Search the Community

So thanks to Tolga and William first of all for piquing my interest in Hellcats after my wife stumbled on one at a a local market, where you can normally buy food, clothes, and whatnot, except model kits. Well, this seller was an exception apparently and for a very modest price (my wife is a great negotiator!) she took it home. Although the kit is a limited edition with 3 Minsi's, it's the same plastic that's probably older than I am. I was intrigued about kitbashing it with a Trumpeter Garfield Hellcat, and so happend to stumble on one at a second hand site here. edit: Williams excellent build is here: And for future reference, as at this moment it's on the same page, but it may not always remain so, here's Tolga's: If there's any other cool Hellcat related thread here, I can always add them of course. So, with a gazillion half-baked projects on the shelf, here I am starting another that will probably end up being half baked as well after I get the main kitbash done, but we'll see about that later. If it helps a bit for other to try it as well... why not? So with both Hellcatkits (speak that aloud a few times!) in hand, i removed the Hasegawa fuselage & Trumpeter lower/upper wing parts from their sprues and started thinking about the easiest way. The Trumpeter kit has wings that mate to the fuselage directly, following it's (bloated) shape, while the Hasegawa as moulded fillets to which the upper wings are glued. The bloated Trumpeter is actually about the size of the fillets wider, so I figured why not cut the Trumpeter upper wing parts straight & be done with it? That seemed, at first, like a workable idea; taped the shape up & if I were to cut along the tape it might work, as evidenced by sliding the part underneath the fillet. Of course things are never that easy, and I was glad (or not!) I tried to fit the lower part as well, before hacking up parts. Remember measure twice, cut once? I discovered 2 insteresting things: the Trumpeter lower wing part, despite the bloated fuselage, is an almost dead-on fit both in curves & length. However, somewhat to my dismay, the at the rear, the Trumpeter wing sits much lower than on the Hasegawa as seen here: Figured there were roughly 2 options (actually 3, leave both models alone & abandon the attempt...) : 1. cut the Hasegawa fillets off (as Willam did on his build as far as I could see), and build up the gap with Evergreen, adapt the upper wing to the Hasegawa fuselage 2. cut the lower wing about 75% off the Trumpeter part, and bend upward to match the Hasegawa fillet. i'm not sure which kit is correct, but looking at the curves & bends of option 2 I went with 1. Of course there'll be someone pointing out the wing will sit too low now... but when I started it my mindset was to make the best of 2 not-so-great kits and live with some shortcuts or inaccuracies. There, I said it So, option 1 it was; I used a Tamiya scriber to carefully get rid of the fillets, some cutting and sawing, until they were off: and, the moment of truth.... as expected, gaps, but I think I these can be closed with Evergreen, and as the Hellcat fuselage had some sort of ridge/fillet where the wings sits, I that may help too. This also needs some adressing with Evergreen: Of course I don't have the required thicknesses of Evergreen, so I'll need a visit to the local shop first before I can attempt to close those gaps up. I've got some other models in the works too, so I might even pause this one until one of those is finished before picking it up again, but hopefully it might help others out with some practical tips & guides. If anyone has some additional tips or info it's welcome as well, after all, I'm just meddling along Another hurdle is that the Trumpeter decals are very inaccurate, but my Hasegawa box has The Minsi, Minsi II and III -historically very significant aircraft, but with wings folded I want something with more markings on the wings, nose and tail -on the Hellcat the fuselage is pretty much invisible. (hence the ? in the title, not sure if I'll do an F6F-3 or F6F-5 yet).

First one in 2018. Trumpeters F6F is like a Garfield - too many lasagnas caused thickness . To hide it i opened canopy. I used: - Montex masks for stars - Eduard Interior - Techmod decals for cat mouth - added cables and other small things. My machine: