Jump to content

1/24 Airfix F6F-5 Hellcat "Kicked Up A Notch": New eBook Now Available!


chuck540z3

Recommended Posts

October 21/21

 

As much as I’m enjoying this kit, the wing assembly is difficult if you don’t want any obvious errors, so I’ve come up with a plan that seems to have worked pretty good so far. 

 

After getting all the main internal wing parts sanded or trimmed down so that the main wing halves will close without too much effort, I pre-painted all of the wheel wells and other recesses, like the gun ports.  Good or bad, everything is gloss Sea Blue and I’m using MRP-014, which is made for the US Navy, 1942-1955 (ANA623, ANA606), which is really, really dark.  I’m not sure if I’m going to lighten this paint or not, because pics of real Hellcats are quite dark and as a subject towards the end of the war, fading due to weathering would likely be minimal.

 

guHX47.jpg

 

The instruction in Steps 102/103 would have you glue both top wing halves to the bottom central fuselage assembly, then glue the bottom wing halves in Steps 108/109.  While this works OK, it’s fairly hard to jamb everything together this way, so I decided to just push one bottom wing half into this assembly as a dry fit, then glue the top of one wing to both, in this case the right wing.  With all the sanding and dry fitting I did earlier, I knew exactly which parts would attach directly to the top wing, so I applied ample ordinary Tamiya glue to the areas marked in purple, and left the outside edges unglued for now.  Note that I avoided adding glue to parts that will be seen in the wheel well, just in case it made a mess on painted parts they attach to.  This creates a very strong bond in the core of the wing and allows a bit of movement to get the best fit of all portions of the wing.

 

5d3OwG.jpg

 

I then applied Tamiya Extra Thin Cement (TETC) to the outside edges of the wing, using tape and clamps to hold everything tight.  While the front of the wing closed together fairly well, the rear of the wing did not and needed a bit of extra glue and clamping to get the two wing halves to close completely.   This left a bit of a rough surface at the rear, which I sanded fairly smooth to get the lumps out, but not perfectly, then I pre-painted the rear lip which is quite thin.

 

kapgyL.jpg

 

This is because the rear of the wing will be hidden behind the aileron and flap parts in the flat position and a bit less so when they are in the down position.  Here are these parts that were glued together earlier, where I found that only the actuator rod will show later, so the seam line should be removed.

 

9tnpsT.jpg

 

Here they are dry fit to the wing bottom.  As always, a very tight fit that needed a bit of trimming to make everything come together.  So tight in fact, that I doubt I will need to glue the flaps at all.

 

4szZNm.jpg

 

The top fit.  Note that the 2 lights on the top of the wing are Formation Lights that were painted clear blue and glued into place earlier.

 

MGebj7.jpg

 

Once the wing halves are glued together, an angle brace, Part G34 or H34 as applicable, is glued into place.  Here I painted the part separately, attached it with TETC, then re-sprayed it to eliminate any glue marks.  Note that the other parts nearby mesh with the top of the wing fairly well without any glue, which was avoided earlier.

 

Xllfg3.jpg

 

The other side, however, is super annoying, because there are 2 more angle braces with a large gap in the middle of them where the two assemblies came together.  If they could have added an angle brace above later, why not 2 more on the other side?  Fixing this cleanly will be very tough to do in such a small space that needs to be painted smooth.  I may punt on this one, especially since I won't be adding any plumbing, which you can't see anyway.

 

DSmNFo.jpg

 

Wing Part N33 (N29 on other side) needs to be carefully sanded and trimmed to fit nice and tight, which also covers a lot of the nice internal wing detail that was shown earlier.  With the wings folded this part is re-positioned as Parts N19/20 and N35/36, allowing visual access.

 

dlxm4V.jpg

 

The front of the wing was easy to glue together, but getting the gun panels to fit together cleanly was a lot of work.  They clearly exist on the real deal, although maybe a bit more flush and subtle than they look here.  I sprayed the front of the wing to check my seam work, which as you can see still has some lumpy spots to smooth out and fix, although the wing is lumpy anyway, so maybe not!

 

Pupy7d.jpg

 

The corner navigation light lens did not fit very well at all, so the recess it fits onto was carefully sanded and trimmed several times until it did.  This is dry fit only and will be glued on later in the build before final paint, so that I can work on smoothing out the edges.

 

Another curiosity is those 3 round lumps at the end of the wings, that look like they may be molding flaws that should be removed.  Since I saw them on both wing halves, and they meshed together, I checked out some reference pics and sure enough, they are real, so make sure you retain them.

