Richard's Academy/Airfix Hellcat for Simon

[papa 695]

Cracking work so far Richard

[Steve Jones]

Nice work on the rear and fuel caps. Keep up the great work my friend.

[colin m]

To the untrained eye, that looks very nice OOB.

[Richard48]

Some rather lovely work going on as Sergeant Wilson would say.Good old Shep Paine,Got his books when i first got into afvs aged 14.Nice bit of Nostalgia.
Rich

[rtfoe]

Thanks Guys,

Cracking work so far Richard

Ian, I am rather enjoying it thanks to Simon.

Nice work on the rear and fuel caps. Keep up the great work my friend.

You like my rear end do you Steve...what will SWMBO think of you. :smiling6:

To the untrained eye, that looks very nice OOB.

That's the problem Collin, if you do a good enough job no one's going to notice the replacement. :tongue-out2:

Some rather lovely work going on as Sergeant Wilson would say.Good old Shep Paine,Got his books when i first got into afvs aged 14.Nice bit of Nostalgia.
Rich

Yes Richard, Shep had been an inspiration for most of us when we got started in the hobby.

Only update I have is in the OR getting an Open Bum Surgery...



Blood pressure dropping and heart stopped a few time and had to shock it with the paddles. Hope the patient pulls through.

Cheers,
Richard

[Mini Me]

That is a nifty bit of work. So you "chain drilled" it and then cut out the centers? Doesn't appear to be much clean up required. Well done Richard.
Rick H.

[rtfoe]

Hi Rick, yes that's the way I do most of my cut outs. Then I clean it with files.

I had done some updates yesterday but was too sleepy to post so here they are...

The patient pulled through the open bum surgery so it's left to be stitched up...but before that plastic surgeon deepened the edges of the frame and supports to take the added thickness of the new mash and frame.



Placing the mesh and frame to see if it measures well...



Got it glued on with some minor mishaps that turned out looking like battle damage.



Sprayed Nato Black as a primer...need to drill out some areas in the mesh where the CA has covered.



Not too happy but at least it's the mesh is vertical and horizontal instead of diagonal.

I won't be touching the grill near the turret ring as the rear turret bustle overhang covers it.
I'll move onto the little stuff that need correction on the turret now.

Cheers,
Richard

[Jim R]

Hi Richard
That looks fine. It is almost impossible to avoid at least one mesh hole filled with CA - well I always do anyway :rolling:
Jim

[rtfoe]

Thanks Jim, if it looks fine then I'm leaving it as is. I had the gel CA but was stubborn not to use it. That would have lessen the chances of the glue filling up the mesh.

Cheers,
Richard

[Lee Drennen]

Richard. Looking good nice detail

[Guest]

Good fix for the wrong mesh You can probably poke through the glue-filled bits with a sharp blade.

[scottie3158]

Richard,
Nice work on the etch.

[JR]

Wow wish I could get my PE type as clean, looks like someone's thrown a bucket of glue !

[rtfoe]

Richard. Looking good nice detail

Thank Lee.

Good fix for the wrong mesh :smiling3: You can probably poke through the glue-filled bits with a sharp blade.

Yes Jakko better with a good mesh than a bad mesh. :smiling6: Too delicate to poke so I'll just use my engraver.

Richard,
Nice work on the etch.

Thanks Scottie.

Wow wish I could get my PE type as clean, looks like someone's thrown a bucket of glue !

John, and it's not even PE but foil that was a pain to cut.

Cheers,
Richard

[rtfoe]

Here are more updates done today,

Just some minor stuff on the exterior before I go into the turret like the underside of the ammo box cradle...I sandwiched two pieces of thin plastic card where one was pre-drilled with the eights holes. I added a short piece of stretched sprue for the hinge.



Moved the antenna guard to the correct position closer to it...



There was a picture of one of he Hellcats with the rear mudguard still on and it looked good so I cut the kit guards and scrapped the areas where it will be attached for more adhesion for the glue.



I'll glue this up for the next post.

Cheers,
Richard