1/32 Trumpeter F4F-3 Wildcat: 3/21/2017 Final Update

[Joel_W]

Wow, I missed this too,  I like it!

 

Ron,

  Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my build. I'm so glad that your appreciate my efforts to date.

Joel

[Iain]

Looking great!

 

Iain

[Joel_W]

Nice work, I too am not impressed with the heavily done checkerboard effect that one sees on a lot of models I prefer a more subtle approach, though I am not a great one for any type of weathering as I am pretty useless at it !

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

Dennis,

    thanks so much for stopping by and having a lot. It means a great deal to me.

 

   I tried the pre-shading checkerboard effect, and like you, never really cared for it as every panel just doesn't show in real life do to the light reflection angles. The over all effect of every boxed in panel having a darker parameter and a faded middle just isn't realistic either. Upper surfaces fade in much large areas, and across panel lines as well. I've found that the black basing and white basing techniques make that much more doable and controllable with a lot less effort.  And the bottom of aircraft generally get discolored from dirt, grime, grease, oil, earth, and anything kicked up by the tires or hurled backwards by the props. The exact opposite of the top side.

 

Joel

[Joel_W]

Looking great!

 

Iain

 

Ian,

  Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my progress to date.

 

   As I said, it means quite a lot to me to have so many LSP members looking at my work to date. Any and all comments are more then welcome, as improving from build to build is my goal. Believe me Pete doesn't pull any punches when I screw up or take a short cut. Then again, same goes for me on his builds.

 

Joel

[tomv87]

I love where this is going! Excellent work so far sir.

[Joel_W]

Tom,

  Thanks so much for stopping by and liking what you saw. Hope that the rest of the build will also rich your expectations.

Joel

[Brandon Wood]

Joel,

Good work on the -3, it's not a shake and bake kit but worth the effort, especially since it's the only 1/32 -3 in town. If you are building a VMF-211 bird, they may not have weathered much, a little but nothing like Corsairs you often see. They were painted on the way to Wake aboard Enterprise and were out of action less than a month later. It was a primitive environment but a bit different than the South Pacific. As for bomb racks, if you locate some, they would be correct for -211 birds and they even carried bombs on a few sorties against the first Japanese attempt to take the island.

 

Looking forward to the next installment

 

BW

[Joel_W]

Joel,

Good work on the -3, it's not a shake and bake kit but worth the effort, especially since it's the only 1/32 -3 in town. If you are building a VMF-211 bird, they may not have weathered much, a little but nothing like Corsairs you often see. They were painted on the way to Wake aboard Enterprise and were out of action less than a month later. It was a primitive environment but a bit different than the South Pacific. As for bomb racks, if you locate some, they would be correct for -211 birds and they even carried bombs on a few sorties against the first Japanese attempt to take the island.

 

Looking forward to the next installment

 

BW

 

Brandon,

    Thanks for the info. And yes the aircraft were indeed repainted on the USS Enterprise during the 6 day trip. The reason that all the aircraft had that Medium Sea Gray soft edge gray around the front of the cowl was because they didn't have the time to remove all the props, so they covered them with tarps and tied them down over the lip of the cowl.

 

   I'm not planning on much more weathering other then the regular operational dirt, dust, and grime. The few pictures I do have of the aircraft on Wake prior to the attack does show some of the upper uneven fading of the Blue Gray upper color, which could very well be more of an uneven and rushed paint job then actual fading do to the sun and elements.

 

   At this point adding bomb racks would be a no go as decaling has just been completed.

 

Joel 

[bdthoresen]

Joel-

Loving the paintwork so far- I particularly like the scheme you have chosen for the Wake Island birds........Looking forward to what else is coming....

THOR   

[Joel_W]

Joel-

 

Loving the paintwork so far- I particularly like the scheme you have chosen for the Wake Island birds........Looking forward to what else is coming....

 

THOR   

 

THOR,

   Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my 1st LSP build.   Being a Grumman fan since the 60's, the Wildcat has always been my favorite over the Hellcat. I have no idea why, just the way it is.  I usually like to model early USN aircraft as they appeared at Midway, but as I was looking for AM decals, I came across the Yellow-Wing Wake Island sheet, and that "Bell" just went off in my head.

