After five weeks the Hasegawa’s 1/48 AV-8B Harrier Plus project is complete! This last week was spent detailing the display base to replicate the deck of an LHD class aircraft carrier. I used Infini’s USN tie down set. This set has 42 brass cups and both styles of tie downs. Large aircraft carries use a 5-point star and the LHD’s use a 4-point cross. I started with a sheet of styrene the same thickness as the brass cups. The flight deck pattern for spot 9 was then drawn for the center stripe and landing zone stripes. I then added a grid to mark the tie down points. These were drilled with a 4mm drill. The brass cups were inserted and I then attached the 4-point cross on each.
The base was then sprayed white. The white stripes were masked and the yellow centerline was painted. Finally I sprayed the rest of the base gunship grey. I added the “9” decal and the “700” decals. The tie downs that were on the areas between two colors were then pained with a paint brush. The deck was then weathered using black, dark grey, and brown pastel chalk. The “deck” was then attached to the display base and the edge was trimmed in black paint.
The aircraft placement was then marked. I added some 28 gauge wire to the center of the main gear wheels. I drilled the holes and mounted the aircraft to the base using the wire to secure the aircraft to the deck. The final touch was to make a stand for the engraved nameplate and mount it to the deck.
This project was a very enjoyable build. The client is personally picking up this next week. As for this build and kit, as noted previously the Hasegawa kit is very nice with only a few minor issues. As usual the Caracal Decals are great to work with and look great. Thank you for following along on this special project. Happy Modeling!
All the details and photos from start to finish are in the build log at: https://davidsscalemodels.com/build-log/av-8b-harrier-plus-vma-214/
10 attached images. Click to enlarge.
