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

[ax365]

Welcome back to the bench, Chuck.  I hope you had an enjoyable summer and it's good to hear that the batteries are recharged.  That show, and your recognition by the judges and fellow modellers, was quite the fine end to the summer.  Congratulations to you and they're all well earned.  As others have said, I look forward to more of your work during this build.  Informative as always and I pick up little tips from you that I can use on some of my projects.  Thank you for that.

 

Take care and stay safe.

 

Mike

[Ironwing]

YAY..Chucks back. Good to see you back to work.Show us some more magic...

Geoff

 

[Nighthawk Calling 1]

Great to see you back at the bench, hope you had a great summer with the roof down cruising the highway looking forward to seeing the Hellcat progress.

[Rocat]

Really nice progress and, as always, very good info and tips! Thank you.

[chuck540z3]

October 11/21

 

 

 

 

Well, the snow did start to fly yesterday, which is a reminder that winter is coming and likely a lot more modeling for me.  Working on the wing assemblies, there is a recurring theme in this kit that I also found on the fuselage:

 

 

a)     The surface detail of most parts is excellent. and pin marks are usually on surfaces you can't see at final assembly.

b)     A great deal of this nice detail will never be seen again once the wings are closed up.  This is great for somebody who might want to build a Hellcat under maintenance I suppose, but for 95% of those who build this kit, it’s a waste.  This forces you to jump ahead in the instructions, to make sure those pin marks and seam lines you are fixing are going to be worth the effort.

c)     The fit of most parts are very tight, so if you need any flexibility, you need to open up joins.

d)     The “oil canning” of the wings is quite nice, but the plastic is quite rough, so you should sand it, being careful to not remove too much relief.

 

 

This plastic is quite light and hard to photograph, but here’s a shot of the bottom of the right wing to show where I have sanded and where I haven’t.

 

 

 

 

Another shot of the sanded right wing on the top and the unsanded left wing on the bottom.

 

 

 

 

As mentioned earlier I’m not exposing the gun compartments, keeping my focus on detail in the cockpit and exposed engine.  As such, I glued the gun covers on, which I recommend that you do before gluing the wing halves together, so that you can reach underneath to smooth out the edges, which can be a little wobbly.

 

 

 

 

Without exposed guns, there’s no reason to put all of the wing parts into the wings, but I’ve read from other builds of this kit that closing the wings can be problematic, so I wanted to find out why.  This assembly below is Steps 62 to 80 for the right wing, and the main culprit is that most of the long parts on the bottom fit into narrow recesses in the top of the wing.  With the complex pattern of several parts on the bottom, there’s no chance that everything will line up perfectly with the top and when you do have problems closing the wings, there’s no way to figure out where all the fit issues are.  It would have been better if the recesses were a bit wider and even better, not there at all.  Even with the guns exposed, you cannot see this join at all, so why make it difficult?

 

 

 

 

Even the parts on the bottom fit too tightly, so to get a fit that’s tight to the wing bottom, just about all of the notches that slide together should be slightly wider and deeper using a #11 knife.  Once glued together, you will not see any of these imperfections I just created on Part H3, vs unaltered Parts H4 and H5.

 

 

 

 

Getting back to the wing fit, rather than sanding down the recesses on the top wing, I just sanded down the top surfaces of the bottom wing parts.   With lots of dry fitting and trial and error, you can get the wing halves to fit together fairly well without forcing anything.  With everything hidden, nothing needs to look pretty either.

 

 

 

 

I checked the dry fit of the closed wing halves to the bottom central fuselage completed earlier.  This assembly would not sit flush no matter how much I squeezed it together.

 

 

 

 

The culprit here was the top of Part G8 on the wing assembly was too high, as was an outside rod on Part F15 of the fuselage assembly, so I trimmed them both down.

 

 

 

 

Although it’s still a touch high in this pic that I’m calling “Flush”, once the bottom of the assemblies are glued together it will be.  I still need to clean up a few seam lines as well.

 

 

 

 

And like so many other things on this kit, all that nice detail will be buried once Part N33 is glued in place in Step 110 for flat wings vs. folded ones.  On the bright side, I can get a little messy with my gluing underneath, to ensure a strong bond.

