Revell 1/32 Grumman Martlet V

[yak face]

Heres one Ive been wanting to get my teeth into for a while . Its the old Revell F4F- 4 Wildcat /Martlet in 1/32 . This is a rebox of a kit that was first tooled in 1969 so its not exactly state of the art ! That said , like a lot of these old Revell 1/32 kits its basically accurate and quite well detailed and it can be great fun to add some extra detail and bring them up to a modern standard. The kit mouldings are of an F4F-4 Wildcat and as such are nearly the same as the Martlet V it purports to be in this boxing. The only difference is that the Martlet V was a FM1 production Wildcat and as such only had four wing guns not the six depicted in the kit , an easy fix. Ill be adding various details to the cockpit , undercarriage and I'm planning on having the wings folded so the hinge points are going to need a lot of extra detailing too (the kit has 'working hinges' so its very basic and inaccurate)
The mouldings have raised rivets and panel lines -standard for the time - but on this occasion theyre correct , the real thing being covered in rivets and overlapping joints . The only exception to this is the outer folding section of the wings , these were flush riveted so I'll have to sand these down a bit. Heres the box art and a few pics of the first prep work- filling some of the sink marks ! (i can forgive it this , it is 48 year old after all!)[ATTACH]289847[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289848[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289849[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289850[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289851[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289852[/ATTACH]

[colin m]

Looks great. Is it original Revell, or like many 1:32 Revell an old Matchbox ?
Funny thing is, with Telford around the corner, I was thinking of trying to find a nice big old Matchbox kit.

[yak face]

Its an original revell colin , matchbox didnt start making kits until about 74. Their 1/32 kits were re released by revell after they went under though , ones i can think of are - spitfire fmk22/24 , lysander, tiger moth, dauntless, sea venom , super puma . As far as im aware revell never re released the 1/32 matchbox bf 109.

[john i am]

Nice project Tony almost as old as myself.I could only dream of such kits as a kid as my pocket money would only stretch to 1/72 scale. I did get a 1/32 ?1/24 ? spitfire one Christmas but as it was way beyond my level of skill it ended up in the loft. It was left there when we moved house.
Look forward to your build after your tidy up the parts.
Good luck cheers John

[tr1ckey66]

Hey Tony
I'll be really interested to see what you make of this. You don't seem to venture into the larger scales too often and I think this will be a great build.
Cheers
Paul

[colin m]

Its an original revell colin , matchbox didnt start making kits until about 74. Their 1/32 kits were re released by revell after they went under though , ones i can think of are - spitfire fmk22/24 , lysander, tiger moth, dauntless, sea venom , super puma . As far as im aware revell never re released the 1/32 matchbox bf 109.

Thanks for that. The Sea Venom and Dauntless sound like suitable victims.

[yak face]

The tiger moth was a lovely kit too Colin , it had the options of skis, wheels or floats .

[flyjoe180]

Nice one Tony, I'm looking forward to this one. I've got an old Revell 1/32 P-47, it's a real beast of a kit with all the trimmings of the 1960s as well.

[yak face]

Made a start on the bashing yesterday- first up was the seat /cockpit floor. The kit seat is just a slab sided moulding ,nothing like the real thing BUT .. when the fuselage is together you cant see the sides at all so it doesnt matter. The basic shape from above is ok so all I had to do was scoop out the front underside and make good the hole with sprue and plastic strip. I'll be adding PE belts so these will cover the joint between the back and bottom.[ATTACH]289936[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289936[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289937[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289938[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289939[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289940[/ATTACH]
Next was the instrument panel . Again basically accurate just with a bit of moulding limitation?artistic licence from Revell on the support for the pedals. This was cut away and also the fictitious strip under the main instrument panel.I made good with plastic rod and strip and made the pedal springs using cut up wound guitar string.[ATTACH]289941[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289942[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289943[/ATTACH]
The engine isnt bad considering but the moulded on ignition harness leads are very faint so I decided to drill holes for replacing these with copper wire,apart from adding a few lumps to the magnetos thats all the engine is getting ,I know the pushrod tubes arent seperate but a crafty paint job will disguise this and wont really be seen once its in the cowling. [ATTACH]289944[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289945[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289946[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289947[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289948[/ATTACH]
today im hoping to have a crack at the ignition harness and sort out the clunky scoops on the cowling ring, cheers tony

[john i am]

Some nice up detailing going on Tony always fancied this one myself. Might look out for a cheap one at Telford. Great work cheers John

[Guest]

That does look very good and its an aircraft i love the look of especially the paint scheme.

These large revell kits are very good value for money

[yak face]

Another good session yesterday and ive now got the cowling looking better. The original carb scoops were massively simplified and overscale in thickness so they had to be changed. At first I tried to thin the sides so I could cut back the angle and just add a new back piece but it didnt really work so I ended up cutting them off completely and replacing the entire scoop with plastic card.[ATTACH]289974[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289975[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289976[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289977[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289978[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289979[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289980[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289981[/ATTACH]
Ive still got the top scoop to hollow out and sort but it looks 100% better . Another thing that wil benefit from a bit of extra /enhanced detail is the chain drive for the undercarriage on the firewall. This distinctive feature of the Wildcats undercarriage is only represented on the kit moudlings by a very faint flat detail so I added some deeper sprockets and then had to think what i could use for a tiny chain. after looking at 1/700 anchor chains they still didnt seem right so started looking at fine jewellery box chains but still too big. In the end I used wire from a wound guitar string ,stripped off the core so it has a wavy chain like look. I know its not exactly like the flat sprocket type chain but itll look ok once its painted and washed .[ATTACH]289982[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289983[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]289984[/ATTACH]
The engine has been painted and had an oily wash and the ignition harness has had its first set of wires fitted . The real thing has braided copper coloured cables so I used copper wire but heated it through a flame to darken it and get the right colour. Today I'm going to add the second set for the rear cylinders.[ATTACH]289985[/ATTACH]
I shaded the sides of the cylinders to try and highlight the pushrod tubes and give the effect they are separate , I think once its in the cowling you wont be able to tell. Next is the cockpit and undercarriage mechanism , cheers tony

[papa 695]

Just seen this one Tony, some great work already. I'm in watching now.

[yak face]

Engine finished today[ATTACH]289988[/ATTACH]

[papa 695]

That looks loads better Tony. Nice work.