Richard's Academy/Airfix Hellcat for Simon

[minitnkr]

Excellent work here. Mask & goggles work for me. PaulE

[rtfoe]

Richard, Si and Paul...thanks,

With resin dust you need to be more careful when sanding and must wear a mask and a pair of goggles. The dust is inert.

Refined dust you mean :tears-of-joy: I'm only trying to get it anatomically correct and leave the finer stuff alone for the experts. :smiling6:

Cheers,
Richard

[rtfoe]

Just touched on a little bit today with the 50 cal mount and ring. I changed the position of it and raised the cradle higher with added plastic strip...



Now both tanks should look nearly identical externally.



Cheers,
Richard

[Steve Jones]

Great attention to detail Richard. Stunning work all round

[rtfoe]

Thanks Steve, normally I don't do anything to armour kits except festoon them with gear but this particular kit called for corrections to it's shape. If there were marks or version upgrades that changed the basic shape I can understand but the only major change was the shifting of the gun to the right by 2 inches, tilting the breech section to a 45 degree angle which deleted the bulges to both sides of the turret. It spent only roughly less than a year in service and was removed after the doctrine of tank destroyers ceased in the US military. I think it was rushed by Academy to get it out first. From certain angles it looks like a Hellcat and if you deck it with crew equipment and bedrolls it'll pass.

Cheers,
Richard

[Richard48]

Wow wow wow.
Excellent job Richard.
Rich

[rtfoe]

Wow wow wow.
Excellent job Richard.
Rich

Thanks Richard, there's still the interior of the turret to detail like the electrical conduits, gun sight and stowage boxes. Then I can proceed to deck the turret sides with crew gear.

Cheers,
Richard

[rtfoe]

Hi I'm back while the Oxford's varnish cures,

I continued with the exterior this time it's the turret 50 cal pulpit and the gun lock mechanism.

After shifting the 50 cal to the opposite side of the pulpit ring I added body stabilizing cushions...



Then I made the bits that are missing from the gun locking mech. with rod and strip plus some bolt heads, the end of the connecting rod is a little long will be cut. That's the exterior now to the interior...



I made a start on the gun sights...at the moment its just a tube with supports to be made. The bracket over it will be attached to the gun recuperating cylinder. It's made from thick plastic strip and reinforced with Tamiya tube foil. Bolts were added as per reference. The long strip will be wrapped around the tube/sight once the CA anchored end is cured.



In keeping with Simon's tribute I have used metal sheets other than pewter twice for construction.

Cheers,
Richard

[scottie3158]

Richard,
Very nice work always a pleasure to watch you detail your builds.

[Tim Marlow]

Excellent work Richard. You have a great eye.

[Steve Jones]

Incredible detailing. This is a real gem of a build

[Steven000]

Lovely project Richard, nice progress :thumb2:
Steven

[rtfoe]

That's terribly nice of you chaps Scottie, Tim, Steve and Steven. Scratch building back to 1/35 scale has been a lot better than 1/700. Just finished off the gun-sight and attached it to the gun so it can elevate with it.

Remember in the previous photo the gun-sight was just a tube...well I have added the brackets that hold it and the dials that are for tweaking the sight. Here are two angles...



This next shot shows it attached to the gun via the overhead bracket in the previous photo. I scraped off the primer on the recuperator cylinder.



That's all for tonight...gonna catch some zzz's

Cheers,
Richard

[Jim R]

Hi Rchard
The most amazing scratchery.
Jim

[minitnkr]

Will keep track of your build in case an M18 is ever available in my scale. Your details are extraordinary. PaulE