Wake Island Wildcat

[moon puppy]

Been thinking about what to do next before I start in earnest on Lullubelle I was sniffing around the stash, Eduards Hellcat? Tamiya's Bird Cage Corsair (which oddly enough has a Vector resin set to make it an F4U-4, but why when I can BUY an F4U-4)? I opened the Tamiya wildcat box and found Yellowings Wake Island Wildcat decal sheet. So Game on!

 

[RichB]

Time to hone those puttying, sanding and scribing skills to a razor sharp edge.

The big job is converting the -4 wing to the -3's fixed, 2 gun configuration with a significantly different panel layout. There can also be some differences in cowling panels and intakes depending on the engine installed as well as the engines themselves.

Theres probably more tweaks to.

Cheers,
RichB

 

[jeaton01]

Yeah, I did that with the Monogram kit and it was a lot of work, made worse by the fact that all the -3's were still in lake Michigan so there were only old photos for reference. And in the middle right after I got the wings done Tamiya issued their F4F-4 and I used a bunch of parts from it to gussy up the old Monogram kit. Much easier to go get the HobbyBoss kit now. But Hey, Bob probably is looking forward to the challenge!

 

[moon puppy]

Oh dang Rich, I forgot about which models these were. Yeah you're right, that's a lot of work to convert.

 

[moon puppy]

I see Hobbyboss and Eduard has F4f-3. Checking reviews...

 

[Paulw]

This would be cool. Just a bit of non essential Wilsford knowledge. My uncle, Clyde D Wilsford was attached to VMF 211. I don't know if he was an enlisted pilot of just air crew but I have seen pictures of him with wings. He was killed on Wake Island December 8th '41. The only info about him that I know of is on the Wake Island Memorial page. His remains lie in the Punch Bowl in Hawaii.

 

[moon puppy]

Through the haze of time I think you told me about this. Anyway to pull up his service record since you're related?

Guess you've seen this?

FamilySearch.org

Discover your family history. Explore the world’s largest collection of free family trees, genealogy records and resources.

ancestors.familysearch.org

 

[Paulw]

Through the haze of time I think you told me about this. Anyway to pull up his service record since you're related?

Guess you've seen this?

FamilySearch.org

Discover your family history. Explore the world’s largest collection of free family trees, genealogy records and resources.

ancestors.familysearch.org

Yes and there used to be a bit of a more complete write up that was done on another site but I don't seem to be able to find it. I'll post more when I do.

Clyde Douglas Wilsford, USMC

Memorial for Clyde Douglas Wilsford, USMC at Forces War Records - Memorial for Wake Island Defender

au.forceswarrecords.com

 

[moon puppy]

Well I looked at the Eduard F4F-3 and got up a shopping cart of about $100 of ad ons and almost pulled the trigger, meh.

I'll find something else to do but will keep this thread for when I do pull the trigger.