The Summer Duck...finished (Merit Grumman J2F-5 in 1/48)

[Chief Cohiba]

Guys, I'm about to start something new, and after the more icy topic of the He 115 from the Kids GB, I wanted to work on something more summerly themed. I thought, something WWII, US-Pacific Theatre could work, and thought for some while now that I still have a Trumpeter F6 Hellcat in stash. But I want an easy, rather fast build, and the 1/32 bird might take some time.

 

But then I found inspiration in the latest (in german, at least) volume of Romain Hugaults "Angel Wings" story, which I receiced a bit earlier this year, named "Paradise Birds" (which I can fully recommend, of course). 

 

 

Just the piece of summer feeling I'm looking for, and in fact you haven't noticed, may I draw your attention to the scenery ABOVE the water line; yes, there's a Grumman Duck. It's a bit odd, it's got floats, it's intermediate blue, so, what's not to love about it? The Merit/Trumpeter offering looks promising, 1/48 is just the right size (and the Airfix Walrus will look great close to it), and Eduard has some PE for it, which shouldn't be impossible to build. 

So, let's have a go on this.

Hopefully I soon can share some pics of bend brass, with which I will start this build.

Come on, grab a lounger, the Daiquiris are stiff and ice cold, and don't get sunburned!

[Martian]

Having this kit in the stash, I am looking forward to this one: following!

 

Martian 👽

[Chief Cohiba]

7 hours ago, Martian said:

Having this kit in the stash, I am looking forward to this one: following!

 

Martian 👽

Glad you're following and enjoy. And please add you're extraterrestrial wisdom and experience on this! 😄

 

One thing I can say already, the stock interior looks a bit "basic", but with the Eduard pieces one really can add some life to it. Here's the first few pieces...

 

 

What's funny enough, Eduard didn't provide the radio aerial as a PE part, but to bend it on your own. Not a piece of rocket science, but these pieces just cry for PE.

Sorry for poor quality, but phone cam and late night builds aren't compatibel...

[Chief Cohiba]

Guys, I did some dry fitting of the parts I've tinkered together so far and could use some of your ideas concerning the rear seat layout.

 

Here's how it looks:

 

 

No details added so far, and yes, it could use (and will get) some, but here's my thought; appearently the rear seat has a co-pilot function, as well as serves as the radio operaters place. While I'm pretty sure that not all of the ducks had the same layout, I've seen some with a rear gunner. In the comic there's a pretty good picture of that, but think will not post it here, not to cause any copyright issues.

 

Apart from the interesting addition of having a rear gun, I could also build the rear seat fold up, as it then probably would look less than a toilet seat. I would requiring some sawing on the canopy, but as I go me some PE saws recently this could look manageable.

 

Guys, you have any thoughts on the rear seat on the duck?

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

The rear seat looks like it should be raised a little. Also the radio/instruments look like they should move back a little. There appears to be almost no room in the front cockpit for a pilot. 

[Chief Cohiba]

2 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

The rear seat looks like it should be raised a little. Also the radio/instruments look like they should move back a little. There appears to be almost no room in the front cockpit for a pilot. 

Thanks, Dennis, rear seat is of course not the final position, just "lying" on the floor. Will most likely mount it in the upright position and found myself already checking aftermarket suppliers for a 1/48 Browning. For the position of the radio block and the space for the pilot you might be right as well (as usual), let's see how it looks with the pilot's seat in place. This entire cockpit layout doesn't seem to work right out of the box, there will be a lot of shifting and tinkering around required.

 

In the meantime I just worked on some smaller parts, just to add a bit of structure. While the exterior looks rather good, this duck's intestines are a oob bit lame, so to say.

 

I'm afraid it's a bit boring right now to watch, as I can't post just some pictures of more random interior parts...

 

Hopefully can soon post some more interesting pics. 😉
 

[Chief Cohiba]

Sorry, been away a bit on this, due to work reasons.

 

But i get distracted; summer is almost gone, and the idea of having a fancy, ice cool cocktail, something with Pisang Ambon and pineapple juice, while building this seems a bit inapprobriate, when I look out of the window. Anyway, I managed to get a bit of brass attached to the plastic parts and the interior is somewhere there. I did not do all of the brass, as e.g. the lower cabin seat looks much to flat in brass, so I kept the plastic part, and probably did overdo it a bit with the internal weathering. 

 

Here's a pic of the starbord side.

 

 

As you see I've build the rear seat in an upright position, as I think of probably add a gun and build it open, but still shying away of opening the canopy. What's your thought on such acts of cruelty?

 

Here's another view on the interior, this time dry-fitted in the port side.

 

 

While fit is rather good, I think I've produced some fit issues with all the brass mounted, so will probably have to sand away a bit round the upper left part of the dashboard region. Not really sanding it away but using a dremel with a drill bit I got from my dentist at one of my last visits and which is perfect. So, to add a bit of pleasure to a rather unsavory event. 

