Jump to content

Grumman Wildcat F4F-3 - Early


rmcclure

Recommended Posts

Hi All,

I've never done a WIP before but now that I have some extra time on my hands I thought I'd give it a go. It certainly makes me think about the build more than I probably would normally. Next up on the bench for me is the Hobby Boss 1/48 scale Wildcat F4F-3 which I will finish in the early colours of USS Wasp CV-7. I'm currently fascinated by pre-war colour schemes and US aircraft were particularly jazzy. Here's the box shot showing the colours I'm aiming for as well as a few sprue shots...

boxshotcopy.jpgsprue2.jpg

DSC_2230-1.jpg

I've made a start on the cockpit - dryfit shot followed by glued and painted...

unpaintedpit.jpgpaintedpit.jpg

paintedpit2.jpg

I've never built a Hobby Boss model before but so far I'm happy with the quality of the parts and the moulded detail. All I've added so far have been tape lapbelts with some spare buckles I had knocking about. British and not American but I won't tell if you guys don't. My original plan had been to build a wheels-up model on a display stand but, annoyingly, the kit parts are all for a wheels-down version. The only part I'd need is a modified u/c cover but I'm put off scratching a pair because of the compound curves - I'd get it right or horribly wrong - it's one of those areas where there's no middle ground. I've a while to think about the options before I need to go one way or the other though.

As far as plans for finishing go then I'm going to try using masks instead of decals for this build. I cut my own from mask from tape for swastikas on a FW190 recently and was really pleased with the result. There aren't many markings on this aircraft and they seem relatively simple so this will be a good place to cut my teeth, as it were. I'm in touch with Mal at Miracle Masks about getting the masks cut. For colours I’ll be using Vallejo Interior Green on interior surfaces, Alclad Duraluminium for the silver finish - it was silver lacquer and not NMF on the early Wildcats - and Tamiya Flat Yellow seems the best match for wings and the fuselage band. All painted over Vallejo grey acrylic primer. It doesn’t sand very well, leaving a “step” rather than a smooth feathered edge like Halfords’ best but once joins and seams are smooth it’s a good one to use and at under £10 a bottle it lasts for ages. It has a much smoother finish than Halfords’ and doesn’t need micromeshing to be ready for a topcoat. Being quite a light grey then it will help the colours pop a bit on this scheme.

Next step is the engine bay and landing gear area forward of the cockpit.

Cheers all,

Roger

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A productive afternoon on many fronts. Got an email from Mal saying he's cut the masks and they're about to go in the post. Super nice guy and great service.

On the construction front I've got a few more bits stuck together. Here's the cat's cradle that is the landing gear bay directly forward of the cockpit along with the cockpit fixed in place in the tub that will form the forward underside of the fuselage...

DSC_2255.jpgDSC_2257.jpg

Next up was to paint and build the engine. I painted the cylinder banks in Tamiya Gunmetal with a black wash to highlight the gaps between fins and a dab of silver on the top of each cylinder. I'm not sure if that's strictly accurate but it adds a little interest. I don't think it will be seen once it's all in place, actually. Which is why I didn't go too mad on the landing gear area. The front of the engine had a coat of gloss grey and then a silver drybrush and some more dark wash to make the details pop a little.

DSC_2254.jpgDSC_2260.jpg

Next stage will be to zip up the fuselage. A dry fit indicates that there will be some minor putty work needed. The panel lines and surface detail are pretty shallow so I'll need to be careful when it comes to filling. One thing I've found is that some of the parts are pretty fragile and connections to the sprue are often a bit heavy handed so snipping them off consists of taking quite a chunk of sprue and then careful trimming on the cutting mat to be safe.

Cheers all,

Roger

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great work, Sir!

