Thom216

A few days lying like a lazy bum, and I finally hit the rear gear well with some Tamiya Sea Blue. And while I was at it, I hit the inner cowl with yellow/green. Those pin marks will be hidden by the engine. (I hope!) And I started putting the fuse together. I started at the nose and will work my way back to the tail. And the replacement barrels showed up! Model on! Thom

Great work on the cockpit and the PE. I couldn't fiddle with the teeniest little levers.

Very nice!

Cool looking 'bash! Funky!

Thank you @shortCummins I have since removed the roof of the tail wheel bay. I won't be worrying about detail in there, and will just paint it the same as the exterior color. And I decided to skip ahead a wee bit to the cowl. Pics show a metal screen across the lower, center inlet, so I raided the PE stash for something 'appropriate.' I 'measured' it to shape and made sure it was oriented correctly. And then glued it in place with 60Sec super glue. I'll spritz the rear gear well and then get the 'fuse together, and the engine is the next stop. Model on! Thom

Careful of the sharpie! I used that once to judge how much sanding I needed on another project, and actually had it bleed through the paint during the paint process.

Pic of the cockpit in place. You can see I thought I was going to have a problem near the headrest. Needn't have worried... Then I turned my attention back to the tail wheel. I was looking through some walkaround pics and noticed that what I thought was the tail wheel door, is really only part of it. Eduard, at least, has it looking like a large door for the tail wheel. But actually only little more than half of that is. The rest is something separate and attached to the gear itself. http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/mark_hayward/f6f-5k_hellcat/ So I framed it with tape and cut it off with a trusty PE razor saw! After that I drilled it out to make room for a metal shaft. Almost went too large on the diameter though, as the plastic was starting to show stress. And I did blow through the top of the gear piece, which should turn out alright in end, as the actual gear leg didn't go any higher than that anyway. Then I did the same with the lower gear piece, after sanding the remaining lower half of the 'gear door' narrower and rounding the front arc a bit. And a test fit shows it looking good, IIDSSMS1! And now I can even glue it at an angle. What I wonder now is, should I remove the plastic closing up the top of the gear well? I can simply paint the opened interior the exterior color before the fuse is all glued up. Yeah, I think I'll do that! And this is something I wish I had done before gluing the tail wheel in place! Model on! Thom

Nice on the rescribe! I'm hoping to have to do as little of that as possible!

Well, you can add me to this list! I have plenty of 190s on the shelf, and this would be a great reason to crack one open!

Nice choice!

Very nice!

Thanks! that means a lot. Tiny bit more done. Just the inner cockpit walls. And the tail wheel. Unless some surgery is done, it has to go in before the halves close up, but I foresee no problems. They'll be the same color as the exterior, so there will be very little masking in this area. I did get some drill bits and opened up the lightening holes before gluing it in place. Model on! Thom

So, I started putting the PE belts in, and that was going fine. Until the 'Pinging' occured. That inevitable event when the tweezers grab the bent teeny, tiny piece of metal in such a way as to cause it to 'ping' away. In this case up, and then down. I even heard it strike the linoleum between my feet. But could I find it after getting down on my stomach with a flashlight and ten minutes of searching..? Of course not. I think the Gubbins came out of the crooks and crannies and ran off with it. Damn Gubbins! That left me with only one half of the lap belt, and that wasn't going to work. I do have another PE set, for a Spitfire, and I was about to raid it for the lap part, but I really didn't want to do that. Part of that is because I want to use that on the appropriate kit, rather than have more scrap PE laying around. Then I realized, I was going to be putting the shoulders harnesses behind the seat rather than over it, as I saw that in a pic, and I liked that it would be a little different. So I figured, if those were put behind the seat, then maybe the right side lap belt has fallen down the right side of the seat, between it and the side console? Since I did have some left over from this fret, I took a small portion and bent it back the other way. Then I cut a small piece of scrap plastic in the shape of that brown piece if that goes under the belt itself and painted it Tamiya hull red. Close enough match. Good enough for the situation! Proceeded from there to dust some brown artist chalk onto the floor and, reshine the scratches after the dull coat and gloss the instrument dials, and then put it all together. I just need to add a few levers into the throttle quadrant and the cockpit will be done. More to come. Model on! Thom

Came out of the paint station and I removed all the masks. It'll go back in again for a touch up and a little more color, but this is how she sits at the moment. Model on! Thom

Just a couple pics for an update. Painting and weathering the cockpit. More to come. Model on! Thom