Advice Please --nose weight 1/48 Italeri AC-130A Gunship

All I can say is that this is NOT a fun kit to build. The instructions are just awful.

The instruction have a drawing that I assume is a nose weight of 9.75. Since this kit is from a European company, I guess that the 9.75 is in grams. However, 9.75 grams converts to only 0.3 oz. This is not a lot of weight and it would not help in keeping the nose down.

Has anyone built this kit? How much weight did you put in the nose?

Thanks in advance

In building aircraft I use BB’s held in place with Elmer’s type glue.

1 Like

I think it says “g - 75” which would be 2.64 ounces

1 Like

That’s a weird one. 9.75 grams doesn’t seem like enough weight, but maybe it would be. A 75 gram weight, OTOH, would be pretty big…big enough to where it probably wouldn’t fit in that space. If you’re to the stage where you can temporarily close up the fuselage and throw the wings and stuff on for a mock-up, you can put a pen or something under where the main gear will be and see how much weight it needs to keep it solidly on its nose and not tipping backward. But, that’s kind of a PITA. I would just pack as much tungsten putty into the nose as you can get in there and call it good. There’s really nothing that’s readily available to us hobbyists that’s going to be more dense than tungsten. Love the stuff. As long as it’s not an RC plane, you can never have too much forward CG. [H]

Hobby Lobby carries lead stips for weights in their pinebox derby area of models. Densor than BBs and reasonably easy ti cut/shape.

Hi:

In every C-130 I have built I have had to put nose weights in it. Even The other 'C" models required it. B,Bs in white glue is the answer

Thank’s for everyone’s great advice. I’ll try Eaglecash’suggestion. I’ll tape the model together and add weight to the nose until the nose drops down. I tried this technique on my B-29 and it worked pretty good. The B-29 was a real tail-sitter and needed a lot of weight in the nose.

1 Like

I’m working this kit right now and 100% agree with you. The instructions leave a lot to be desired. Trying to put together everything that needs to be painted is confusing as well the way they have it listed out.

I haven’t gotten to the point of where I put in the nose weight, but good to know that what they say is not enough.

Hello everybody!
I’m surprised nobody got it yet - it’s not 9, it’s a g - so it says g.75 which is indeed a funny way to write 75 grams. I don’t want to convert it to ounces, but it’s quite some weight - luckily there should be a lot of space left and right of the nose gear bay.Nothing beats mocking up the heaviest components and choosing the weight experimentally, though - of course with some extra weight on top of that, just in case.

Good luck with your builds and have a nice day

Paweł

I feel stupid. I am not doing the same model. I am doing the 1/72 version of this model. It only requires 15g of weight in the front. The instructions still are lacking though.

1 Like

go and check out your local tire shop ,ask for sum tire balance weights . i cut them up for models that need to keep the nose down on my,n . hope that helps :smiley: 5- high