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Grummarama! 1:48 FAA Grumman Hellcat MkI, MkII and Tarpon


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9 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Oh yes looking great fella this is where the magic starts .  Fantastic stuff and great work so far.  

Chris

Thanks mate - it'll be another big day tomorrow!

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Excellent work my Padawan !!

3 on the painting, Well well, you're on the right path !!

Banter aside

You achieve a great job on here !!

Congrats Roger 

These damn serial and the stripe that did'nt cover it.....

It has been a nightmare on some of my kits....

Sincerely.

CC

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3 minutes ago, corsaircorp said:

Excellent work my Padawan !!

3 on the painting, Well well, you're on the right path !!

Banter aside

You achieve a great job on here !!

Congrats Roger 

These damn serial and the stripe that did'nt cover it.....

It has been a nightmare on some of my kits....

Sincerely.

CC

Thanks Alain - I learned from the best! Three is hardly a multi-build is it?

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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Hi All,

 

Another solid day's progress today! I spent much of the morning masking the lower surfaces, which was pretty relaxing:

 

20210502-115823.jpg

 

Here's the MkI following a coat of Dark Slate Grey (still a bit wet):

 

20210502-123120.jpg

 

And here's a shot to warm one's cockles - DSG loveliness:

 

20210502-131623.jpg

 

I decided to freehand the EDSG. Here's the result (I'd added some Medium Sea Grey to the EDSG just to give a more faded appearance on the MkII and Tarpon):

 

20210502-141240.jpg

 

You can also see I cut out paper masks (using spare roundels as templates), in order to give the effect of oversprayed roundels of both the MkII and the Tarpon, along with the fin flashes on the Tarpon. Here's a shot of the MkI following unmasking:

 

20210502-150359.jpg

 

There's a few minor runs and paint bleeds but nothing too serious 🤩 Here's the MkI &  MkII together:

 

20210502-150855.jpg

 

Looking good! I've left the Tarpon masked, as I had a bit of a self-inflicted disaster with the hairspray layer. Here's what it looks like at the moment:

 

20210502-151144.jpg

 

I think I'll very carefully sand it back and respray the affected areas :rage: - never mind. I'm now a bit gun-shy of attempting the same thing on the MkII and spoiling what to my eye is a pretty good finish. I'll let the dust settle and pick up again next time!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Roger

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13 minutes ago, mark.au said:

That's a bunch of very fine work there Roger, but I don't know how you keep track of three concurrent builds!  👏

Thanks very much Mark - if the schemes weren't so similar I think I'd give it a wide berth! Because the Tarpon was stalled I'd really done most of the work a year ago,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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Oh wow Roger, they look lovely,  it must have been very satisfying unmasking these, they all look fantastic and the Mk1 with the red coming ring and stripes looks fantastic.  

I am sorry to see the Hairspray area on the Tarpon. I am sure you will be able to rescue this with your paint skills fella. 

Great work 

Chris

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Hi Roger,

 

Just caught up with this thread - not sure how I missed it until now! All three builds are looking great, and the finish on them is stunning! 

 

As regards JV131, apologies if I've missed this somewhere along the way, and I hope you'll forgive me if I throw in a possible curved ball. I'd suggest that Eduard may have got the colour of the letters wrong, and that they could be yellow.

 

The upper photo on page 1 shows dark letters but also a matching dark narrow (yellow) outer ring on the roundel. The lower photo shows letters and roundel ring both light and matching.

 

I forget which way round it is, panchromatic film or orthochromatic film, but one type renders yellow as black and the other doesn't. I'd suggest that the two photos were taken with the different types of film.

 

Anyway, it was just a thought, and once again, apologies if you've already spotted and commented on that and I've missed it!

 

Cheers,

Mark

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46 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Oh wow Roger, they look lovely,  it must have been very satisfying unmasking these, they all look fantastic and the Mk1 with the red coming ring and stripes looks fantastic.  

I am sorry to see the Hairspray area on the Tarpon. I am sure you will be able to rescue this with your paint skills fella. 

Great work 

Chris

Thanks Chris - the hairspray did spoil the party a little but it's my own daft fault for going at it with a wet toothbrush. Still, on balance a good day!

24 minutes ago, 2996 Victor said:

Hi Roger,

 

Just caught up with this thread - not sure how I missed it until now! All three builds are looking great, and the finish on them is stunning! 

 

As regards JV131, apologies if I've missed this somewhere along the way, and I hope you'll forgive me if I throw in a possible curved ball. I'd suggest that Eduard may have got the colour of the letters wrong, and that they could be yellow.

 

The upper photo on page 1 shows dark letters but also a matching dark narrow (yellow) outer ring on the roundel. The lower photo shows letters and roundel ring both light and matching.

 

I forget which way round it is, panchromatic film or orthochromatic film, but one type renders yellow as black and the other doesn't. I'd suggest that the two photos were taken with the different types of film.

 

Anyway, it was just a thought, and once again, apologies if you've already spotted and commented on that and I've missed it!