 

  I'm hoping to get the next update up later today.

 

Joel

[Joel_W]

 Finally finished the decaling, & weathering of the top side. I started the bottom weathering but I'm still not all that happy with it as I think I went to far with the grime and oil look.

 

   I sealed the paint with my go to clear Gloss; Testors Glosscoat thinned 1:1 with Tamiya Yellow Cap Lacquer Thinner. The decals are from Yellow-Wings sheet #32-028, 1941 USMC VMF-211 F4F-3 "Wake Island Wildcats", printed by Microscale.

 

 

   for the last  few years or so I've adopted Paul Budzik's decaling method, as it yeilded excellent results with both kit and AM decals, but all were in 1/48 scale. Paul's method is a warm water bath, a base coat to slide the decals into of Micro Set, then Micro set on top, Micro Sol,  followed by Solvaset.

 

   Unlike every F4F-3 picture I've seen, there is a National insignia on the tops and bottom of both wings, the VMF-211 Wildcats had just a single National Insignia on the top left and one on the lower right.  I choose aircraft VMF-211 as my subject  simply because it's the main subject in the now imfamous captured Japanese photograph.

 

 

    As I said I glossed, then when dry I polished with a #12,000 Micro Mesh pad till the surfaces was smooth.

 

 

     I started out with the National insignias on top and bottom of the wings. The top decal went on and slowly settled into the nooks and crannies, but the lower decal didn't. After a few applications of Solvaset it begrudingly settled in, but not without a few wrinkles that I just couldn't remove. Needless to say I wasn't a happy camper. 

 

     There aren't many markings to apply on each side, so the process went fairly quickly. Unfortunately, the decals just didn't want to lay down to any compound curves without several applications of Solvaset, and then there were still issues. I've never run into these problems before, but then I haven't used Microscale decals since the 1970's either. I'm also not use to needing to cut out every letter and number, rather then just in the case of the 211-F-11, where I cut it into three sections. While for the most part they laid down just fine, there were a few silvering issues by a few numbers that I didn't see until I applied the Dullcoat.

 

     After the decals had dried, I sealed them in a few coats of Glosscoat again, and all looked ok.  I don't have any pictures of this step as I thought I took the pictures, but I must have had another "SENIOR MOMENT", and didn't take any. Getting old truly sucks.

 

    After the Glosscoat had dried for a few days, I applied a panel line wash using Acrylic Dark Gray Detailer, then a filter on the top and sides of a mixture of Tamkiya XF-57 Buff 2 parts, XF-19 Midium Blue 2 Parts, & XF-2 Flat White 1 part, then thinned out with Tamiya Yellow Cap 2 parts paint mixture 8 parts thinner.

 

    The bottom recieved a Flory Dark Gray Sludge wash to both highlight the recessed panel lines, and create the effect of grime, oil, and dirt. When dry I sealed the entire model with Testors Dullcoat.  Looking at the bottom I think I've gone a bit to far, so I'm going to apply a highly diluted whitish filter to ligten it up some, then another coat of Dullcoat.

 

 

 

 

 

Joel

Edited March 4, 2017 by Joel_W

[LSP_Kevin]

Looks great, Joel! The decals really bring it to life.

 

Kev

[Guest Peterpools]

JA

Super work on the weathering and decals - zero flash on my end and they all blend just fine,

Keep 'em coming

Bro

[Joel_W]

Looks great, Joel! The decals really bring it to life.

 

Kev

 

Kev,

  Thanks for those much encouraging words. Like I said, I need to really up my game with respect to 1/32 decal preparation compared to what I've been so use to in 1/48 scale.

 

Joel

[Joel_W]

JA

Super work on the weathering and decals - zero flash on my end and they all blend just fine,

Keep 'em coming

Bro

 

Bro,

  Thanks so much for taking a break from the Owl to checkout the -3. 99% of the topside decals are fine. But there is some silvering that I toned down with the filter from what I can see. The issue is that I had a hard time getting all the decals to lay down perfectly over the those compound curves. Will be using your system of painstakingly cutting out out each individual decal where ever possible.

 

Joel