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


Joel_W

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Welcome aboard Joel. Engine looks great, I'm pretty sure I couldn't do that. Look forward to following your build, the wildcat is a great subject and such an iconic WW2 fighter - I'm sure you'll do it justice.

 

Cheers

Jim

 

Jim,

 Thanks so much for the welcome. It's been overwhelming to be honest about it. Everyone has gone out of there way to make me feel comfortable here, and all of you have certainly succeeded. Peter was just so right about LSP.

 

I'm sure you could have done equally or better with the Wasp. As you can tell from my Avatar, I'm a Grumman's fan. Pete and I grew up about 20 min by bike from Grumman's main gate, and 45 min by bike from the front of Republic, which is my other favorite aircraft company. I'm planning a lot of builds of their aircraft which is something that sadly I never did as a 1/48 scaler.

 

Joel  

Edited by Joel_W
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That's a great looking engine Joel. Like usual Trumpeter, they're so close to being great but find little ways to screw it up. You did a marvelous job fixing their errors.

 

Falcon20,

 Thank you sir for those most gracious comments. I've got as many Trumpy kits as I  bought Tamiya kits when I made the change. 3 kits each, plus 1 ZM kit. that should be a good start for my stash. From here on it's build one, buy one unless I just gotta have it, or a special edition hits the market, and that is more of a usual happening then I care to admit. But with full retirement less then a year away, I'll have to curb my addiction some what.

Joel

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Great start Joel and welcome to the best modelling forum on the planet :post1:

 

Regards. Andy

 

Andy,

  That's exactly what my brother Peter has been telling me over the last few years. finally made the move and I'm thrilled to be here with you guys. Just hope that my work is up to an acceptable level.

 

Joel

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Oh, your already at an "acceptable" level, believe me. Better than me.....Harv :popcorn:

 

Harv,

  Thanks for the vote of confidence. Hoping that the F4F-3 exceeds the level of my previous builds. My goal is always to do better then I did before.

 

Joel

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 Going as far with the engine detailing as I can for now, the next step was to get the firewall bulkhead fitted so that there isn't the huge gaps that dry fitting showed.  Once I got the firewall to fit correctly without having to apply any force, I glued it into one wheel well.  I took a good look at the wheel well from the outside looking in for the 1st time. What I saw was a completely wrong profile and a huge lip that just isn't there in real life.

 

SzJENe.jpg

 

   The lip that blocks part of the well that the wheel seats into once retracted. if this was correct, then there was no need for a wheel well to exist. This is what it looks like in real life.

 

xixzau.jpg

 

   Depending on the angle of view the well looks circular, but it's in reality it's more of a uneven oval. 

 

Os3jr4.jpg

 

   Trumpeter indeed molded them as perfect circles

 

M8XYkU.jpg

 

   As an interesting side note that I found, Tamiya on their 1/48 scale F4F-4 originally went with the circle shape, then re-did the fuselage shape and changed the wells to the oval shape.

 

QRuwQC.jpg

 

   I started out dry fitting the firewall, then marked what plastic needed to be removed. In order to keep the correct orientation for the retraced wheel, I had to move the existing wheel rewards and downwards. In this picture you can see the original wheel well on the right, and the roughed out well on the left.

 

XzXu57.jpg

 

   Here's a close up of the rough well at this point. the other well is also done to this point.

 

RR2zFK.jpg

 

   I still have more putty work and blending to do, but it's a more then decent start.

 

Joel

Edited by Joel_W
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I see them all. Such good work on the wells. Would the F4F4 be the same?....Harv

 

Harv,

   yes, the F4F-4 has the same wheel well configuration as the late -3s did.  I can't tell you how much time I spent researching this, and driving myself crazy. What I can tell you is that the finished wells with a tire stuck in them looks correct. At least to these old eyes they do.

 

 There is a lot more work that was done to both wells that you'll see in a few further updates. One thing you'll notice is that I'm not the neatest of workers till I get to the end of the a improvement, correction, or modification.

 

Joel

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Guest Peterpools

JA

Since you rebooted, I can see the photos just fine.

Nice work on the wheel wells as it's a huge issue to sure

Bro

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All good stuff Joel. I have the F4F4 in the stash and any info is appreciated.......Harv :popcorn:

 

Harv,

  I opted for the -3 because it had the retooled fuselage. The -4 was the 1st run, and it has some shape issues. Still, I've seen plenty of -4s and they look fine to me. It's the overall finish that really counts in my book.

Joel

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