 

l5EJHE.jpg

 

That’s it for now.  After I do a few more repairs on this right wing, I’ll get after the left wing and do much of the same thing to create one very long wing and landing gear assembly!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • chuck540z3 changed the title to 1/24 Airfix F6F-5 Hellcat "Kicked Up A Notch" Oct 21/21: Wing Assembly Part 3

Wonderful work so far Chuck!
 

I’m following along with keen interest as I’d like to make the Hellcat my next build once my current project is done. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the Aerocraft cast landing gear set. I have just about everything I need for my build now but haven’t decided whether the kit gear is good enough or if the Aerocraft gear warrants the extra cost. :hmmm:

 

Cheers,

Wolf

 

:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Wolf Buddee said:

Wonderful work so far Chuck!
 

I’m following along with keen interest as I’d like to make the Hellcat my next build once my current project is done. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the Aerocraft cast landing gear set. I have just about everything I need for my build now but haven’t decided whether the kit gear is good enough or if the Aerocraft gear warrants the extra cost. :hmmm:

 

Cheers,

Wolf

 

Hi Wolf!

 

Too bad you weren't building this kit first and I was following along instead.  It's always good to follow a master to see what this kit is capable of, then take it from there.  For instance, I will be very interested to see how you attack the wing assembly, which is a real bear to close all the parts together.

 

In any case, I don't know the answer to your question.  I have the Aerocraft set as shown below and when comparing it to the kit parts, I don't see any wild improvements, other than the changes indicated on the Aerocraft website.  I will say that this sucker is big and heavy, so I will have total confidence in the new brass legs, whereas I might be a bit extra careful with the kit legs.

 

pbspSY.jpg

 

 

Aerocraft 1/24 Brass Undercarriage and Doors

 

From the Aerocraft Website:

 

This is a brass cast undercarriage set for the Airfix Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat.
I have used the basic undercarriage in the kit but I have detailed the main undercarriage parts by removing the moulded on break lines and replacing them with much more accurate detail, and also improved a few more small points of detail on the struts. These changes made it necessary to change the design of the main wheel doors, as the brake lines could not be integrally cast in brass to enable them to clear the support brackets on the kit parts. So I removed the over scale support bars on the doors and replaced them with improved and more accurate scale details.
So now with this set you get a full set of brass undercarriage parts and two main gear wheel doors, cast in resin.

Note you will need to clean up some casting sprue gates from the parts and the odd small brass 'inclusions' that may appear through the casting process.

Please allow up to 2 to 3 weeks for manufacturing. I will email as soon as I have shipped the parts.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello Wolf, I would like to add that having the tail wheel strut in brass is a big plus. The Airfix plastic combined with such a heavy model demands Aerocraft's brass legs all the way around. 

 I have both the Hellcat and Typhoon sets and I can attest to the fine quality of the castings and rigid strength in Aerocraft brass.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

October 27/21

 

I finally got the other wing assembled and glued together, which as I’ve mentioned a few times, can be a real struggle.  The key is to take your time with trimming and dry fitting, or you’ll regret it later when you commit to glue.  The left wing is attached in the middle to the right wing and central fuselage holding the landing gear well.  As shown before, the outside edges are the outside of the cockpit floor, so they should be painted interior green, although this isn’t mentioned in the instructions.  This floor area was trimmed back on either side to fit, as were the two round and two rectangular slots.  Ordinary Tamiya glue was then liberally applied to the central area as shown.

 

qb8Psw.jpg

 

Make sure you put the approach light into the wing before closing it up, which comes in two parts.  For the rear part R5, I painted it silver from behind and added a small black dot to the central bulb so that it would show up for a bit of interest.  After gluing the wing together, I then glued in the front lens (R6) after squaring off the opening with CA glue, with Micro Krystal Klear, which dries clear and won’t harm the silver paint.  It also seals the sides from subsequent coats of paint leaking in later.

 

Cuq98Y.jpg

 

Although my attempts to get the fuselage to fit the wing assembly tight is much better than before, there is still a slight gap on the port side and as you will see below, that little gap at the back should be filled.  Tamiya Extra Thin Cement (TETC) was used on all mating surfaces, to secure the join and also help close these gaps a bit.

 

qyVvpQ.jpg

 

The starboard side was a bit tighter.

 

MbT87n.jpg

 

The bottom, however, was nice and tight as is.  Make sure you get that long tab on the fuselage below the wing than underneath it.

