Trumpy ASW Wildcat - almost done

[LSP_Kevin]

11 minutes ago, Fanes said:

I'd appreciate that, Kevin!

 

Joachim

 

And done!

 

Kev

[Oldbaldguy]

And while we wait for a new canopy and that wonderful ASW paint scheme, I wonder if I might purloin your thread just a bit to ask if anyone else noted the two L-birds circling the boat in the first posted photo?  Looks to me like they were thinking about coming aboard.  They could do it easily enough, but still….

[Fanes]

17 hours ago, Oldbaldguy said:

And while we wait for a new canopy and that wonderful ASW paint scheme, I wonder if I might purloin your thread just a bit to ask if anyone else noted the two L-birds circling the boat in the first posted photo?  Looks to me like they were thinking about coming aboard.  They could do it easily enough, but still….

Don't make me go back to my initial plan and have me buy one of those Bronco L-4 kits

[Fanes]

Good news everyone

A small parcel from China arrived yesterday and inside were two new clear sprues:

 

One is a direct replacement from the F4F-4 and one from the F4F-3 kit. I'll use the latter since the -4 canopy is scratched once again:

 

Not gonna risk cracking another one

The Wildcat recieved its black base which revealed some imperfections around the wing root.

 

 

A little sanding and rescribing resolved the problem. The same applies for the underside  with a little hickup on the fuselages's center seam.

 

Next up will be cutting the masks for the insignia. But this will have to wait until Jennings has his new decal sheet and instructions ready.

 

[Fanes]

It's not dead (yet)

With quite a large amount of (perfectly) thinned white in my Airbrush remaining after I did the base for the insgnia of my Buecker,

I got back to my Wildcat.

The underside got it's marble coat until the airbrush's cup was empty .

Will do the rest of it in the following days since I really enjoyed the spray session.

 

So there's quite a lot of variation planned for the otherwise boring all white underside.

 

Cheers

Joachim

[dennismcc]

Looking good, clear parts always seem to be trouble but Trumpeter came up trumps for you.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Fanes]

Baby steps

With the Buecker in the painting process I figured that there is some progress on the Wildcat which I forgot to post.

Everytime I had to spray any white for the Buecker's insginia I did a little marble work on the Wildcat's belly and fuselage as well.

 

 

The idea was to keep a balance between complete random contrast and accenturating the panels.

We'll see how it'll look once it's blended together.

The fuselage sides are ready as well. I went a little higher since I wasn't sure where the demarcation to the Dark Gull Grey is exactly and where the stars and bars will go.

 

 

As soon as I get to finish painting the Jungmann's RLM camo, the ASW Wildcat will return to the paint booth to recieve a blend coat of MRP insignia white to pull it all together.

There's no hurry here since the step afterwards would be cutting masks for the insignia and I'll wait until Jennings will release his decal set (probably in the next month?)

 

Until then have a Merry Christmas and a wodnerful time with your beloved ones

Joachim

[Fanes]

Oh my - the Wildcat has stalled a little.

With the fundekal decals in the mail and some free time for me, the ASW Wildcat finally got its white colour.

I used MRP Insgnia White which needed so many coats to get it to cover the base.

Several sessions and a lot of patience later it started to look okayish:

 

 

The belly was left with a little bit more contrast to make the single colour more interesting, while the fuselage sides are more opaque:

 

 

 

After taking the pictures I realized that I forgot to lay down the white base for the port wing insignia.

Will do get to this in the next days, together with cutting masks.

[Fanes]

1 minute ago, MARU5137 said:

   how are you Fanes?

Thanks for asking Maru - way too busy at work

But there's a little update

 

Cheers

Joachim

[Fanes]

Masking begins

Yesterday an evelope arrived and in there was Fundekal's beautiful and huge decal sheet.

But since I really like the look of painted insignia, only the small ones will be used.

So onto the drawing board and a short while later the stars and bars, plus the aircraft numbers were sketched:

 

The Silhouette plotter has finished its (magical) work and now I will have a lot of fun placing the masks for the three colour insignia. More on that later

[Fanes]

Painting the insignia is going more or less smoothly, if you cut the masks tight.

Otherwise they wrinkle like hell on the curved fuselage..

Anyway the white parts are masked:

 

And Gunze H327 was airbrushed on as Insignia Red. This took many many thin coats (spoiled MRP user here).

 

I'll have to fiddle the mask for the red outline in place before I can move on with the Insignia Blue.

 

Until then,

Joachim

[jeroen_R90S]

Nice work -those grey/white Wildcats aren't done very often! Looks good

[Fanes]

On 3/29/2022 at 9:29 PM, jeroen_R90S said:

Nice work -those grey/white Wildcats aren't done very often! Looks good

Thanks Jeroen - most of the grey/white Wildcats were FM-2s (or at least I thought so) and we're still waiting for a LSP one..

 

Just a short update today.
The insignia are completely painted and I unmasked the underside and oh boy that turned out way better than I expected:

 

I started with the ANA621 grey yesterday and went with Gunze H57 which was recommended somewhere on the web. Buuuuuut it's way too light compared to the b/w pictures I saw.

Photos will be taken later today and maybe repainting as well.

[themongoose]

Dang those are crisp points on the star! 

[Fanes]

The ANA621 conundrum

I quickly laid down the squiggly base for the upper dark grey:

 

I started with Gunze H57 which was recommend here. Well, it appeared way too light for the ANA 621 dar gull gray.

So, alternatives were searched.

Here we have the said Gunze, Tamiya XF-24 and AK real color 247 - supposed to be the modern dark gull gray:

 

Now, if we look at different pictures from planes in ASW scheme II - none of the above seems to be a good fit:

 

SBD Dauntless

 

Liberator

 

and if you scroll doen to p.26 of the fundekal instructions, there are some nice photos of Wildcats in ASW schemes (I&II).

Has anyone a good idea/recommendation for ANA 621?

 

Cheers

Joachim