 

 

 

 

On the Hellcat, the outboard gun is recessed, while the inner two guns stick out, where I drilled out the barrels.  These two gun are only dry fit and will be installed at the end of the build, allowing me to glue and clean up the leading edge of the wing without any interference.  If you want exposed guns, Master makes a nice set of early or late brass barrels to replace the kit parts.

 

 

 

 

I was planning to use the Eduard PE Wheel Bay Kit (23035), but after looking at the kit detail vs the Eduard parts, this was a clear case of “it isn’t worth it”, especially on a bottom surface that will rarely be seen.  Other than the fact that the kit parts look pretty good already, all that PE ribbing needs to be assembled and glued on, with all the headaches that come with that.  Another issue is that some of the other kit parts need to fit this detail and be glued securely to it.  A clear “Punt” in my mind, although I may use a few of the smaller parts later.  We'll see......

 

 

 

 

Next steps are to get the other wing put together and then glue the wings to the lower central fuselage assembly, and then final attachment to the main fuselage itself.  Having tried a few dry fits already, I already know that I have plenty of challenges ahead of me!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

Edited October 12, 2021 by chuck540z3

[easixpedro]

Glad to have you back at it Chuck! Don’t know what airframe you’re building, but there’s some variation in the outboard gun barrels. Some are flush, some protrude. I couldn’t figure it out and just replicated the specific airframe I wanted to. You’re hitting all the issues I had…the insides of those wings and the wingfold are precise beyond measure! Looking forward to more!

Peter

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Awesome stuff, Chuck!

 

Kev

[chuck540z3]

1 hour ago, easixpedro said:

Glad to have you back at it Chuck! Don’t know what airframe you’re building, but there’s some variation in the outboard gun barrels. Some are flush, some protrude. I couldn’t figure it out and just replicated the specific airframe I wanted to. You’re hitting all the issues I had…the insides of those wings and the wingfold are precise beyond measure! Looking forward to more!

Peter

 

 

 

Thanks Peter!  I'm using the Detail & Scale Volume 10 reference book for the F6F Hellcat.  This book claims that in developing this model, the Airfix team visited the New England Air Museum and used their F6F-5, BuNo. 79192 as a reference, which is the same aircraft that provided most of the photos for the "Hellcat Details" chapter in this book.  As a result, most of the parts match these photos, including the guns which are on Page 62.  The book does note, however, that the kit has an error on the fuselage spine, where there are two recognition lights when there should only be one for the F6F-5.  I have corrected this earlier by just removing the forward light.

 

As for a subject, I don't really have one yet, other than it has to be a late F6F-5 to match some of the details, including most of the cockpit instruments.  If anybody has any ideas, please bring them on!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

 

[easixpedro]

10 hours ago, chuck540z3 said:

 

 

Thanks Peter!  I'm using the Detail & Scale Volume 10 reference book for the F6F Hellcat.  This book claims that in developing this model, the Airfix team visited the New England Air Museum and used their F6F-5, BuNo. 79192 as a reference, which is the same aircraft that provided most of the photos for the "Hellcat Details" chapter in this book.  As a result, most of the parts match these photos, including the guns which are on Page 62.  The book does note, however, that the kit has an error on the fuselage spine, where there are two recognition lights when there should only be one for the F6F-5.  I have corrected this earlier by just removing the forward light.

 

As for a subject, I don't really have one yet, other than it has to be a late F6F-5 to match some of the details, including most of the cockpit instruments.  If anybody has any ideas, please bring them on!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

 

There's so many markings to chose from, it can be difficult to decide. I've always been partial to USS Randolph's markings. The white stripes and the period font of the numbers has always appealed to me. On page six of my build I talked about the markings: 1/24 F6F-5 Hellcat--In Flight - Page 9 - Works in Progress - Large Scale Planes 

 

As always, thanks for sharing with us!

-Peter

[dodgem37]

Good show, Bro'.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[chuck540z3]

October 14/21

 

 

I’ve been a modeling machine the last few days!  Colder weather and not much to do outside = more modeling inside, especially with the shorter days.

 

I assembled the left lower wing much like the right one shown earlier.

