MATCHBOX 1:72 MCDONNELL DOUGLAS A-4M SKYHAWK

Reviewer: Michael Johnson (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 26 January 2006

Preamble

I have great memories of building this kit as a younger modeller, back when the local newsagent sold Matchbox kits for a couple of dollars.

I remember it to be a simple build, but one that went together with only a little effort.

The Kit

A typical Matchbox side opening box with nice artwork of an A-4M Skyhawk taking off from a carrier. The box proclaims “1:72 in three colours” with the two finishing options printed on the rear of the box.

So what is in the box? There are three sprues within the typical box, one white and one grey and a clear sprue for the canopy. The one piece canopy is rather thickly moulded but with nicely defined framing.

Two decal options are provided, along with an instruction sheet with painting instructions for two aircraft printed on the back of the kit box in typical Matchbox style.

The kit is typical Matchbox, with a mixture of deeply inscribed panel lines fine raised panel lines and heavy moulding to smaller detail parts. Well if I wanted to build a finely detailed A-4M Scooter, then I would have selected a Fujimi kit off the stash pile.

Construction

Assembly started with the cockpit, which consisted of just the rudimentary ejection seat. But with the addition of Tamiya tape strips to represent harnesses and careful painting, was more than adequate, especially as it was only going to be seen under the thick canopy. The cockpit interior was painted matt black to hit the lack of a cockpit tub.

I painted the jet nozzle with a flat black base and successive dry brushings of metalliser steel and jet exhaust after using thin plasticard to blank off the rear of the exhaust nozzle. This was put aside for installation after the model was near completion.

The remainder of assembly proceeded smoothly and rather quickly, with only moderate amounts of filler required to smooth out ill fitting joints. I covered over the cockpit at this stage with some masking tape and applied Tamiya fine white primer over the entire airframe, misting on successive coats until I had a smooth well painted surface. This served as usual to reveal flaws and to serve as the white under surface of the scheme I intended to build.

I then added the engine intakes, carefully attaching them in place and filling the seams, sanding all smooth. Once all was well, another couple of coats of white primer were applied and the fuselage set aside to dry.

At this point I cleaned up, polished and masked the canopy. The masked canopy was offered up to the fuselage and cemented into place with clear parts cement, reinforced with a careful application of liquid cement; this filled any gaps between the fuselage and the canopy. A quick application of white glue, with excess wiped away with a wet mk1 finger, smoothed out any remaining gaps.

Painting and Decaling

Now that construction was finished I could settle down to painting.

It only took about 30 minutes to mask the sharp upper and lower fuselage demarcation lines and the white control surfaces on the wing/stabilizers with Tamiya tape. At this time, I also masked the wing leading edges to ensure no gull grey over spray onto the white underwing surfaces.

I decided to use Pollyscale acrylic gull grey, which sprayed beautifully as usual, thinned with a little distilled water. Removing the masks revealed only a few problem areas with did not take long to fix up.

The painted and completed airframe was put aside to cure prior to application of several thin coats of Johnsons “Super Stride” with a wide flat brush kept especially for this purpose.

While the fuselage was set aside to cure, I turned my attention to the underwing stores, consisting of two AGM-12 Bullpup missiles. I used the same Tamiya fine white primer to paint these missiles after using a pin vice to drill out the rear of each missile. The over thick undercarriage doors were similarly treated with the spray can.

Undercarriage legs were painted next using Aeromaster neutral grey (Research indicated that they should have been white, but not grey as pointed out in the instructions. The wheels were particularly annoying to paint having no defined wheel hub rim to flow the Aeromaster tyre colour to. Careful use of a sharpened wooden tooth pick solved this problem, though my eyes are still trying to recover!

I had decided before the build to build the scheme as depicted on the box top, an A-4M Skyhawk flying……

The decals went on really well, settling down with an application of Gunze Mr Softener. The only issue were the intake red stripes, which were cut away from the warning flashes, masked and added with Vallejo flat red paint.

At this time I added black decal stripes to the Bullpup missiles and arrestor hook (I miscalculated the width of each strip, resulting in 2 fewer stripes to the hook shaft)

A light grey sludge wash was then added to the recessed panel lines on the upper and lower surfaces, while a slightly darker wash of Tamiya smoke was added to the undercarriage bays and doors. This serves to break up the plain two colour scheme considerably, adding some depth to the otherwise plain finish.

Once all was dry, I then used Pollyscale flat clear to impart a flat uniform finish and seal in the decals and wash.

Finishing Touches

Dangly bit installation time followed with little problems, although the main undercarriage doors gave me a fight! In hindsight I should have thinned out the doors as they do look overly thick. Next time, perhaps.

Some light weathering with pastel chalks followed, concentrating on the wing root cannons and undercarriage bays.

Suddenly the Scooter was finished.

Overall

What a great little kit! The Matchbox A-4M Skyhawk is not the most detailed Scooter available but is an excellent build between more complex projects, building up into a fine replica with little fuss.

If you want a more detailed 1:72 replica of an A-4M Skyhawk then go no further than the Fujimi offering. Italeri release one as well which is only a little better than the Matchbox kit.

References

World Aircraft Files
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