SPA Modeler

Lyle, Tom, and Bruce, thanks for looking in and commenting.

Bruce, the seam was first sanded. After that I used Tamiya Gray putty or Mr Surfacer where needed, depending upon how much filling needed to be done. Except for the intake duct gap, that I tackled with gel CA and accelerator to make sure that the duct was fixed in place and would not move and crack any putty. That gap was pretty significant.

That does indeed look very Sluf like - Great work Carlos!

Thanks Stuart, it’s progressing quickly now!

Yesterday, I did seam clean up on the wing to fuselage join, rescribe of lost panel lines, and began seam clean up on the ordnance. I’m gonna go with a mixed load of “slant four” Mk.82 500 lb LDGP bombs from the kit, plus a pair of Mk.20 Rockeye CBUs and AGM-45 Shrikes from a couple 1/48 Hasegawa US Aircraft Weapons sets



all based off of this photo, so I know that the load out is real.



However I will not mount the Sidewinders, as I have yet to come across photos of VA-93 A-7s carrying them at that time

That'll be an interesting load out Carlos - it should look good. Personally I'd fit the winders just for visual interest - It's not often you see them bolted to the fuselage. It'd be like building a Jaguar and not fitting them above the wings!

I hear ya Stuart. But from all the photos I’ve come across of the squadron that I’m modeling at that time period, no AIM-9s. That’s ok though, I still have two more USN A-7s to build and I’ll have both of those with Sidewinders.

Ah well - if you have two more then go for it!

BTW, I've no idea my the headbang smiley was in my previous post - blooming Kindle!

I didn’t even notice it... you must have edited it out before I saw it... but my IPad does the same thing...

Today’s work done update:
First up, I added the landing gear struts. Since the under surfaces, wheel wells, and gear struts are all the same color, gloss white, why not? Mold seam line clean up took a good while with needle files... I also added the refueling probe





now I have the Detail & Scale book on the Corsair II and it points out two shortcomings of the kit: 1, the nose gear support strut ends before reaching the wheel well wall; 2, the Sidewinder rails are too close to the fuselage and need a spacer. I know that I said I was not going to do any superdetailing or whatnot. But these shortcomings bothered me, so I fashioned up the required corrections from some Evergreen Strip Styrene.

missile rail spacer



Nose Support strut extension



different angle of both



That’s all for today...

Two simple yet effective improvements Carlos - nice work. I have to say I'm liking the detail on that kit - it looks good!

Adding the U/C before paint - that's a bit out of the standard building process - any reason why (I've started to do that myself)?