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Grumman Hellcat - 1/48 Eduard


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Now that I've got a few weeks off work I'm going to build this little beauty. Hopefully over the Christmas holiday: :santa:

1/48 Eduard Grumman Hellcat F6F-5

Montex Paint Mask

Ultracast Prop & Spinner

Ultracast Seats

Quickboost Guns

Quickboost Exhausts

Quickboost engine

Aires Gear bays

Ultracast Wheels

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Hellcat_01 by Jazzy Jase, on Flickr

Edited by Jazzy Jase
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Jazzy- a quick tip for the cowling assembly from hell. Believe me, this is the way to do it. Any other way will involve teeth gnashing, a cock up, and lots of filling with resultant loss of detail- and it still won't be close!

Firstly, get the two main "side panels, and very very carefully, glue them together on the top edge ONLY.

Once set up and thoroughly dry, you can (using firm but controlled finger pressure) slowly alter the curvature of the two panels to exactly fit the forward cowling, if you do this correctly, and glue at the top third, middle third, you will have side panels that line up with the cowling, but have a 1mm or so gap at the bottom edge- nice one Eduard- NOT :fight:

So now, you can carefully pinch the REAR corners of the "side panels," and glue, carefully holding till set. Now you can fill the resultant narrow triangular gap on the lower surface of the cowling with plstic card/whatever, and you now have a cowling that has side panels that fit the forward cowling withouth swearing, fillingand sanding, and also fit the forward fuselage perfectly..

HTH

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'll be watching this very carefully because the Eduard F6F-3 is my next build (I prefer the earlier ones). Also have some extra details on order like wheel wells etc. Should be here next week, I hope.

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You may be watching for some time... I only managed to paint the engine over the whole Christmas holiday. :(

Nice kit. I built the same as my second after a 10 year lay off and enjoyed it as my introduction to Eduard kits. Was my first at the time, but nearly finished No 3 now:

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Have to say - I don't recall having any isses with the cowling at all - certainly not to the degree commented by others!

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  • 2 weeks later...

C6MSD, your Hellcat looks great. Thanks for sharing.

Sloooooow progress on mine. I've finished the engine. Cockpit is the next job.

The Aires engine is very nice. First I added pushrods made from styrene rod.

Then painted it all black, with Alclad aluminium on top. The front part was sprayed Tamiya XF19 and the black parts brush painted with Citadel Chaos black.

Dry brushing and a wash of Mig washes gave it a weathered look.

Finally I did the wiring. I didn't like the PE wiring provided in the kit so made my own. First I drilled holes into each cylinder, then I this I used 36 lengths of 0.2mm lead wire. Looking at photo's I've seen this wiring in a few different colours. I decided to leave mine unpainted, but having seen the finished engine I'm wishing I'd painted it copper to add some colour to the engine.

Having re-checked my references I think I can probably add in a few extra wires around the front of the engine, which I will do.

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Hellcat_03 by Jazzy Jase, on Flickr

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Hellcat_09 by Jazzy Jase, on Flickr

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Hellcat_08 by Jazzy Jase, on Flickr

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Hellcat_10 by Jazzy Jase, on Flickr

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Cockpit done.

Painted Gunze interior green. Shaded with highly diluted Tamiya XF1 black and highlighted by hand with various greys and greens from Vallejo. The seatbelts were also painted with Vallejo paints and given some life with Abteilung oil paint.

Silver buckles and chipping done with Citadel metallics.

I used a couple of MIG filters to blend it together and some MIG dust pigments in the foot well.

I don't like Eduard pre-painted photoetch. The interior green is not a good match for the paint I was using so I taped over all the black and red parts and sprayed the green the same colour as the rest of the cockpit.

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Hellcat_11 by Jazzy Jase, on Flickr

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Hellcat_16 by Jazzy Jase, on Flickr

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Hellcat_13 by Jazzy Jase, on Flickr

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