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Eduard 1/48 Hellcat F6F-3, USS Princeton *FINISHED!!*


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Nice work!

 

Obviously I'm very biased but I do think you're on safe ground with the greyer, less saturated colours. The brilliant, bright colours are something that seems to have been introduced by vintage aircraft owners who historically cared little for authenticity. That culture is changing rapidly as owners this century are increasingly getting heavily into portraying their aircraft back exactly as they were in wartime. In otherwords, colour is one of the many things which nobody used to care about but now do.

 

Original wartime images are not these parti-coloured appearances seen on the airshow circuits through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

 

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As an interesting side note, the SBDs at the bottom clearly show satin-finish wings juxtaposed against flat matt fuselages, proving that some aircraft at least were painted to specification with ANA606 Semi-Gloss Sea Blue on the wings and ANA607 Non-Specular Sea Blue on the fuselage. Furthermore, the SB2C above shows not only this same feature but also the clearly distinguishable leading edges of the wings painted with Non-Specular again, as instructed. Most Hellcats seem to lack the leading edge feature at least.

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Decalling in progress. The big stars are taking a while to settle down, but I'm sure with repeated setting solution they'll get there OK eventually.

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I agonised for ages about how best to mask up the cowling to spray the red for the intake. In the end I've just brush painted it, which I think will be fine. Still needs a bit of touching up at the corners and edges. I've used Humbrol 153 Insignia Red which is not a bad match for the red of the decals. I hate doing the stencil decals so am doing those in short bursts!

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28 minutes ago, shortCummins said:

the sharks mouth looks very good

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

Thanks, John. The decals are very nice, but have taken several applications of setting solution to get them to conform to the compound curves at the front of the cowling. I still have to mask up and paint the white vanes within the red intake.

 

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Decalling done, and the big stars'n'bars squished  down as well as they're going to be. They had some stubborn bubbles but I have pretty much solved that by repeated use of setting solution (Daco Strong), pricking the worst ones then pressing with a cotton bud - always a bit scary as there's a risk of damaging the decal, but I think I've got away with it!

I've now attached the engine and cowling, and suddenly it's really looking like a Hellcat.

Still quite a way to go as I haven't started on the weathering yet. I'm slightly dubious as to whether I'll finish in time, given other commitments between now and the end date, but I'll give it a good shot.

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Thanks for the encouragement!

I've now started the 'dirtying up' process. Panel line wash with a mix of black and raw umber oil paints, thinned with turpentine. I've run it into the panel lines, allowed it to dry slightly, then wiped away the excess with a cotton bud very slightly moistened with turps, and a dexterously-applied (!) finger, to try and create a slightly grubby, streaked look with streaking in the direction of the airflow, as well as highlighting (or is it lowlighting?) the surface detail.

The effect is much more obvious on the underside, but I think that's as it should be.

I'll let it dry and give it a coat of acrylic floor shine, then I'm going to try out the 'dot filter' technique to try and create a bit of tonal variation.

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I've read about the 'dot filter' technique, where you apply random tiny dots of variously-coloured oil paints over the model's surface, and brush them out with a flat brush moistened with solvent, to give lightly streaked tonal variation. I thought this Hellcat would be a good chance to try out some new weathering methods, so - here we go. I got some cheap oil paints from The Works, and starting on the underside, started dotting.

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It became apparent very quickly once I started streaking (with the brush, that is) that less is very definitely more with this method. As soon as you mix more and three or four colours, you just get brown, and if there are too many dots, you get a horrible streaky brown mess:

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The good thing about oil paints is that they have a long working time, so you can keep moistening the brush with thinner (I used turpentine) and gradually remove paint until you get the effect you want. This is almost there:

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And as you get close to the end point, you can leave the brush dryer and the streaks will blend into each other a bit more. On the upper surfaces I used fewer dots, and fewer colours - yellow, green white and light blue; this was much easier to work with:

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Overall, I think it looks OK, certainly not bad for a first attempt:

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I'll leave this to dry for a couple of days. Next I'm going to try salt weathering as a further effect layer - I've tried this out on an old spare model, but this will be the first time using it for real.

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2 hours ago, djktrumpet said:

I'm now thinking this is looking a bit too grubby on the undersurfaces now. i might try and clean it up a bit!

my opinion, for what its worth, is that you've got the grubbiness about right. How clean would/could they be kept on an aircraft carrier? especially on active duty!

 

I'm a fan of dot-filtering, you get some interesting subtile effects with it.

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

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Just a very quick update - I've applied the first round of salt weathering, using a very dilute white enamel sprayed over the salt.

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It's not quite the effect I was looking for - it's come out a bit spotty, which I think is due to me not getting the model's surface wet enough before sprinkling the salt. This means that the salt grains stick to the surface, but are remaining proud with a very small attachment point, and so allowing the paint to collect under the edges of the grains. I think with a wetter surface more of the grain will dissolve, giving a softer, less localised masking effect. I'll live with this though - I quite like the subtle fading that the dilute white spray creates, and the blotchiness, although not quite what I wanted, does still give it a worn look. It's all a learning process!

I'm going to do a second application with a dilute black spray, and will try with a wetter salt application.

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As usual, the last few stages take a disproportionate amount of time. I've done the second salt weathering pass with dilute black, which I think has worked nicely - I'll be trying that method again. Matt coat with Galeria acrylic matt varnish, then sticking on the last few bits and bobs - gear doors, pitot tube, aerial masts, and those fiddly nav lights. Exhaust plumes were airbrushed with black and a bit of dark brown. I've rigged it with invisible mending thread, with white glue blobs (painted black!) for the insulators, and finally just done a bit with pastels to give a bit of gradation on the exhaust stains, and to create some cordite stains around the guns.

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Overall I'm pretty happy with this. I've tried some new methods and, as usual, learned a lot from the build. This Eduard kit has been a joy to build, and it's really been one of my most enjoyable modelling experiences. I've also derived a huge amount of inspiration from the other builds in this GB - thanks to everyone, and of course to Britmodeller for hosting it and Col for excellent moderation!.

 

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  • djktrumpet changed the title to Eduard 1/48 Hellcat F6F-3, USS Princeton *FINISHED!!*

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