1/48 Monogram A-10 "Warthog"

Gallery Article by David Mielke - "VMFA314Knights" on Nov 19 2010

 

I purchased this A-10 kit back in 2003 and built it about 4 years ago.  I got the kit after I had purchased some decals for an A-10 involved in the 1991 Gulf War called “Live and Let Die” which was also marked up with a ‘score board” on the aircraft’s right side to compliment the left-side artwork. The Monogram kit is decent enough, although I do recall using a lot more test fitting, adjustments, filler & sanding than I had anticipated.  Just about every seam had to get some attention… engine fit, wing gap, center bottom seam etc…  Not one of Monogram’s better jobs for fit.  Keeping the nose of this Warthog kit on the ground requires some weight so appropriately I added some shot from a 12 gauge shell to give this gun-fighter some punch!    

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Unfortunately my construction troubles continued with this kit into the finishing stage, as once I had painted up the kit using my airbrush in its standard 36081/34092/34102 charcoal lizard coat, added the future gloss coat and done all the decaling, I applied the final dull coat… and to my shock the finish went chalk white across much of the model…. Yikes! (and that was putting it mildly). 

I tried several remedies to recover the paint job however none of them worked well enough for me to move on, so I was forced to repaint… around the decals. (The decals were out of production by that time.)  Deciding a hand paint job was the only viable route I patiently went about the process, which thankfully gives the aircraft a bit of a ‘worn’ look.  Wanting to leave this little project behind me I left it at that and decided  a ‘clean configuration’ would work just fine.

The A-10 now sits beside my AH-64A Apache helicopter as part of my “Gulf War Tank Killer” collection.  It’s my second A-10, as I built Revel’s version many years ago in the late 70’s “JAWS” scheme.

Keep building.

David Mielke - "VMFA314Knights"

Photos and text © by David Mielke - "VMFA314Knights"