 

But funny enough, dryfitting revealed it is almost impossible to close the halves when the cockpit is mounted to the (I think) port half, and rather good when it's on the starbord side. Hmmm...

 

Also, here's a picture of the engine in the making.

 

 

I initially was tempted to get a resin engine, but then - no. This time it's the plastic one from the kit. With a few of Eduards brass pieces it should be enough.

 

What is a bit of a pain, is the lack of rigging information. Of course one can imagine roughly from box art and pictures from the net, but the precise position of some rigging points is still unclear to me. This is one thing I need to do prior to closing the halves, as I want to drill the holes before and mount the wire from the inside.

 

Do you guys have any hints for me?

 

 

Edited September 4, 2020 by Chief Cohiba

[dnl42]

Woohoo! 

[Chief Cohiba]

Ok, on with the duck after almost two weeks off.  Sorry, guys... 😉

 

Not that much I did, but I managed to finalise the interior layout. In combination with the Eduard pieces it's rather crowdy. This time I did not add more additional wires, and it turned out ok, but definitely not perfect. But as I learned in my recent He115 build, you rarely see that much from it later. 

 

So, here's some pictures so far from the cockpit pieces: 

 

 

 

And, as promised, toilet seat in the upright position, so the rear pilot acts as a gunner:

 

 

And, as mentioned before, I used the original plastic cabin seat, not the Eduard PE one, is it somewhat didn't look quite right - just a few thin sheets of metal. I preferred the 3D-plastic part, although it might not be 100% accurate. Who cares... 😉

[Chief Cohiba]

And here's some dryfitting:

 

 

This still needs some sanding on some edge areas, so that the body halves close nicely.

[Chief Cohiba]

Next, I painted the body halves in FS 35189 Non Specular Blue Grey and FS36440 Light Gull Grey, both LifeColor, which I regularily use. 

 

 

Preshading with some mixture of brown and dark grey. Did I mention my compressor is dying? But I'm jusst to greedy right now to get me another one, so I squeeze this like an old lemon... 😄

 

[bigbadbadge]

Nice, wondered what one of these builds up like.  Great ztRt on the cockpit internals.

Chris

[Chief Cohiba]

 

17 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Nice, wondered what one of these builds up like.  Great ztRt on the cockpit internals.

Chris

Many thanks, this comes together rather easy. No big issue so far, but I'm trying to be a bit modest on this one. ;-)

 

Here's the engine, right out of the box, except for the two intake grills:

 

 

Back, the exhausts are quite nice...

 

 

And in the cowling...

 

[72modeler]

Maybe these links will be useful:

First link is a video cockpit tour of the front office of Kermit Weeks' restored J2F- bear in  mind the cockpit has been 'civilianized.'

https://youtu.be/ry3XmdzXIjY

 

The second link is to a restored J2F-6- no interior views, but lots of small details on the exterior to include on your model.

https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa-museum/museum-collection/aircraft-collection-folder/1944-grumman-columbia-j2f-6-duck---n1196n

 

The third link does have two photos of the rear cockpit and flexible gun position

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/aircraft/Grumman-Duck.html

 

The fourth link is to a walkaround that has numerous external and internal views

http://www.modelarovo.cz/grumman-j2f-duck-walkaround/

 

The best interior reference would be to get a copy of Naval Fighters Volume 84 on the J2F. Hope the links are useful.

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by 72modeler
corrected spelling

[Chief Cohiba]

13 hours ago, 72modeler said:

Maybe these links will be useful:

First link is a video cockpit tour of the front office of Kermit Weeks' restored J2F- bear in  kind the cockpit has been 'civilanized.'

https://youtu.be/ry3XmdzXIjY

 

The second link is to a restored J2F-6- no interior views, but lots of small details on the exterior to include on your model.

https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa-museum/museum-collection/aircraft-collection-folder/1944-grumman-columbia-j2f-6-duck---n1196n

 

The third link does have two photos of the rear cockpit and flexible gun position

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/aircraft/Grumman-Duck.html

 

The fourth link is to a walkaround that has numerous external and internal views

http://www.modelarovo.cz/grumman-j2f-duck-walkaround/

 

Many thanks, Mike, that's a lot of really helpful information, much appreciated.

I'm not sure of how much of this Information I will use, as I plan not to superdetail this, but it's always helpful, of course.

But hell, I already started to think how I can create the laminated look of the flowat tip... 😄

[corsaircorp]

On 8/15/2020 at 2:35 PM, Martian said:

Having this kit in the stash, I am looking forward to this one: following!

 

Martian 👽

Which one ?? The dame or the plane ?? 

 

Good idea Chief,

I'll follow on if you don't mind it !

