Eduard F4F-3 Wildcat Gun Bay & Undercarriage Bay Sets (648793 & 648795) 1:48

[Mike]

F4F-3 Wildcat Gun Bay & Undercarriage Bay Sets (648793 & 648795)

1:48 Eduard Brassin

 

 

We’ve reviewed the super new tool F4F-3 Wildcat from Eduard recently, and I’ve even built one, so can testify to its excellence as a model kit.  Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the aftermarket waters (eh?) along come another pair of 3D printed resin sets that will blow your socks off…again.  As good as the base kit is, you can always increase the level of detail over and above what’s achievable using injection moulded styrene, and these sets prove that without question.  As is now usual with Eduard's larger resin sets, they arrive in a deep Brassin cardboard box, with the resin parts safely cocooned in bags, sometimes layers of foam, and with the instructions folded around acting as padding.  The parts are printed resin rather than the usual poured cast resin, so are attached to their print-bases via thin tendril-like fingers that are easy to cut off and sand the little pip-like marks away, leaving them ready for action.

 

 

F4F-3 Gun Bays (648793)

There are two bags of 3D printed resin parts and one containing a fret of Photo-Etch (PE) brass, and you’ll need to do a little simple surgery to the wing parts of your kit, excising the bay cover panels, plus the shell-ejection chutes from the lower wings before you start.  Each bay is built in mirror image, starting with the main body of the bay, which has two small PE parts fitted into in the rear wall.  The two resin guns are inserted barrel first through the holes in the front of the bay, gluing the breeches to the bay floor via slots and tabs.  The ammo boxes are then laid over the tops of their location, followed by the curved feeder chutes, and finally adding the lip around the bay using the PE framing part.  The bay can then be inserted between the wing halves and everything glued in place, later adding the two wafer-thin bay covers per wing, which have extra detail on their inner surfaces, which will be visible once they are installed.

 

 

 

 

F4F-3 Gear Bay (648795)

This set has three bags of highly detailed 3D printed resin parts, and you’ll need to source some wires of various fine diameters to complete the task fully.  Work starts with the tapering engine mount frames, which receives the circular ancillary equipment cluster that is the rear of the engine itself.  To this are added a pair of filter boxes with intake trunking that wrap around the underside of the mount, or for the earlier -3A sub-variant, a smaller box is slung under the frame instead.  The large tapering tank that sits between the top two struts is next to be fitted, and the improvement in detail here is excellent.  Some 0.7mm and 0.35mm wire will be required to simulate the hoses linking the tank to the engine, with several scrap diagrams showing the shape and length of the wires, aided by them being marked out in different colours on the diagrams for your ease.

 

 

The original kit firewall with integrated spars is replaced by a new super-detailed part, which has the gear bay actuation chains on their sprockets glued on pins, further improving the detail.  The divide that separates the two sides of the bay is also replaced by a more detailed part, then the engine bearer assembly is brought together with the bulkhead, illustrated clearly by more scrap diagrams.  Then there are yet more hoses to install, 0.35mm and 0.5mm in diameter with eight in total that take up a whole page in the instructions.  The bay assembly is then completed by adding the gear legs, using the kit parts or the bronze aftermarket set 648779 if you feel the urge.  The last step shows the completed gear bay being trapped between the two fuselage halves, but of course you’ll also need to put the cockpit in there, so it’s a little simplified to suit the theme of the instructions.

 

 

 

Conclusion

Both sets are at the top of aftermarket detail standards at time of writing, and for anyone wanting to portray a Wildcat in the process of re-arming, the gun bay set is a shoe-in.  The gear bay set really increases the detail in that department too, much of which is visible through the sideways facing openings where the retracted wheels sit.  Both sets have concise instructions with Gunze paint codes called out through every step, and include lengths and diameters of all the extra wires used to complete the detailing.

 

Very highly recommended.

 

Review sample courtesy of