If you do not mind a little advice on color. The yellows on the box art are sort of reversed. The wing color should have a distinct orange cast to it (indeed it was officially known, originally, as Orange-Yellow). The section markings (on the cowl front and the fuselage band, and any chevron on the upper surface of the wing) should be a pale yellow (the color was known as Lemon Yellow). The difference was sufficient that Lemon Yellow markings stand out quite clearly against the Orange Yellow wing. The wing color is just about the shade we use for school buses here in the U.S., and the yellow stripe at the top of the box-top you show is not a bad guide to what you want for the upper surface of the wing.

I hope this is not all coals to Newcastle, but I am fond of these 'yellow wings' schemes, both Army and Navy, and of course, Marines, and build them fairly often..

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great work, Sir!

If you do not mind a little advice on color. The yellows on the box art are sort of reversed. The wing color should have a distinct orange cast to it (indeed it was officially known, originally, as Orange-Yellow). The section markings (on the cowl front and the fuselage band, and any chevron on the upper surface of the wing) should be a pale yellow (the color was known as Lemon Yellow). The difference was sufficient that Lemon Yellow markings stand out quite clearly against the Orange Yellow wing. The wing color is just about the shade we use for school buses here in the U.S., and the yellow stripe at the top of the box-top you show is not a bad guide to what you want for the upper surface of the wing.

I hope this is not all coals to Newcastle, but I am fond of these 'yellow wings' schemes, both Army and Navy, and of course, Marines, and build them fairly often..

Hello Old Man (I do feel very Edward Fox, saying that!)

No coals have been shipped, believe me! Thanks very much indeed for that input - very greatly appreciated. I know exactly what you mean by schoolbus yellow so that's brilliant. Can I ask if you have any decent reference sites? I've done a fair bit of trawling the web but I haven't come across too much in the way of conclusive information about colours. Interestingly, I found something last night that refers to the upper wing surfaces as being Chrome Yellow - http://www.angelfire.com/dc/jinxx1/Wildcat/F4F_pt2.html. I do know that the kit instructions have some questionable colour call-outs as well as a few detail issues (i.e. sunken rivets whereas I believe the real thing had raised rivet heads) so I really apppreciate an expert eye here - thanks very much.

Cheers all,

Roger

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Happy to be of some small assistance, Sir

This site seems pretty good:

http://www.jpsmodell.de/dc/usn_e.htm

in the entries from the mid-twenties on, look into 'standard schemes' and 'note on aircraft colors' links. The color values seem right, on my monitor, at least. The color was often referred to as 'chrome yellow', but not officially. I expect there may have been chromate in the pigment (that normally has a dark yellow tone, and only goes green when black pigment is added).

The print 'bible' is '

The Official Monogram U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Aircraft Color Guide

vol. 1 covers 1911-1939, vol 2 1940-1949. Out of print and damned pricey, though....

Edited by Old Man
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Happy to be of some small assistance, Sir

This site seems pretty good:

http://www.jpsmodell.de/dc/usn_e.htm

in the entries from the mid-twenties on, look into 'standard schemes' and 'note on aircraft colors' links. The color values seem right, on my monitor, at least. The color was often referred to as 'chrome yellow', but not officially. I expect there may have been chromate in the pigment (that normally has a dark yellow tone, and only goes green when black pigment is added).

The print 'bible' is '

The Official Monogram U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Aircraft Color Guide

vol. 1 covers 1911-1939, vol 2 1940-1949. Out of print and damned pricey, though....

Tremendous - thanks very much indeed. You're spot on with schoolbus yellow!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi All,

A brief update following a short session at the bench last night. The kit comes with six .50 guns on the sprue but only four are needed. They're nicely moulded items -

DSC_2264.jpg

The gun ports are in the upper surface of the wing - factually correct, I believe - but the mountings are moulded into the lower surface so you end up with a bit of threading. This isn't a massive problem but oddly cack-handed and I can't see why the mounting for modelling purposes couldn't be in the upper wing. You really need to put the wing top in place while the glue on the guns is still wet so you can make small adjustments and ensure they aren't skewed. Nothing impossible but it could be a little simpler, especially as the inspection hatches are moulded in and you don't get to see the guns in the finished model -

DSC_2265.jpg

Once the wing tops were in place and the gun barrels centred I simply let capilliary action run poly glue along the seams - it was a good fit.