 

Cheers,

Mark

Thanks for the kind words Mark! Interesting theory on the yellow - 'E' and 'L' would be simple enough to mask so it could be done! Appreciate the input,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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57 minutes ago, 2996 Victor said:

Hi Roger,

 

Just caught up with this thread - not sure how I missed it until now! All three builds are looking great, and the finish on them is stunning! 

 

As regards JV131, apologies if I've missed this somewhere along the way, and I hope you'll forgive me if I throw in a possible curved ball. I'd suggest that Eduard may have got the colour of the letters wrong, and that they could be yellow.

 

The upper photo on page 1 shows dark letters but also a matching dark narrow (yellow) outer ring on the roundel. The lower photo shows letters and roundel ring both light and matching.

 

I forget which way round it is, panchromatic film or orthochromatic film, but one type renders yellow as black and the other doesn't. I'd suggest that the two photos were taken with the different types of film.

 

Anyway, it was just a thought, and once again, apologies if you've already spotted and commented on that and I've missed it!

 

Cheers,

Mark

Mark, you're correct in that the 2 photo's have been taken with different film stock (or possibly with different filters or a combination of both) 

The first photo is Ortho and as you comment, there's very little difference in shade between the red, blue and yellow of the roundel, making it difficult to determine the colour of the code letters (and nose ring). Ortho film is sensitive to blue and red, and it's the red component of the yellow used in the markings that makes them dark.

The second photo is Pan, and the roundel red, blue and yellow show as different shades of grey. The codes in this photo are light, but if you look closely, they're lighter than the yellow, and I'd say in this photo the codes are actually white (as illustrated on the kit box lid)

The FAA tended to use yellow for second line unit codes, these photo's are of frontline operational aircraft of 800NAS on board HMS Emperor.

In the early months of 1944 HMS Emperor operated Hellcats of both 800NAS and 804NAS, photo's from the period show Hellcats with white codes and with red codes with a thin white outline - one theory is 800 had white codes, 804 had red. In June 44 804NAS was absorbed into 800NAS, and the red codes seem to predominate, possibly the white codes were overpainted to contrast with the invasion stripes applied at that time. Post removal of invasion stripes 800NAS appears to have returned to white codes.

There's several threads on here about Emperor's Hellcats, including this one

There's some links in the above thread to IWM photo's on Emperor where the darker code letters can be matched to the roundel red section rather than the yellow.

In conclusion, I think Eduard's code colour choices are correct.

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4 minutes ago, Dave Swindell said:

Mark, you're correct in that the 2 photo's have been taken with different film stock (or possibly with different filters or a combination of both) 

The first photo is Ortho and as you comment, there's very little difference in shade between the red, blue and yellow of the roundel, making it difficult to determine the colour of the code letters (and nose ring). Ortho film is sensitive to blue and red, and it's the red component of the yellow used in the markings that makes them dark.

The second photo is Pan, and the roundel red, blue and yellow show as different shades of grey. The codes in this photo are light, but if you look closely, they're lighter than the yellow, and I'd say in this photo the codes are actually white (as illustrated on the kit box lid)

The FAA tended to use yellow for second line unit codes, these photo's are of frontline operational aircraft of 800NAS on board HMS Emperor.

In the early months of 1944 HMS Emperor operated Hellcats of both 800NAS and 804NAS, photo's from the period show Hellcats with white codes and with red codes with a thin white outline - one theory is 800 had white codes, 804 had red. In June 44 804NAS was absorbed into 800NAS, and the red codes seem to predominate, possibly the white codes were overpainted to contrast with the invasion stripes applied at that time. Post removal of invasion stripes 800NAS appears to have returned to white codes.

There's several threads on here about Emperor's Hellcats, including this one

There's some links in the above thread to IWM photo's on Emperor where the darker code letters can be matched to the roundel red section rather than the yellow.

In conclusion, I think Eduard's code colour choices are correct.

Dave,

 

Thanks so much for that clarification - every day's a school day! Really appreciate the input,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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Hi Dave,

 

Many thanks for clarifying this - I wasn't aware of the yellow codes = second line units, though not sure how I missed that. Glad my memory hadn't failed completely wrt the types of film!

 

Interesting about 800 and 804NAS codes, the amalgamation of the two units, and the use of red codes over invasion stripes. Every day's a school day!

 

Cheers,

Mark

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2 minutes ago, 2996 Victor said:

Lol! My sentiments exactly! I will now get back under my rock..... :D

 

Cheers,

Mark

Mark,

 

Not at all - it's all part of the fun! Thanks for sparking the debate - we all learn from it,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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Just found this one Roger and WOW,...... you are doing an excellent job,...... you have the colours of the TSS down to a tee,..... hard to do,...... which paint have you gone with mate?

For  wear and tear,..... I often just do what was done to the real aeroplanes,.... and lightly sand the areas, to show the underlying Zinc Chromate etc showing through,..... and use a knife to chip away along panel lines...... start of subtle and then you can go further on some areas. A silver sharpie pen is good for showing bare metal chips/ scuff marks too.

