1942: The Turning of the Tide

[phantom_phanatic]

Seconded, the SM.79 is looking amazing!

Got the wings and tailplanes on the Wildcat today. Had to do some trimming to get the tailplane level and a little bit of Mr Surfacer was needed at the wing roots.

[Mead93]

Gotta love US Navy birds! Wildcat is coming together nicely

[phantom_phanatic]

Thanks. It’s the first Wildcat I’ve built in years, so I’d forgotten how dumpy looking it actually was. Always remember that Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown called it an Angry Bee and how much of a leap in performance it was to what he had previous flown in the FAA.
I have got AZ Models Martlet MK1 to build as his plane.

[DeskJockey]

OK, I’m jumping in after finishing a very long M109A7 build. I’ll build the Airfix F4F-4 Wildcat, just like @phantom_phanatic, but with the wings folded. I’ll also use Eduard’s mask for the kit. We’ll see how it goes, and I hope to pick up some tips from all the other builds!

[phantom_phanatic]

Cool!
I’ll have to do one with the folded wings at some point.
Be careful with the engine and prop shaft assembly. The front engine needs the hole drilling for the shaft. It needs a little more plastic taking out of the inside for it all to fit properly. I used a 1mm drill for the shaft followed by a 5mm drill to just remove a bit more inside for it to poke out enough. The fit of the front and rear set of cylinders is a bit squidgy, so I needed to trim a bit for a more solid fit. I didn’t document this in the photos, but I can annotate the instructions and get a shot of that if it’ll help.
After all that I used a little bit of too much Tamiya ultra thin and glued the whole lot up solid. So now the prop won’t spin!
Need to be more careful next time and probably use old tube glue.

[DeskJockey]

Thanks for the tips on the propeller shaft hole. I’ll keep an eye out for that.

[Mead93]

Haven’t been able to get bench time in a while. My first daughter was born 2 weeks ago so it’s been a chaotic time. I am off for a few weeks now though so when baby and mom are sleeping I steal a small bench session. Got the fuselage halves together with the cockpit locked it. Cleaned up the center line seams and then began work on the nose. The two panels that hold the nose machine guns are the first fit problem I encountered on this kit. They took quite bit of pressure to keep in place and the angle made clamping impossible so it was a lot of gluing a small section while holding it in place and then moving along the length of the nose. Overall in the end the fit wasn’t terrible, a couple small gaps I filled with some sprue goo. Once it dries I will sand it smooth and then rescribe the panel lines to be more in scale. The worst fitting part of this kit by far is the little insert for the underbelly intake. There is a huge gap between the bottom nose insert and the intake face. I have started to solve this by adding .01” strip styrene to the insert which makes the seam really small

[phantom_phanatic]

Looking great and a good solution to that gap problem.

And congratulations on the new arrival!

[Tank_1812]

Congratulations on the birth of your child. Amazing your back to the bench this fast. Took me much longer.

[brekinapez]

What? You didn’t bring one to work on in the waiting room?

[Tank_1812]

Nope, as I recall I hadn’t really made it back to models with the first two then I changed producers and had to start over again with credit.

[phil2015]

The Bros have the Eduard Wildcat Profipack in their Lightning Deals. Just sayin’…

[phantom_phanatic]

Here’s the instructions with some notes I made. Hope it makes sense.

Got the final work done on the Wildcat today, she’s just about ready for paint now.

Quick question about the colour above the instrument panel and under the windscreen, marked out in the photo in pencil. The instructions don’t really give any advice here, but would it be black, interior green or blue?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Evan]

Congrats on the birth of your daughter. Shortly after our daughter was born, an elder cousin told me, “every man wants a son, but every man needs a daughter.” Raising a daughter, while giving you just as many grey hairs as a son, but in a completely different way, gives you a whole new perspective - you look at teenage boys a whole lot differently, for example.

And nice work on the build!

[michaelsatin]

According to the pictures in the recent Detail & Scale, it was black. While I realize those are probably restored aircraft, that’s what I’d go with.

Michael

[DeskJockey]

Looking at my F4F Wildcat in Detail book, period b&w and color photos show that area to be black (pages 25 and 36). The restored aircraft featured in the book also have that area painted black (pages 40,42, and 44).

[phantom_phanatic]

Thanks guys, I’ll go with black.

[Tank_1812]

@Evan

Raising a daughter, while giving you just as many grey hairs as a son, but in a completely different way, gives you a whole new perspective - you look at teenage boys a whole lot differently, for example.

1000% true.

Also if you didn’t have thick skin before, you will after.

[RicardoScouts]

Guys, I’m going to participate with Sd.Kfz. 222 Leichter Panzerspähwagen from Tamiya (35270). To compensate for the age of the kit I will also use photoeteched by Eduard (35548).

[Evan]

That made me laugh. Too true.

Still laughing.