1/48 Eduard F6F-5 Hellcat

Gallery Article by Matija Lisec on Dec 1 2015

 

      

The rugged and powerful Hellcat is not an elegant piece of machinery, but a deadly one. It has a impressive 19:1 kill ratio and it was well liked by it`s air crew.

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This is a Weekend edition version of a Eduard kit so it lacks PE and some resin parts from its standard issue. The lack of PE was not a problem, as the cockpit detail is very good as it is, I only had to add some homemade seatbelts to it. Overall details are nicely done, especially the overlapped panels on the fuselage (which are a bit tricky to line up to avoid sanding the seam line).  Engine got it's ignition wires, I cut and re-positioned the control surfaces, beefed-up the wheels by adding a piece of styrene to make them wider, made the seam around the drop tank, replaced tube supports and added metal straps to it. The HVARs got wire ignitions, gun tubes replaced with syringe needles and aerials made with stretched sprue. 

Painted with GunzeSangyo, Navy blue color which got darkened a bit with a Blue Angels blue and black, weathered with Tamiya washes. The Hellcat characteristic engine exhaust was done with a dark earth color. All decals are from the kit.

Matija Lisec

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Photos and text © by Matija Lisec