1/72 Testors AC-130A Spectre

Gallery Article by Pablo Angel Herrera on June 5 2012

 

 

On May 26th there will be a theme contest held at my local IPMS chapter. It will be about dedicated night operations aircrafts so I thought about what should I build. I started and finished an Me-109E for the cause but then I remembered about this kit which has been sitting on the shelf unfinished for 15 years! At the time my brother built it but decals were so bad that when dipped in water they cracked apart, so the model was simply painted and forgotten waiting for new decals.

 

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So, I started by removing as much pieces as I could and commenced to restore it. I had to sand down the old paint, work on seams and so on. But there was the problem that the 2 front guns were unattached from their place because of time. I didn't want to tear apart the whole fuselage so instead I cut off a section of the right fuselage with the scriber, glued the guns firmly in place and then closed the fuselage again. At the time my workbench looked like a workshop hangar as you can see on the pics.

I got some decals from a friend and retouched the original paint and did some highlights using RLM72 for the lower surfaces. The final result might have been better if it were a new model but after 15 years sitting like a woman waiting for the perfect man I can't complain. Now it can go out and be presented in society with the other finished models. I'll be opening a bottle of something to celebrate!
 
Regards

Pablo Angel Herrera

IPMS-Guatemala

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Photos and text © by Pablo Angel Herrera