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Octopus/Pavla 1/72 Grumman F7F-3N Tigercat Updated Decals


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This is my build of the Octopus/Pavla 1/72 Grumman F7F-3N Tigercat. I acquired this kit from @Creepy Pete(thanks again) 2 years ago and promised to build it last year. And a year late, here it is.  This is my first Octopus build and I have to say I was not impressed and would rank them in the lower tier of injection moulded plastic kits. One step above Mach 2 which is in a class by itself. I have 2 other of their kits in my pile and I shudder to think about building them. The kit is mostly plastic with a few resin parts, vac canopies, a Pavla interior, and decals. The vac canopies were actually pretty good with good demarcation of where to cut and window framing. The Pavla interior, like all the other Pavla interiors I have used, almost, but not quite fit the fuselage halve and the same can be said for the rest of the kit. It also had and eclectic set of parts not included with instructions to scratch build them. This kit required filling the entire large nose with #10 shot to get it to stand on the nose.  I was able to find one review of this kit on the net (https://model-scale.com/grumman-f7f-tigercat) and I agree with everything he says including "The Octopus decals were far too thin; brittle; unable to be moved over the surface of the model to their correct position, and simply did not react at all to setting solutions!" I tried giving them a coat of Microscale Micro Superfilm and this appeared to solve most of the problem. That is until they dried when there was massive silvering on an unprecedented scale and after using copious amounts  of Micro Sol I was forced to remove them and cobble together most of the markings from my spares. Missing are the "VMF(N)-542" and the data block that goes under the tail. Starfighter made an F7F-3N decal sheet (72-120) but it is discontinued and impossible to find. It will have the pieces I am missing and if it is ever reissued I will grab one up and add them. Well thanks to the generosity of @philp I was able to get the Starfighter sheet and I have updated the model:

 

So if I haven't tired you out complaining here are the pictures:

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Next up will be the Sword AD-4W which should be a much more pleasant build.

 

Enjoy

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6 minutes ago, binbrook87 said:

there's not many kits about in 72nd scale.

Just the Monogram as far as I know. It looks like Lone Star Models has an F7F-3N conversion.

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  • 5 months later...

Looking forward to seeing you use the decals I sent.  I have the Monogram kit and the conversion set plus engines and wheel wells so if I ever get the time to play with it it should be a drawn out build.

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This is an outstanding model and an impressive result given the fact that you had overcome so many obstacles to finish this kit. Indeed, this is truly a testimonial to your skills and experience as a modeller. 👏

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  • hsr changed the title to Octopus/Pavla 1/72 Grumman F7F-3N Tigercat Updated Decals

As stated when I first posted this build the kit decals were useless and I had to make due with generic decals from my leftovers, and could not do the aircraft specific ones. I knew there was a discontinued Starfighter decal sheet so I tried to match it as close as I could hoping that someday I would be able to locate it and fill in the details. Well thanks to the generosity of @philp that day has come and I have updated the model:

Ma9ujXKB_o.jpg

80T57v9A_o.jpg

LwmWpbfZ_o.jpg

 

 

So it is now complete.

 

Enjoy

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