1/72 Octopus Grumman Duck

by Jeremias Nicolas Luchina

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Hi there plastic fellows! This is my rendition of the Grumman J2F 'Duck' in the colours of Argentina´s navy.

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This is my first model after a hand injury, my first biplane in almost ten years and the second biplane in my life... and as you will see this wasn´t the ideal kit for that situation.

This is one of the worst kits I ever built, and I used to work with some poor limited run kits... but this one takes the award.

One fuselage half was almost 2 mm shorten than the other, some huge gaps to fill, all the struts was unequal in length, etc etc..

The one the 'good' side, the resin parts show great detail for the scale, the cockpit was nicely detailed, but was almost impossible to fit on the fuselage, I have to sand the cockpit walls paper-thin and the fuselage halves to close the assembly them.

I also added some scratch built items to the model

Once the model was ready to paint (after a number of times when I wanted to tap dance over it) I used Alclad aluminium to archive the great metallic shine of the finished model.

I used nylon monofilament to rig the model, but when I was done, I realize that I made some mistakes, but I didn´t feel the urgency to correct that.

The model had a last nasty surprise: the decals desintegrated almost when they touch the water (and by the way were incorrect in shape) I saved it using some clear gloss, and the rest came from my spares.

This was one of the most challenging models I've built in my life, but the effort paid and I think it looks nice next to my others models of the Armada.

Jeremias

Photos and text © by Jeremias Nicolas Luchina