The fuselage is zipped up now, apart from the front tub containing cockpit, gear and engine bay -

DSC_2268.jpg

The tailwheel is attached at this point in construction but I would normally leave this to last to make masking easier. I could have added a little styrene shelf I suppose but instead, I painted and added the tailwheel and have clearcoated it to protect it whilst masking later on. It's a pretty sturdy item so I'm not worried about knocking it off. Famous last words, and all that.

I've glued the two halves apart from the seam forward of the cockpit as, on a dry fitting test, it seems that putting the cockpit tub in place won't quite be the slot-together activity that the rest of the build has been so far. A little minor surgery may be required here and there but once that's done and I can get a good fit then I'll let poly glue run along the seams again and glue it together that way. That's this evening's plan anyway! Off to the LHS this afternoon to see what I can get in the way of orange-yellow paint for the upper wing surfaces.

Cheers all,

Roger

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi All,

Some good progress today - more bits painted and stuck together and I fixed the poor fit of cockpit tub to fuselage. The problem was a couple of locating "ribs" in the upper fuselage that the instrument panel and firewall should slot into. They served no structural purpose so I just carefully Dremel'd them off -

DSC_2270.jpg

You can just about see where they were - either side of the sink mark towards the top of the picture. If you're building this kit then I suggest getting rid of these features before you put the fuselage together - it'd be easier that way.

The wings are glued now and they're a good fit - no putty needed. I've seen on various sites that the early F4F-3 didn't have drop tanks and the kit makes provision for these and the wings have non-optional holes in the undersides so these have been filled -

DSC_2271.jpg

Then it's been a case of painting small detailed parts ready to be added at a later stage - here are various scoops and bits of landing gear after Alclad or Citadel Mithril Silver -

DSC_2275.jpg

I've added a light wash to the landing gear to highlight the detail. I didn't want to dirty it up, although I'm sure that stashed away behind an engine the gear would get a little grubby!

DSC_2279.jpg

The prop is also ready now for the tip colours to be painted. The kit instructions call for the whole prop to be painted silver but in pictures I've seen, the blades were black but boss and cuffs were silver. I'm not sure who's correct here but I thought it added a little interest anyway.

DSC_2280.jpg

One thing - why are my pictures coming out the size of a flipping house? I scaled them down on the PC to 800x600, or so, and then in Photobucket scaled down again to 400x400 again but they still come out this size. It was all working fine in previous updates. Even when I use the scaling function in the post facility I can resize them in the reply window but they still come out huge when I preview the post. I love IT. Not so much, actually.

Anyway, the wings are on and it looks like just one will need some filler on the join. I've cleverly developed what lots of you have probably been doing for years. As a matter of course I tape close to the area to be filled so I avoid filling over surface detail, and then once the filler is applied I smooth over with a cotton bud dipped in acetone. This evening I started to create a slurry of filler and acetone before application. I find that it goes smoothly and deeply into even the very smalled gaps and I can tape almost right up to the edges of the gap - less than 1mm seems to be working just fine.

More from the bench tomorrow.

Cheers all,

Roger

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If it helps at all, the Monogram Guide to USN/USMC Aircraft 1911-1939 states the colour, their Munsell values, and the approximate FS595A match as follows:

Orange Yellow, Munsell 9.6YR 7.7/13.3, FS13538

Lemon Yellow, Munsell 2.8Y 8.2/12.8, FS13655

Of course, as I learned from several of the more knowledgeable folks on this site, the FS match is not exact - FS595 did not exist back then, and not all of the colours transferred forward in their exact form.

The Orange Yellow colour is often named "Chrome Yellow" - I know that Testors does this. Gunze makes this colour in their Aqueous range, H329. By the way, FS13538 is the yellow used by the USN Blue Angels.

Cheers,

Bill

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If it helps at all, the Monogram Guide to USN/USMC Aircraft 1911-1939 states the colour, their Munsell values, and the approximate FS595A match as follows:

Orange Yellow, Munsell 9.6YR 7.7/13.3, FS13538

Lemon Yellow, Munsell 2.8Y 8.2/12.8, FS13655

Of course, as I learned from several of the more knowledgeable folks on this site, the FS match is not exact - FS595 did not exist back then, and not all of the colours transferred forward in their exact form.

The Orange Yellow colour is often named "Chrome Yellow" - I know that Testors does this. Gunze makes this colour in their Aqueous range, H329. By the way, FS13538 is the yellow used by the USN Blue Angels.

Cheers,

Bill

Thanks Bill - brilliant. I love this forum - it's Wikipedia for modellers!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing - why are my pictures coming out the size of a flipping house? I scaled them down on the PC to 800x600, or so, and then in Photobucket scaled down again to 400x400 again but they still come out this size. It was all working fine in previous updates. Even when I use the scaling function in the post facility I can resize them in the reply window but they still come out huge when I preview the post. I love IT. Not so much, actually.

Funny, just before I got to the above comment, I was thinking, "Gee, this looks great- I wish the pics were a little bigger, though..." I don't know if in the meantime you've solved the problem.

Do you have anything to say about the engine mount and landing gear assemblies? I have to say those areas frighten me whenever I start to thinkin' about building one or more of my Wildcats (which I've been doing again lately). The truth, I suppose, will be when it all comes together... we hope!

bob

p.s. One paint that has been recommended for the wing yellow is Tamiya rattle-can "Camel Yellow". My thoroughly scientific eye-ball assessment of on-line examples is that it looks good to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Roger, i'm not sure how adventurous you might feel about this but i had a idea about executing the paint scheme.

1) Prime the model overall with an enamel colour like interior green, neutral gray, or plain old silver. Let it dry and then carefully wet sand the model back down to bare plastic using 2000 grit wet sandpaper. This should make the surface smooth enough for a silver fuselage yet leave enough roughness for the paint to grab onto the underlying plastic.

2) Apply a coat of flat or semi gloss white to the wings before the yellow goes on. Wet sand the white with 4000 grit. Yellow doesnt cover over dark surfaces well.

3) Apply the gloss orange yellow over the sanded white. Allow to dry. You might want to caredfully wet sand the yellow wings a little with 4000 and add another thin coat of Orange Yellow. Allow that to dry.

4) Mask off the orange yellow wings and carefully wet sand any white or yellow orange overspray off the fuselage with wet 2000 grit, back to bare plastic.

5) Decant some Tamiya Airframe Silver into an airbrush and spray onto the fuselage. People have been raving about this stuff. As far as i know, you can apply it directly to bare plastic unlike Alclad.

Just a few thoughts on how i would go about painting a pre-war Wildcat. Feel free to use or discard as you see fit.

david

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi All,

The latest updates have been a bit slow in coming but a wedding over the weekend followed by waiting for the shakes to stop account for that!

Gingerbob - in answer to your question about building the landing gear I can confirm that patience and a steady hand are required! Some of the parts are very fragile, to the extent that they come wrapped in styrofoam to protect them in transit. Good on Hobbyboss for that. Here's the finished gear construction ready to stick in place once the rest of the model is complete. I've added a bit of chrome BMF to simulate the telescopic shocks but you can't really see them in this shot. A total of eight parts go into this -

IMG_0012.jpg

The glassware is masked ready for a coat of interior green followed by silver. The transparent parts are nice and thin and require very little tidying. Care is needed when taking them off the sprue and, like many other parts in the kit, I cut off a chunk of sprue with the parts and then cut/sand away carefully on the cutting mat -

