Hasegawa F6F-3..or 5

[Rhino]

It takes a LOT of dedication to perform this kind of surgery! I like the lil' winders aft of the canopy on the -3 and early -5 Hellcats. Remember to trim the seat armor back so you can peek around it.
You can look over your shoulder before sending numerous sons of Nippon to their doom. Or in this case, Minions of The Reich. Nifty build so far!

 

[jeaton01]

The man takes a perfectly good kit, and then cuts it into little tiny pieces....yeah, I get that! Looking good!

 

[paddy]

Funny how the simple things stump you... I like Tamiya paint for spraying but Tamiya dont seem to do Fleet air arm colours....i have some xtracrylix in the correct colours but i have heard bad stories about spraying this.

 

[Paulw]

Have you tried the AK Real Colors, Paddy? They spray very well and they have a couple of four jar set for WWII British air craft.

 

[sharkman]

Wow, really nice work on the guns and the surgery Paddy!

 

[paddy]

Well i had an interesting evening with my paints ....
I decided to go with Xtracrylix as they are accurate colours but i have never used them before. As its a first time and on line reviews say neat or thinned up to 50% i thought some experimentation would be needed.
Anyway what i found was despite using their own brand thinners i was getting some sort of chemical reaction which turned the paint into a gloop like crude oil.

this is drop of ocean Grey , looks good but a little to thick to spray.

this is the same drop with about 25% thinners added

and here it is fully mixed and ready to apply with a plasterers trowel

So the moral is, stick to paints you know and always do a test run and allow an hour to strip and clean your spray gun nwhich is what it took me as i initially mixed this in the gun and just did the pictures above to show you what happened.

after all that, go out and buy some Tamiya paints and problem solved

 

[moon puppy]

stick to paints you know

Preach on Brother...

Looking swell!!

 

[Barney]

That is ducking fugly!

I have used Hataka Orange paints for a while and think they are pretty good. They (for me) spray quite well and clean up easily. They have "sets" that are convenient. Plus they are fairly easy to get, even in the hinterlands of Ohio! (On-line, of course)

 

[centaur567]

A lot of work, but it's coming along nicely. Gary S. XLV MMXX

 

[Mo_]

Been there..done that...with new paints, always fun cleaning up. looking nice!

 

[Heavens Eagle]

Yeah, Moon Pup talked a guy with some new acrylics to give me some colors to paint the P-38 kit. Out of the box, never opened, one color turned to cottage cheese in the bottle. I sprayed some of the zinc chromate green and it was OK, but didn't care for it much. A couple of weeks later I needed to spray some more. Using their thinners, I sprayed a little through my fine airbrush and had to set it aside for 5 or 10 minutes. I had to deal with something, (a quick little mask on a spot) before continuing. I picked up the airbrush and the paint had turned to goo in it. Needless to say those paints hit the dumpster.

On the other hand I have been using some paints from Garage Kits USA that are wonderful. They are mainly done to paint figures and most of the figure painters at Wonderfest use them to a great extent. They spray straight from the bottle. The bottles have a hefty shaker BB of some type in them (which really works well) and the colors go on so nice and smooth.

 

[paddy]

I ended up mixing my own colours from Tamiya paints but its hard to actually know what the original colurs were. I had the names and FS numbers but even they vary hugely on the screen. In the end i tried to match the xtraacrilx colours i had....(year we spell colours like that over here and its our language so we should know )

bit sparse on the green ( which is 90% field grey) but it will look fine with its invasion stripes...

this will be really weather beaten when its done hence the odd finish

The moment of truth, never keen on this bit, did i get the lines straight, did i get them evenly spaced or worse, did the black bleed under the tape and in to the white ?..............( i know how to build the suspense )

SUCCESS

Phew, a few little bits to clean up but all in all quite happy

 

[jeaton01]

Paintwork looks real nice, Paddy.

 

[moon puppy]

INVASION!!

Nice job Paddy.

 

[Big10]

Invasion stripes make any bird look great and yours is looking oh so good.

 

[paddy]

Bit of a slow week here, we Brits dont do well if its stops raining and the sun comes out..and more than 70f and we get sun stroke and today its 98f

I fitted the engine bulkhead, its resin attached to resin so you need super glue and you need to get it exactly square so your engine is not at a jaunty angle up or down or left and right.

the parts on the wing are the stretchers between the fire wall and bulkhead but they are not quite long enough so i have made some of my own

Engines is coming along but i have been putting off fitting the exhaust because....well basically if doesnt seen to fit well theres a surprise

Not sure of wheel well colour anyone ?

I also bought some MIG ultra glue for PE and canopies. i have found it very good for just those parts but strangely i originally tried to fit the cylinders to the crankcase here which is resin to resin and it didn't go off...just went like bubble gum after a week. ?

MoonPs jeep has already inspired me to have a go at a vehicle next

 

[moon puppy]

I remember the troubles I had with the never finished Wildcat open panel hell I attempted. Looking good Paddy

MoonPs jeep has already inspired me to have a go at a vehicle next

Woo, really, maybe I should finish it up then.

 

[Paulw]

Bit of a slow week here, we Brits dont do well if its stops raining and the sun comes out..and more than 70f and we get sun stroke and today its 98f

I fitted the engine bulkhead, its resin attached to resin so you need super glue and you need to get it exactly square so your engine is not at a jaunty angle up or down or left and right.

View attachment 126875
the parts on the wing are the stretchers between the fire wall and bulkhead but they are not quite long enough so i have made some of my own

View attachment 126876

Engines is coming along but i have been putting off fitting the exhaust because....well basically if doesnt seen to fit well theres a surprise

Not sure of wheel well colour anyone ?

I also bought some MIG ultra glue for PE and canopies. i have found it very good for just those parts but strangely i originally tried to fit the cylinders to the crankcase here which is resin to resin and it didn't go off...just went like bubble gum after a week. ?

MoonPs jeep has already inspired me to have a go at a vehicle next

Duck Egg or sky in either case I could be mistaken.

 

[Heavens Eagle]

Most likely it is zinc chromate green or yellow for the wheel wells. I doubt they would have repainted them after delivery. Interior colors again would be whatever was done at the US factory, with color changes only as needed.

 

[paddy]

i have run up against a major problem. However you look at it the exhausts dont fit, they are not even near.....

On top of that the glue i used to fit the cylinders has not set so trying to get the exhaust sit where i want it means the cylinders are moving out of line.

Nothing for it but try and salvage a bad situation by at least stripping the engine back to its parts and re gluing the cylinders.. I will also have to make an exhaust system as i can see this one is not even near. Not sure how i will do that yet but i will think of something
I cant get too upset about it. No one builds aires sets and expects them to go together but when the whole point is to display the engine that really needs to be a bit better than this I like a challenge and boy have i got one here....not ruled out scrapping all yet and building something OTB

at least as the glue never sett it should come to bits easily