Hasegawa F6F-3 as voted for by you!

[Guest]

Here she is - the Cat Mouth Hasegawa Hellcat F6F-3

Box and sprues: -

extra paint sheet for the cat mouth paint scheme and another one not found on the original kit: -

instructions

My progress for the evening

cockpit floor, rear bulkhead, head panel and seat frame are glued, side windows cut out from fuselage, cockpit panels to be painted black are blue tacked to the coffee stirrer ready to be painted.

Overall it's looking like a good kit - hardly any part cleanup or flash, except on the cooling vanes of the cylinders. There was also a bit of mould-slip here, it's not going to be visible so I'm not going to lose sleep over it. The fit so far is near perfect - I've dry fitted the cockpit panels and fuselage/engine parts and they're all excellent.

At the top of the last pic is a trial piece to find a close-enough match for interior green. I'm not going to be picky about this. I'm not lazy, it's just that the interior green debate is too much for me, I'm going with the closest I can get using the greens I have. Probably a close match between Tamiya field grey (far left) or Humbrol grass green (3rd from the right). With a wash and drybrush I'm sure it'll look good enough.

As usual, comments and crit welcome.

Stuart

[Guest]

Nice one Stuart. Mine is the F6F-5. The scheme I was going to do has the same shark mouth on as yours but "White 7, Paper Doll" was flown by Lt. Carl A Brown Jr., VF-27, USS Princeton, October 24th 1944. I see yours is in the three colour, white fading through two shades of blue. Mine is in the solid dark blue which is going to be a pig to make 'shapely'. From what I have seen, the interior green on these is quite green. I have got the FS34151 Xtracrylix from John to do this although it looks a tad darker than the pre coloured photo etch. You are right though, the head-banging about colours gets in the way far too often. My only advice on thais would be to keep it green in cast, don't let it become too grey if you know what I mean.

If you go to the 'Paint Conversion Chart", button now on top menu bar of forum page, find the 34151 in the left column and click on the row, it will give a coloured bar at the bottom of the chart which gives a good enough idea as to the colour you want.

Good luck with the build, I will be slowly following you with mine.

[Guest]

Yeah I used the Paint4models Java converter to find roughly what i was looking for (subject to screen differences) and worked on that. I have Humbrol's cockpit green and uniform green (on the test part they're 4th and 2nd from left respectively) and they're both too grey/blue for the solid yellow green the US aircraft had, but this is where it ends up spiralling into chaos. I'm going for the grass green with a couple of drops of chromate yellow mixed in and I think that'll do.

I'm sure you'll be streaking ahead before long Graham - what you see above is nearly 2 hours work and I haven't even painted anything and I already made a mistake I had to undo!!!

Happy (Zero) hunting Kiki !

Stuart

[Guest]

You to Elton....... (This place gets worse!!!!)

[Guest]

Got some paint on tonight. Got the interior green on the cockpit and fuse innards, neutral "Grumman" Grey in the radio compartment (a tip from a Grumman nut on another forum), wings and tailplanes together, alclad on the engine, control panel parts painted black and drybrushed dark grey (can't see it very well in this photo) hmmmm that's about it so far...

Stuart

[Guest]

Judging by that picture, your interior green is about the same as the Eduard Photo Etch. I did suspect it was a shade lighter than the FS34151, which it is. Looking good. I have just finished the PE in the cockpit and most of the Seahawk cockpit to, I will post picies tomorrow as I am off to bed now.

[Guest]

Cheers Graham, It was a lucky break on the green! It's 1ml of Humbrol 80 grass green with 3 drops of 74 Linen mixed in to take the edge off the brightness.

I'm having a think about the cockpit - what I can add to it etc, I got a couple reference photos from Cybermodeler but I don't know how much I'll have the nerve to do - it's my first scratching experience...

[Guest]

It is a very busy cockpit Stuart, but it is also a deep one. I have just done a test fit in the fuselage halves and it is very hidden by the deep curves of the fuselage. Just pop it in there first and get an idea of what you can see and concentrate on those areas.

[stona]

Nice progress Stuart. I think,for once, the green debate is a non-starter. By the time the "Hellcat" went into mass production Grumman were using interior green as you have correctly divined.

My dad had 85hrs on the Hellcat and I have some photos,unfortunately in storage at the moment, which I'll post another time. They are post war anyway, at a time that the Hellcat was being used in the States as an advanced trainer for naval aviators.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

Graham yea the side panels are canted very inwards so I may not bother. And to be fair to Hasegawa, considering it's styrene and a kit cockpit, the detail they have managed to get in, is pretty darn good!

Steve, I am all for details and the little subtle nuances of some builds but it's annoying when (they used to be called JMNs or Joyless Modelling Nazis) "know" for "a fact" that something could not possibly be on a particular aircraft or tank and can see no way past this, no application of artistic license etc etc, and who's to say the factory didn't run out of FSxxxxx and decided to mix a batch themselves rather than hold up the production line! Which is why I say "screw it, it's close enough" haha and it saves £1.10 on another paint!! lol

Stuart

edit: I'd love to see those photos when / if you have access to them! did he train on the Hellcat or was he an instructor or flew it privately??

[stona]

Hi Stuart, you are quite right about some of the circular debates/arguments that keep re-emerging!!

My dad was Royal Navy but trained in the States. He flew the SNJ (Harvard) as well as Hellcats and Bearcats whilst training there. He flew Sea Furies for 801 Sqn. before converting to helicopters,training on the Hiller and Dragonfly (705 Sqn.) before flying Various Whirlwinds operationally (845 Sqn. and various SAR flights.)

Steve

[Guest]

Sounds like a very varied and interesting career! Training on something iconic like the Hellcat, then operationally flying the again iconic Sea Fury, then the early generation rotary wings!! Great stuff!!

Stuart

[Guest]

Bugger, it's taken only 3 days into the build but disaster's struck! I was applying a wash on the cockpit parts and the paint underneath crazed and lifted.. I dunno if it was mould release or something else, but if it was that I would have expected it to craze, or not take properly when I painted it!!

Ah well, I've scrubbed most of it off and tried to feather the edges as best I could, so hopefully take 2 will be nice and tough when it goes on (over a good coat of primer this time)

Ya live and learn!

On a more positive note I got the engine assembled, washed and some spark plug leads installed. It's looking a bit better than the rest at the moment.

Pics tomorrow!

Stuart

[Guest]

What do you use for the wash Stuart? You have to be a bit careful what you put over relatively fresh and un-protected acrylic.

[Guest]

You know, re the perfectionists, you really an go too far.

I'm a member of another forum for Kawasaki Z motorbikes and there are several people hovering around there the regulars call Rivet Counters, it's the same story, someone posts a picture of a 73 Z1 and within a few posts the Rivet Counters have pointed out all the 'wrong' things on the bike.

Funnily enough I recall a post with a genuine rare as hens teeth original out of the crate factory machine that someone had had in the back of a garage for years never touched, which according to the same rivet counters had several 'wrong parts for the year' on it.

When all's said and done if you want an exact representation of a specific aircraft, fine but if it's a generic example then as long as you like it specifically that's all that matters.

That's a seriously busy cockpit BTW, it's a wonder the pilots ever had the time to look where they were flying.