CraigH Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 New Year, new model. The beloved bought me the Airfix 1:24 Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat for Christmas and I started it on Boxing Day. Engine just completed and I've saved all the photos up so here they are all in one build post. The P&W 2800 double wasp 10W is a little model all in itself and I think I spent more time researching this than most other models in their entirety. So to business. I'm sure most know that the crankcase of the engine is far to large in diameter to allow the various push rod rings and cylinder blocks to pass over it so lots of flexi file work needed as almost 1mm needs to come off across the diameter. I baulked at paying £9 for a resin one cast from a reduced master, after all this is what modelling's all about. While Airfix seem to have reduced the ejector pin marks, they've made up for it in seam lines so quite a bit of scraping and sanding needed. Once that's done, the cylinders need painting. The bottom halves I did in steel and the top halves in aluminium. I've used Vallejo Metal Colors as I think they're excellent. Quick drying, no mess and no smell and lovely coverage. The push rods were painted gloss black with aluminium ends. The crankcase colour was a first attempt at a mix but it had far too much blue in it. I read it should be Grumman grey but since the engine is made by Pratt & Whitney, not Grumman, I couldn't see that being the case and went for the engine grey specified. I finally settled on a mix of 4:3:1 of Mr Color Aqueous RLM 75 Dark Grey: Tamiya Flat White: Tamiya Blue. It seemed to be not too far away from some of the reference material. You can also see on this photo that I've removed the basic plastic links provided on the parts and replaced them, as they were originally, with rubber hose. The jubilee clips are thin strips of tinfoil. The oil flange is flat black suitably chipped and oil stained. Once everything fits onto the crankcase properly, it's time for the ignition wiring. I used 0.6mm braided cord from Hiroboy along with 1:24 sparkplugs in metal. I was a bit mean to spend a small fortune on scale nuts for the ends of the sparkplugs so I used 1mm evergreen hexagonal rod, drilled and painted silver then sliced into thin slivers and slipped over the end of the sparkplug before the ignition wire was attached. The intake pipes are gunmetal then brushed with copper and duraluminium till I was happy with the effect. The exhaust pipes go on very easily as long as you mark them up when they come off the sprues, otherwise it's a happy half hour mixing and matching. (me? never ) Paintwise, I followed a plan of painting them Tamiya red/brown then airbrushing with a very dilute solution of black/red brown as well as metallics and a light grey around the pipe ends. The heavy wear and chipping on the supercharger intakes is seen on many reference photos and was achieved by spraying first with a coat of duraluminium followed by chipping solution then a top coat of zinc chromate green. It's then a simple task to remove the green layer to the desired effect. Oil effects (which don't show too well on the photos) are sprayed on as a mix of black/redbrown mixed with Alclad Aqua Gloss varnish and diluted with IPA. The oil tank cap is yellow and my eyes were given a great workout by deciding to put the "US 19 Gal" writing on there in individual wet decals Some pics of the engine ready to mount are below, I'll be needing to add a fair bit of non supplied pipework when the time comes but next it's onward and upward to the cockpit. Thanks for looking. scvrobeson, rafju, chukw and 32 others 35 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin_2019 Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Amazing! CraigH 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stambaugh Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 18 minutes ago, Martin_2019 said: Amazing! Inspiring! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stambaugh Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Inspiring! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigH Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 18 minutes ago, John Stambaugh said: Inspiring! Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrish Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Always a joy to see one of these being built! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncarina Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Very impressive start! Cheers, Tom CraigH 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockie Yarwood Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Looking good, Craig! CraigH 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigH Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 41 minutes ago, chrish said: Always a joy to see one of these being built! I'm enjoying it immensely. Hope I can do the rest of it justice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMK Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Sweet mother of...wow! Amazing work! CraigH 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Fantastic start on the engine! The jump from 1/32 to 1/24 really enables some amazing opportunities for detailing! CraigH 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monthebiff Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Very nice indeed, I keep on thinking about buying one of these along with a car door typhoon! Regards. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigH Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 13 minutes ago, monthebiff said: Very nice indeed, I keep on thinking about buying one of these along with a car door typhoon! Regards. Andy It's a nice build and beautifully detailed, worth a look Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landrotten Highlander Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 2 hours ago, GMK said: Sweet mother of...wow! Amazing work! One can use stronger phrases than that... Try again... GMK 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easixpedro Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 Wow. That’s brilliant. I’m hoping you’re leaving the panels off?! Otherwise none of it will be visible. I closed all mine up and went completely OOB—it’s an awesome kit! -Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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