear Smoke (X-19) of Tamiya.

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As for a antenna wire from vertical tail to fuselage, I used a very small brass wire from a motor of kid RC toy.

First, I twisted to make a small ring, glued it with superglue and secured with toothpick. I took a spring from ball-pen and chose the one which have lowest resiliency to make sure it would not break off the thin brass wire. Then I cut a paper-clip for a desire length and glued it in the inside of upper fuselage. The best way is to glue it into the two holes of airbrakes details from both side. I drilled a 0.3mm hole on the back of upper fuselage then thread cooper wire through that.
 

Note that the ring of a wire must be in the inside. Well, this is the hardest part - you have to measure the length of a wire from vertical tail to a ring and save a short distance from a ring to a metal paper-clip bar because that distance will be for a spring. I glued the wire into vertical tail first and left overnight for completely dry. Last to do is connect a spring to wire and a small bar. This treatment is to give extremely extensive wire.

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Smoke lines on both sides of fuselage were painted with Red Brown and Flat Black of Tamiya then applied black pastel right from the exhaust pipes and faded downward to the rear.

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Brown pastel and Flat white drybrushing are applied for weathering on upper and also lower fuselage. With this bird, lower fuselage can be seen very clear on display so I had to weather every details.

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Modelling the F4U Corsair Osprey Modelling 24   Author: Brett Green US Price: $17.99 UK Price: £12.99 Publisher: Osprey Publishing Publish Date: October 10, 2005 Details: 80 pages; ISBN: 1841768804 Shop Buy it from Osprey Publishing

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2005 by Le Thanh Tung
Page Created 20 October, 2005
Last Updated 20 October, 2005

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