1/32 Hasegawa Boeing F4B-3

by Ed Fuquay

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This bi-plane is one of my favorite airplanes from the 1930's. It was a must for my growing collection of 1/32 scale aircraft. I purchased this kit back in 1990, when it was re-released by Hasegawa in a black box presentation. I started to build it at once, but as construction progressed I started to lose interest due to the lack of detail and the gap that resulted in the lower part surface of the wings after I put them together. That was the deciding factor to put the kit away. 

One day I opened the ARC gallery entry on the F4B and  I found a beautifully crafted model there, and not only that, but a walk-around too! Yippee! I had just moved to a new home and the F4B's black box had resurfaced and was atop the pile of unbuilt models!

It did not take long for me to start using the new bench I had made. The F4B started to take shape. I revisited the gap under the wing situation and filled with cyanocrylate gel, sanded smooth trying not to wipe out detail. Once I painted the underside of both wing with Floquil's Old Silver the gap did not look too bad. I could live with it. Then I move to the cockpit area. 

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The seat supplied is simply horrible. I decided to make a new one and I based it on the seat supplied in the F4B kit in 1/48th scale by Classic Airframes. 

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Then it all went down hill from there. The Instrument panel, cockpit floor, control stick, and the rest of the detail in the cockpit was scratch built! I only used two or three of the kit's parts...

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The kit's decals were used as much as I could use them, but I had to paint most national insignias and large lettering. The walkways were made of strips of black decal. I painted the model with Modelmaster enamels, except for the silver, which came from the railroad line from Floquil.  

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The rigging was fashioned from .015 music wire cut to length with an abrasive disc. Working with this kind of wire can be hazardous to your health. Make sure the ends are blunt. It really likes to penetrate your flesh and this generally means you have to have a Tetanus shot! I like this material to make rigging lines, as it is pretty stiff and has an excellent shape memory. It can be bent and it just snaps back in shape.  This material does not cut well with wire cutters. 

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The Hasegawa kit is pretty old, but it represents accurately this magnificent aircraft. It is not a shake and bake kit.  For those of us who cannot stand extreme lack of detail in cockpits....it is not a good choice, it's a wonderful choice as it provides us with a pretty valid excuse to embark in an obscene opportunity to show off our scratch building skills. 

Happy modelling...

Ed

Photos and text © by Ed Fuquay