 

Looking forward to seeing these come over the finish line,.... and then the Oxford,...... crack on!!

 

Cheers

           Tony 

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7 minutes ago, tonyot said:

Just found this one Roger and WOW,...... you are doing an excellent job,...... you have the colours of the TSS down to a tee,..... hard to do,...... which paint have you gone with mate?

For  wear and tear,..... I often just do what was done to the real aeroplanes,.... and lightly sand the areas, to show the underlying Zinc Chromate etc showing through,..... and use a knife to chip away along panel lines...... start of subtle and then you can go further on some areas. A silver sharpie pen is good for showing bare metal chips/ scuff marks too.

 

Looking forward to seeing these come over the finish line,.... and then the Oxford,...... crack on!!

 

Cheers

           Tony 

Thanks very much Tony! The Sky is AK Interactive, DSG is Vallejo and EDSG Mr Hobby - all aqueous acrylics. I've been gingerly having a go at sanding the MkII to bring out the ZCY layer, but have much to learn on the weathering front! Appreciate the feedback,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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Hi All,

 

Some progress today - on a school day too! I took a day off work as I was feeling under the weather, but no harm sitting in a warm room with the fire going, is there? 😉

 

First of all I carefully sanded back and oversprayed my over-zealous weathering on the Tarpon wing. This is how it looked afterwards:

 

20210503-111243.jpg

 

That's far closer to the effect I was after. I didn't have the testicular fortitude to completeley mess up replicate the same effect on the MkII, so onwards we went. After a few touchups and rectifications down went a gloss coat:

 

20210503-115456.jpg

 

And rapidly (after a spot of lunch) onto the decals. Here's the MkI:

 

20210503-125616.jpg

 

Aaand the MkII

 

 

20210503-134747.jpg

 

And finally a shot of all three. The Xtradecal set for the Tarpon were superb, although the Eduard sets were also very good. 

 

20210503-141448.jpg

 

I'm going to let that all settle down for a while prior to another gloss coat. I'll then break out the Flory wash for a marathon session next time!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Roger

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2 minutes ago, dnl42 said:

That's a tremendous amount of work--and the results are grand!:clap2:

 

 

 

Why thank you sir!

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Roger,

 

You might be interested in this..

 

William Morley Carverwell Foster.  RNVR

Born: 10/1925 Dawlish Devon

Rank: Sub LT

Died: 21/09/2014 Wadebridge, Cornwall.

Other Information:  4 Confirmed Aerial Victories 1 shared destroyed

 

NAS 1844 HMS Indomitable Operation Meridian

04.01.45. Ki43 ‘Oscar’ Shared Destroyed.  Grumman Hellcat II (Unknown)

 

NAS 1844 HMS Indomitable Operation Iceberg

12.04.45. 0635 Ki64 ‘Tony’ Destroyed, Ki43 ‘Oscar’ Destroyed.  Grumman Hellcat II JX814/W132

16.04.45 C6N ‘Myrt’ Destroyed.  Grumman Hellcat II (Unknown)

21.04.45 C6N ‘Myrt’ Destroyed.  Grumman Hellcat II (Unknown)

 

I have this same aircraft (one of four Hellcats) to build for my collection.  

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1 minute ago, Grey Beema said:

Roger,

 

You might be interested in this..

 

William Morley Carverwell Foster.  RNVR

Born: 10/1925 Dawlish Devon

Rank: Sub LT

Died: 21/09/2014 Wadebridge, Cornwall.

Other Information:  4 Confirmed Aerial Victories 1 shared destroyed

 

NAS 1844 HMS Indomitable Operation Meridian

04.01.45. Ki43 ‘Oscar’ Shared Destroyed.  Grumman Hellcat II (Unknown)

 

NAS 1844 HMS Indomitable Operation Iceberg

12.04.45. 0635 Ki64 ‘Tony’ Destroyed, Ki43 ‘Oscar’ Destroyed.  Grumman Hellcat II JX814/W132

16.04.45 C6N ‘Myrt’ Destroyed.  Grumman Hellcat II (Unknown)

21.04.45 C6N ‘Myrt’ Destroyed.  Grumman Hellcat II (Unknown)

 

I have this same aircraft (one of four Hellcats) to build for my collection.  

Thanks for that GB. 19 years old - they sure started them young! I look forward to seeing your rendition of JX814 take shape,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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Roger they look absolutely fantastic,  the area od wear on the Tarpon looks much better now, great work and wow to see them decalled too is wonderful.   Great work fella, jope you feel better soon, these three must be a tonic !!!

 

Chris

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2 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Roger they look absolutely fantastic,  the area od wear on the Tarpon looks much better now, great work and wow to see them decalled too is wonderful.   Great work fella, jope you feel better soon, these three must be a tonic !!!

 

Chris

Thanks Chris - I'm happy to have pulled the Tarpon back from the brink! Looking forward to the finish line now - as ever appreciate your support,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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