 

 

Unlike the right wing however, I didn’t carefully sand down the many ribs that will never be seen again, so I used a #11 knife and hacked away at will.  Not pretty, but very effective and a lot quicker!  One thing I should have mentioned earlier, is on the recessed outboard gun shroud, Part G40 or H40, they should be tilted slightly downward when gluing them in.  This was discovered when I placed the upper wing on top of the lower wing and checked alignment from the front.  Just glued in as per the instructions will result in misalignment.  You don’t want to see any of the front part of the shroud when looking through the gun hole and tilting them downwards eliminated any of that.

 

 

This kit continues to amaze me by how some parts don’t fit very well, while others fit like a glove.  Here is the interlocking join at the top of the two wing halves when placed over the central fuselage assembly in Step 103.

 

 

They just slip together perfectly, creating a solid join that won’t move later.

 

 

I then dry fit all of the wing parts together in a bit of a trial to see what I was up against in the near future.  In Step 104 and 105, I had to laugh when the instructions suggested that Parts N30 and N34 may need their surfaces to be “filed, if required” to allow for sliding into the lower wing and central assembly in Step 108.  No kidding, they needed to be sanded down about 20% on every surface before I could get them to slide into anything.  One tip is to cut back the bottom notched tab of these parts (top in pic below) to allow the lower wing to slide into the central assembly at an angle.  Otherwise, all sorts of tabs on the wings will get in the way and you don’t want to be fooling around with the fit when you have committed to glue. 

 

 

After many hours of getting all the wing parts to dry fit together, the wings look terrific- and long at 21 ½” wide.  This size of this model has slowly snuck up on me, because it’s going to be huge and photographing future steps in my small photo booth will be a challenge!

 

 

A closer look.

 

 

The bottom.  All of those gaps will close up once I commit to glue, or at least I think/hope so.

 

 

With the wings dry fit, I thought I would check how well the fuselage would fit on top.  Not bad, but there is a big gap at the front.

 

 

Same on the bottom at the rear.

 

 

Like everything else on this model, the problem lies with joins that fit too tight.  It turns out that the forward cockpit floor is too wide, so it was trimmed back a bit, as where the two tabs at the front.

 

 

The two inserts at the top of the wings need to be widened as well.  Here you can see where the cockpit floor fits between two sills, which you can barely see from the top of the cockpit.  As a result, these areas should be painted Interior Green before gluing everything together, which is not mentioned in the instructions.

 

 

Everything fits together pretty good now and with a bit of glue, it will look a lot tighter than this.  No wing roots seams to fill for a change.  Hurray!

 

 

Same for the bottom when dry fitting. With some glue and a bit of pressure, there should be no gaps.

 

 

Now that I’ve got everything to more or less fit properly, the next step is to paint the wheel wells and anything else that will be exposed underneath.  Unfortunately, everything will be gloss dark blue like the rest of the aircraft, which is kind of boring and details within will be hard to see.  I also need to insert 2 formation lights at the top of the wings and the landing light at the front of the left wing before I commit to glue.  While I have pics of the landing light and generally know what to do with it, the instructions do not tell you what color the formation lights are.  A query in the Aviation Forum reveals that they are blue, which is why they are hard to see in pics.  More blue against a dark blue background…..

 

One thing that you might find missing from this build is a lack of Tamiya Panel Line Accent Color that I usually apply to show all the panel lines and rivet detail in my builds.  I do this when adding or repairing panel lines and fasteners, to check for flaws.  For this kit, it’s a waste of time because every part has nice crisp detail that needs no enhancement and panel lines mesh perfectly, which I’ve never experienced before, including on my Tamiya Spitfire and Mustang builds.  Overall, this has to be one of the best kits made ever.

 

I’m really enjoying this kit so far and despite my complaints about tight fitting parts, I would much rather have them tight than sloppy.  I can tell already that if I don’t screw it up, this will be a very impressive model to add to my growing collection.  Now if I could only find room for it…..

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[zaxos345]

Usual Chuck!!

Awesome work!!

 

John

[Rocat]

Great progress, this one is going to be really impressive :-)

[GMK]

Lovely work, Chuck. If I sponsor a bottle of the Tamiya panel line accent, could you be convinced to apply it? lol

 

Cheers,

 

Greg

[Dpgsbody55]

I'm really enjoying your build of this model, Chuck.  It's good to see you back at the workbench and writing such detailed updates.  Looking forward to more.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael