Landlubber Mike

Thanks for showing your steps on creating this diorama. I've seen the TP approach in some other builds on Youtube, and it looks like a great technique.

Nice job Kevin. I haven't been too into the Japanese planes - mostly because of the color - but they are growing on me after seeing your work. Excellent job on the paint scheme!

Holy cow, this is absolutely incredible work! Your planking and other wood work is pure perfection, as if computer drawn. Amazing!

Thanks! I was using some from UMM that have an angle. I'll have to try these out. I actually have similar dental tools my brother gave me that I might try as well.

Lou thank you! And your example is better than mine - great picture! The picture is also great for showing how many more planes could be carried by a carrier. The wingspan of the F4F-4 was 38 feet. When folded, the wingspan was reduced to 14 feet 4 inches. That enabled the Navy to increase the number of fighters assigned to a squadron from 18 to 27. American ingenuity! In looking at the Squadron book, apparently the early F4F-4s - which were designated as the XF4F-4 - were made by Grumman to include a hydraulic wing fold system. During tests, the weight of the aircraft made it inferior to the F4F-3 when it came to speed, climb, and maneuverability, so the final production of the F4F-4 came with the lighter manually folded wings.

Thanks everyone for chiming in here! I have a few panel scribers, and while they work great, they are triangular in shape down to the blade so what I've found happen is that you end up scribing out an increasingly wider section the deeper you go. Given that the elevators are probably 3mm thick, if not a little bigger, the kerf (not sure if there is a more appropriate term when scribing) was getting to the point where it was just easier to mill them out with a micro milling bit. Are there others that are more scalpel like in application? As for the drooping, while there was a hand crank, I don't know whether they were mechanically locked or not. I found a number of pictures suggesting that both the ailerons (damn, I suck at terminology and I just talked to Lou the other day who corrected me) and the elevators did droop. Here are some pictures of different Wildcat variants, for example, from the Squadron In Action book on the Wildcat. Some other random pictures I have on file as well (first might be an F6F Hellcat, but likely similar engineering): At this point, I'm not going to change things. It was a little tricky getting them to sit in the position, but what I finally did was use CA, and once dried, followed up with a very thin line of two-part of epoxy along the underside seam. I was worried that CA can be a little brittle and I'd likely knock one or all of them off at some point in the future, so the epoxy gives me a little more peace of mind. So, I think they are stuck there, whether correct or incorrect 😐

Great pictures and research - looking forward to seeing your execution of the diorama!

Javlin/Kevin posted a diorama scene a year or so ago that got me sucked into trying out 1/700 kits. Definitely need an optivisor if you're going to use PE aftermarket, as the pieces are practically microscopic. Very challenging for sure. You can see how small some of the pieces are in my Hatsuzakura log linked below. But doing "live" scenes in a water diorama looks incredibly cool.

Happy new year everyone! Hope everyone is doing well and having a good start to the year. I had all these grand plans to get a lot of modeling done over the past few weeks, but with the holidays, family stuff, honey-dos, etc., I didn't get as much done as I was hoping. I did get some time in on various modeling projects like this one though. After more time than I would have originally estimated, I finished the elevators. I wanted to drop them, but it was a bit harder to cut them out because there is a tab that extends to the front so you can't make a straight cut across with a razor saw. I was hoping to either cut through enough to be able to bend them down (like I did on my earlier builds) or cut them out completely, but the plastic was fairly thick and hard, and the scalpel would get bogged down. Since I was too lazy to continuously change out the blade, I decided to mill it out using a tiny bit in my micromotor. That ended up making things easier, but then I needed to build back a bit of the lost material. That was probably for the best as I was then able to shape the leading edges instead of having two square edges. While I was at it, I "dropped" the flaps (I think that's what they are called) on the wings. Apparently when the wings were folded, the flaps "dropped" toward the top side of the wings. I also added the framing spine over the top of the life raft compartment. A bit of some sanding and filling here and there, but now I think I can finally get to the painting stage. Thanks for looking in!

That's some great "cosmetic surgery" there - good job sticking with it and not giving up!

Nice job Popeye! That came out fantastic!

Fantastic work!

Really nice work Chris. So impressive that you can get card to turn out like that.

Nice work! Looks like a good size model even at 1/72.

Nice job! Those seatbelts look amazing!

Looking great, nice job! I have some of that Gator's Glue but tried using it to glue tiny hairlike PE on a 1/700 destroyer. Wasn't too successful, but maybe I need a little more practice. One nice thing about it is that you can use a wet brush to remove any excess paint. That did work for me pretty well.

Look at some of the very detailed construction manuals like the one Chuck did for the MS Confederacy. Probably one of the best resources for folks fairly new to the hobby.

Nice haul Denis, you must have been a good boy this year! I love that red and white scheme - I have one of the Wingnut kits with decals for that scheme (I think the Pfalz D.IIIa) and have been eyeing that scheme for it. Really sweet looking!

Awesome subject, I'm in for this one! Make some room guys!

Ha, you beat me to it!

I jumped from the Caldercraft Badger to the Amati/Victory Models Pegasus as my second build. It's a fantastic, well made kit with great wood and other materials. The Swan Class were really beautiful ships, and there are a number of logs here to help if you get stuck -- and then of course there is series of The Fully Framed Model books that can help if you want to kit bash and add additional details.

Thanks Dan, that came out so well! That's exactly the kind of look that I think looks very realistic. Nice job! Very similar effect to when people use the oil paint dot technique, where they will add all sorts of colors - reds, blues, greens, browns, oranges, etc. When thinned and spread and mixed with the other oil colors, you get very subtle variations just like you have in your Spitfire.

What got me thinking about doing the black basing and mottling is the colors, and in particular the white, as well as the fact that there are only two colors. Seems that it would be better to try the overlay of various colors from black up to white to break up two solid masses of color beyond highlighting the panel lines.

Thanks guys, really appreciate it. I think the black basing with the light mottles gives that non-uniform look as in reality where light is hitting the plane from different angles. Otherwise, to me it seems a little more "plastic" (for lack of a better word) if you just paint the model a single color and then try to add panel lines and weathering effects. Another technique I've seen some do is to add tiny dots of oil paints in different colors to the model, and then with thinner, brush them across the model. That also seems to break up the color and make it more uniform. I have to say that it's been a big learning experience on the artistry side on painting models. I was somewhat familiar with shading and highlighting but all this other stuff has been really eye opening. Not sure I fully get all the techniques, but they are something I want to experiment with and bring over to wooden ship models when I get the hang of them.

I came across this the other day - really cool!