DSC_2297.jpg

Regarding colours, the instructions call out just one shade of yellow but if you're painting markings, as I am, then you'lll need Mr Color H329 for the wings and Tamiya XF3 for bands on cowling and fuselage. These brushes on a test model (Mr Color is on the top here) show the very clear difference so thanks an awful lot to the guys who pointed this out to me -

DSC_2286.jpg

You do get funky little decals for the prop tips -

DSC_2283.jpg

But there's no fun in that so I've painted the tips. I'd have got on badly with tiny decals like that anyway -

DSC_2292.jpg

A slight embuggerance once I'd painted the wings. I managed to get black overspray on the wings when I was spraying the walkways and my hamfisted attempts at cleaning it off meant I really had to cut it back down and spray again. Oh well -

DSC_2294.jpg

The masks that Mal at Miracle Masks cut for me (after great communication and some very speedy service - really can't recommend him highly enough) arrived a few days ago and with some trepidation I decided to try them out today. Experiments on the test model went well so I though I'd start with the cowling. Step 1, apply the mask and then weed all parts bar the dot in the middle so that I can reapply the star accurately later on and spray white. I tried other methods but this was the easiest for me -

DSC_2303.jpg

Step 2 is to but the star back in place and spray the background blue. This shot has the dot taken out already ready to mask the blue and shoot red -

DSC_2304.jpg

And the finished result, of which I'm childishly proud -

DSC_2305.jpg

That last shot does show some relatively horrid masking of the black band I painted but it doesn't seem so bad in the flesh and it's probably too narrow for me to go back over. Maybe I'll photoshop the RFI pictures!!! Fantastic quality masks from Mal - I'll be a repeat customer for sure.

Next stage is to paint the tail black - here it is masked and ready to shoot -

DSC_2306.jpg

The wing repaint has gone well. The walkway was a little tricky as it actually extends a little onto the wing undersides. I found a tiny bit of tidying to do when I removed the masking but only minimal so I'm pretty happy.

David H - your method of painting would produce some very high quality results but I didn't feel the need to go quite as far as you might! I used Vallejo grey acrylic primer everywhere once all joints and seams were ready to paint. It has a very pale finish and also very smooth - far lighter and smoother than Halfords' primer. I did give it a light buffing with 8000 micromesh to make it even smoother but I could have got away without it. After a worry I had when using Alclad Duraluminium on the cowling (don't know why it played up as the bottle's been fine on other models and elsewhere on this one) I decided to use Citadel Mithril Silver everywhere. The real thing was painted in silver lacquer and I've been very impressed with the finish of Mithril Silver - especiallly with a coat of Valleho acrylic gloss varnish over the top. From the musem shots I've seen of F4F-3 earlies it's a very close facsimile.

I'll shoot the tail in Tamiya flat black as I just don't get on with shooting gloss for some reason. I'm not worried about that as a couple of coats of Vallejo gloss will produce a fine finish. That's up next and then I'll get onto the fuselage markings.

Cheers all,

Roger

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi All,

The annual Festering activities have kept WIP to a minimum but the next post after this will be the RFI. Paint and markings are all now complete and next stage will be to apply gloss coat and the bits and pieces like landing gear and aerial. Mal's Miracle Masks have been awesome to use and I'm really happy with the results. I did have to redo the upper wing markings due to my own mistake - I thinned the blue paint too much and sprayed too heavily so it bled under the mask and there was nothing for it but to sand back and respray. No more updates until after Christmas but here are some shots of where things are so far -

Wing and fuselage bands done and upper wing markings masked -

DSC_2316.jpg

And completed -

DSC_2319.jpg

Underwing markings complete -

DSC_2321.jpg

And unit numbers too...

DSC_2322.jpg

I've thoroughly enjoyed using the masks and would recommend them to anyone. A steady hand in application and patience to spray several light coats are crucial - as I found out to my cost. If you master all that you'll end up with results that would be damned hard to match with decals.

Happy Christmas to everyone and see you all on the other side.

Roger

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...