The Fujimi 1/48 (1/50????) A-6A Intruder

Over-all, most people would consider this kit a "ceiling smasher". Me, I like a challenge. And what better way to tear out my hair than to challenge myself with a kit that most people would rather take and toss in the garbage. A cursory look at the kit reveals several flaws that are a part of the construction of the early Fujimi kits. This one is circa 1980s, which was when Fujimi was just trying to get into the market with 1/48 scale planes.

This webpage is going to be a diary of my build of the Fujimi 1/48 (1/50 to some) A-6A Intruder.

October 20, 2004

Took a look down at 3 Floors Hobbies down in New Westminster and managed to get a hold of the A-6A in Action book.



I would really like to get a copy of Detail and Scale of the A-6 Intruder. 3 Floors didn't have a copy, however, I am planning on visiting Van Hobbies, Finescale and Imperial.

October 21, 2004

Still trying to decide what squadron to do this A-6A in. Took a look inside the model box to see how the model's fit was. So far the fit doesn't look too bad with a cursory glance, parts are still 80% in the bags, but the look of the ejection seats looks like they would fit an IKEA showroom better than the cockpit of the A-6A. The cockpit detail needs a lot of work too. But I don't think it's worth it to get an aftermarket kit for this thing. The only aftermarket pieces I'm going to get are the Verlinden A-6A GRU-7A ejection seats to put a little authenticity into this build.

    

It's kind of hard to keep perspective on this model kit, when I want to see it finished, but I keep telling myself "Patience...it's going to look terrific when you finish it...so TAKE YOUR TIME!!!" The impatient side of me is telling me to "Hurry the @#$%ING hell up!"

Frankly after many people told me how frustrating it was to do this kit, I passed it along to my starting modeller wife who is working on this right now. I'll be surprised if she doesn't divorce me after this. ~evil grin~.

We are, however, working on this model together, so it will stay up on my website as well.

The build is being done out of box (OOB) and these are the things that are happening to it right now. Right now, my wife worked on the painting of the "Ikea" ejection seats". With the pilots in the aircraft, there isn't much need of putting in superdetailed ejection seats, such as the ones that will probably be going into the Revell A-6E Intruder.

The weathering of the edges of the seats was done with a eyebrow pencil (brown) to signify the black canvas being eroded away...
   

The pilots are pathetic in terms of detail. Fujimi has to do a better job in molding their pilots. As it was, the pilots will need more painting once we get enamels.


The joins on the nose and tail of the A-6A are pretty awful during dry fit with a separation of almost 3 mm/ 1/8 of an inch and will probably need to be Tenax'd and elastic band'd for most of the afternoon to ensure a solid fit.