CC

[Chief Cohiba]

5 hours ago, corsaircorp said:

 

Good idea Chief,

I'll follow on if you don't mind it !

CC

We're all married, so of course we only have eyes for planes, haven't we? 😇

 

CC, please grab a seat and enjoy, your highly welcome, of course!

🙂

 

[Chief Cohiba]

Guys, I'm afraid I'm a bit of a bore as I can't post anything more exiting tha a few mounted gear struts. Nothing really special on this, and i even made it already a few days ago. Well, I added a small brake(?) wire, but it can hardly be seen. 

 

 

 

Should I post here that one of the internal PE parts went off while handling? Not even this small accident is of any real entertaining value, as I' m sure this will be fixed in a second.

 

Isn't it annoying when a it just comes together well? 😉

 

 

[bigbadbadge]

The engine looks nice , I like that, shame about the PE bit that is most annoying at least the carpet monster couldn't get hold of it!!!

Chris

[Chief Cohiba]

Well, the PE was fixed in a minute, a drop of gap-filling CA and it was done. And I've banned the carpet from my workspace, funny enough there are still some parts which find their way into another dimension.

I'm preparing myself mentally on closing the body halves, fow which I expect some mayor sanding and grinding on the cockpit assembly. It's not only the fear of dust, but the certidude that some of the real tiny parts will disappear into nirvana while doing so. 

 

 

Btw, that's the gap right now. As there really is some structure here, I would like to use as less putty as possible.

So, in the meantime: ooooooohhmmmmm.....

[Chief Cohiba]

Guys, as you might have noticed, this is not the fastest evolving build ever, so I'd take this rather as slow cooking rather than fast food. 😉

 

What happened recently; I went on a bit on the tedious topic of sanding the interior to make the body halves meet. It's been not the most pleasent work, as I am afraid I've been a bit slumpy on mounting the PE parts, so these protrude the plastic. And sanding these had aof course minor effect, was quite unprecise and, most of all, made the parts dissolve again. But I've reached some point here...

 

Not only the cockpit assembly I worked on in such diruptive manner, also the location pins around the cockpit had to fall, as they did not leave enough space for the dashboard...

 

 

Finally I came to this point, dryfitting with some clamps on show this gap:

 

 

I think thats something I can work on. In general I think the fit of the kit itself is very good, yet tight, so the added thicknes of some PE parts seemed to cause some of these fit issues. Thsi of course, in combination with the shoddy work of a lazy modeller...

 

 

[bigbadbadge]

Looks good now,if you have a little bit to fill you could try the CA glue and Talcum powder mixed as a filler, it is tough but sands well and scribes easily.  If you are already aware of it and I am teaching you to suck eggs I do apologise  but it's very handy.  

Be great to see this closed up.

Chris

[Chief Cohiba]

4 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Looks good now,if you have a little bit to fill you could try the CA glue and Talcum powder mixed as a filler, it is tough but sands well and scribes easily.  If you are already aware of it and I am teaching you to suck eggs I do apologise  but it's very handy.  

Be great to see this closed up.

Chris

Didn't ever try, I use the regular putty, thinned with poly cement. I'm sure isn't that hard, but my guess it's easier to apply. But sounds like a useful practise, what kind of CA do you use?

I made a little progress on mounting a minor, yet difficult part, I think it's the oil cooler intake:

 

 

It looks good with the PE slats, but now can only be mounted in with CA, so it's a one shot. So, if it doesn't fit, which only could be checked after the CA has hardened, it would take rather invasive measures to give it another try. Lucky me, i did fit at once.

 

Next preparing the windows with the Montex masks i bought:

 

 

Is it only me thinking of something that usually happens in a darkened chamber, when looking at the black rubber? Not that I ever did take part in such actions, of course.

[Chief Cohiba]

And some more small steps to the next achievement, closing the body. I Installed the windows (curved side aft - curved side aft - curved side aft - only needed to turn once) and started to rigging by glueing the body attached wires in the pre-drilled holes:

 

 

 

 

Here's a pic from outside:

 

 

Merit/Trumpeter didn't include any information about rigging, so I'll check again if these two points are the only ones, before closing the body. I plan to do this according to "Rigging for Beginners", so will mount as many wires as possible from inside parts, which I think should be possible on this layout.

 

 

[Chief Cohiba]

Working on the canopy I think I can wave goodbye to my plans to open the canopy by simply cutting it open with a fine saw.

 

Here's why: I've noticed that the cross-section of the  canopy part looks roughly like this:

 

If I cut it open and try to slide it together, there would be a rather large overlay, like this:

 

 

Of course with some grinding and sanding it can be done, but chances are to destroy this part and itself then the kit are there. Also, I planned to do this as a nice in-between build, and that would go beyond that. Also, I do have my next build in mind already, so...