1/48 ARII F6F-3 Hellcat

Gallery Article by Tim Cvetic on Mar 31 2010

 

Well, I finally managed to finish another model.  This time it is the F6F-3 Hellcat from VF-16 aboard USS Lexington that was assigned to Lt. Frank Fleming.

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The kit had some nice external detail and the fit of the major parts was really good.  The one place that the kit fails is in the cockpit and the fictitious detail in the wheel wells.  I used the Squadron vac formed canopy instead of the kit part.  For the cockpit I managed to squeeze in the True Detail resin cockpit that is designed for the Hasegawa Hellcat.  In the wheel wells I sanded off the kit detail and scratch built the detail with Evergreen strips.  I also made some brake lines from copper wire.  For the gun barrels I used tubing from hypodermic syringes.  I used the kit's decals and the paints were a mixture of Tamiya and the left over stock of Gunze.  

This model fought me during every stage of the build.  It was difficult to fit the resin cockpit so that it would sit properly in the fuselage it took quite a few session of trimming and dry fitting.  I also found it difficult to properly sand off the detail in the wheel wells.  But the biggest disaster came with the decals when I used Mr. Mark Softer to try to settle down the decals the solution seemed to totally destroy the carrier film.  I managed to save the situation by grafting on pieces from the leftover decals on the sheet.

Thanks for looking

Tim Cvetic

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Photos and text © by Tim Cvetic