 

KVYK31.jpg

 

To see what the wing root should look like on the real deal, I have a few pics of a replica of “Minsi III” that I took in 2014 at the Nellis AFB near Vegas.  Had I known that I would one day be building a Hellcat, I would have taken a lot more, but these pics are still helpful nonetheless.

 

MByjM1.jpg

 

A close-up of the above pic reveals that the wing root is an L-shaped bracket that is irregular and also continuous to the area at the rear flap, which is in the up position.  This is why those small gaps on the fuselage to wing join should be filled.

 

Nku4D2.jpg

 

So I filled small gap with CA glue and sanded it smooth, following by the age old trick of masking off the wing root on either side, applying Tamiya putty, then wiping it smooth with a Q-tip dipped in Tamiya Lacquer Thinner.  It’s best to use a new tube of putty, because older thicker putty doesn’t work very well, while thinned putty shrinks too much and leaves air holes after drying.

 

tlpZhf.jpg

 

With the tape removed immediately after the application of putty, I let the putty dry for a few hours, then lightly sanded it down.  Gaps are now gone.

 

fhhjwO.jpg

 

Same on the other side.

 

jwczOw.jpg

 

With the wings attached to the fuselage, now is a good time to assemble the rear flaps, which fit tightly onto the wings without the need for glue.  The ailerons do need glue however, but that can be done later.  These parts are quite thick at the rear with a noticeable seam line, which I filled with CA glue and sanded thinner in a struggle to get the parts as thin as possible, while still retaining fastener detail which is quite good.

 

ClIsGS.jpg

 

Dry fit onto the wings, you get a sense of just how big this monster is!  It has completely filled my small photo-booth with 21 ½” wings, so I will try to find something a bit bigger for future build photographs.

 

VQphgn.jpg

 

One small and annoying thing on this kit, is why did they mold the tail antenna onto one of the fuselage halves?  It makes no sense and I’m always catching it on things, so I added a paint brush protector to make it a bit less prone to damage.  This part should be an add-on, like the main antenna mask and other small parts.

 

9CAzL2.jpg

 

Next steps will be tail assembly and I think I’m going to do the landing gear first to get this bird off the ground, before tackling the super detailed engine.  Thanks for checking in.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • chuck540z3 changed the title to 1/24 Airfix F6F-5 Hellcat "Kicked Up A Notch" Oct 27/21: Wing Assembly Finished

Well done as always Chuck! The landing light looks great--it gave me fits. Otherwise, you're tracking along and hitting all the bumps I hit. Nothing insurmountable--it's the nicest kit I've ever built. The engineering and thought that went into it is staggering. I'd build more, but lordy she's huge!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you very much everyone!  Now a bit of a setback.

 

This kit has some errors, both in the instructions and some of the parts, which are quite concerning as follows:

 

 

In Step 140 on Page 37, you assemble 2 parts for the radiator vent, which are called Parts F24 and F25.  I could not find them anywhere, because F24 is really a wheel axle for the in-flight version, found on Page 13, while F25 is part of the landing gear well on Page 16.  In Step 141, I couldn’t find part F37 either, because that part is also used on Page 16.  It was easy to figure out that Part F37 should be F41, but what happened to the radiator vent parts?

 

 

iXtMaU.jpg

 

 

So I looked at all of the other sprues and could not find any radiator vent parts anywhere.  WTF?, so I found this Britmodeler website that shows all the sprues for this kit, to see what I was missing.  Sprue F is the seventh sprue pic from the top

 

 

Britmodeller Review, 1/24 Airfix F6F-5 Hellcat

 

 

The vent parts are at the top of Sprue F, but rather than be Parts F24 and F25, they should be Parts F28 and F29.  Fine, except this is what I have for these 2 parts:  Five shriveled up remnants of what should be the radiator vent!

 

 

dvWhYu.jpg

 

 

OK, while a huge PITA, it’s not the end of the world, so I ask you guys where I should start?  I bought the kit from Sprue Bros., but I likely need to go directly to Airfix to get a replacement sprue.  Any idea who to contact?  In any case, that’s a lot of errors in the instructions, which I expect with Kitty Hawk kits (and had many times), but not with a high end kit like this.  Fairly disappointing.

 

 

 

 

Thanks,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • chuck540z3 changed the title to 1/24 Airfix F6F-5 Hellcat "Kicked Up A Notch" Oct 27/21: A Minor Setback

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...