Landlubber Mike

I've made some more progress on the Wildcat the last few evenings. Would go a lot quicker if I didn't have to back to repair things that I broke 🤯 Case in point, as I seem to do on every plane build, I broke the tail wheel off. Since I'm almost to the point of painting, I figured now was as good a time as any to put it back on so this time it's attached to the fuselage via a brass rod and 2-part epoxy. I'm sure I'll find a way to break it off again. I also had to replace the radio antenna. The kit part is only attached via a small nub into a tiny hole in the top of the fuselage. I attached it a couple of weeks ago promising myself to handle the kit gently, but of course a few days ago I reached for the kit without paying attention and snapped it off. Was too thin to pin, so I opened the hole up and built a new one out of plastic strip. The new part extends well into the fuselage and is glued in with 2-part epoxy, so hopefully I shouldn't have any problems snapping this one off. Of course, I had spent a good hour working on the first piece, test fit it into the fuselage, and put it down to get the glue ready and look forward to going to bed. As I put it down, the part slid down into the fuselage, doh! 🤬 I couldn't go to sleep on that note, so I rebuilt another one and this time, added a little blob of poster putty to the end so the same thing wouldn't happen. So, along with some minor putty work, here is where things are on the fuselage. I spent some time with the Wolfpack resin wings. After cleaning them up, I decided to remove the flaps so I could re-position them. Apparently the flaps tended to open "up"/"out" when the wings are folded, so I'll glue them into that position. One of the flaps came out a little thin, so in the picture you see that I added a thin strip of plastic sheet to the top that I'll shape into the right size. The auction included a Taurus vacu-formed canopy. After some research on how to release it from the mold, I managed to get it out (though the two rear corners would have to be glued back) and sanded it back to shape. I was planning to model it with the cockpit open, but the Taurus piece doesn't seem to be molded in a way with a thick enough frame to cut into two frames for the windscreen and the rear piece (hope that makes sense). So, I figured I would play around with it for practice given that these replacement canopies seem to be popular aftermarket for planes. In the end, the canopy doesn't really seem to fit correctly anyway (seems to be slightly taller/wider) so good practice I suppose.

Beautiful work Dan, love the subject and your work. Was the engine aftermarket? It looks incredible, especially how you finished it. I think I'm going to go hang up my airbrush and sell my kits. The skill level out there is so high.

Fantastic work, just wow! Looks amazing!

Good to know OC. I'll put them on the list

I usually start with Scalemates and then go from there. It's not fully complete but pretty close. Sometimes it's worth scrolling down to the bottom of the page where people post their active/potential builds and the aftermarket they are going to use. You can find a few gems there that might not show up in the list of aftermarket under the kits. After that, I usually just do a google search that takes me to review sites and build sites to see examples and reviews of the kits and aftermarket. OC's Relish site also looks pretty good! One thing you'll find is that getting a "complete" aftermarket package for some kits can end up costing more than the kit itself! What I have tended to do is look on eBay for kit packages that include a bunch of aftermarket. Much more cost effective that way, though obviously you have to wait for the auction you want and win it. I'll give you an example - I bought my current F4F-4 Wildcat kit off of eBay which had the Aires full detail set and a couple of other upgrades for about $50 with shipping (from Greece of all places). The Aires detail set alone I've seen retail for $60-80. I ended up adding the Wolfpack wing fold and the Eduard PE set separately. Another good thing about buying a kit with extras on eBay is that someone else has already taken the time (and money) to cobble together the various aftermarket. It can be a little frustrating starting fresh and trying to source the AM you want as sellers generally don't carry all aftermarket brands. In addition, it seems that putting aside big operations like Eduard, a lot of the good AM outfits tend to be small and don't seem to last very long in the business. So sometimes it can be hard to find a particular AM set that has been discontinued. A couple of good places to find kits and aftermarket are Sprue Brothers and Kitlinx. Sign up for the emails as they run periodic sales that can be well worth it. There are some good sellers on eBay too who have some of the harder to find AM. One other point to make is that a lot of the AM marketplace is filled by third parties. Sometimes the parts fit well, other times less so. I've had to do a lot of work to make the Aires set fit in my Wildcat build and it can get frustrating. If you don't want to have to fuss with ill-fitting AM, maybe consider looking at Eduard kits. Their newer kits apparently are great and they are adding lots of customization packages with their Brassin, Lookit, etc. lines (and packages like their Royal Class and limited edition roll outs). Given that it's all in-house, my guess is that fit issues are minimal to none. I've got a few of their kits in the stash that I'm itching to do when I get a little more experienced, and the detail packages offered are really cool. I have to say that all and all, it's fun being able to customize a plane kit to the way you want to build it. Do you want to show off the cockpit? Show off the engine? Make a diorama setting? Very cool stuff. On the ship side, the aftermarket seems to be generally more geared toward improving the scale details beyond the limitations of plastic parts, and also to add neat things like wooden decks, figures, deck accessories, etc. There seems to be less AM when it comes to car kits, but there are detail PE sets from folks like Model Car Garage, resin suppliers for "corrected" bodies, wheels, or other parts. Sorry, that's probably a lot more than you wanted to know - two cups of coffee this morning Hope that helps!

Thanks OC, have you used them? They look pretty nice and I see they make water for ship dioramas too. I'm not sure if they are paper? The Verlinden carrier deck arrived yesterday and it's a printed piece of paper that I guess you glue down to a base. Not bad, but no depth, etc. I might use it for my F3Fs though the "wood" is natural colored and I'm now learning that carrier decks were painted/stained blue at some point. The True Details one looks to be resin so it's more three dimensional. You have to paint it though. That looks pretty cool - looks like another good option. I ordered the Tom's Model Works PE tie downs so I'll report when those come in.

Thanks - we shall see how the model turns out first before deciding whether I build the base. Don’t want to get ahead of myself here!

Thanks man, this has been a learning experience for sure. The Aires set looks good but it’s not plug and play. There’s a lot of massaging to get it all to work together. With all the aftermarket, about half of the original kit will remain I think. That being said, this is a really nice, well designed kit and one can certainly build a great looking Wildcat out of the box.

Bob many thanks, incredibly helpful! And that deck looks amazing - fantastic job! Really appreciate the tips.

Whatever it is, the effect is perfect 👍

Thank you so much - really appreciate sharing all your knowledge and know-how! I’m going to see what the Verlinden is like and compare it to the True Details piece. I’ll probably use those first and then try to scratch build my own carrier decks using the Tom’s Model Works PE. Might be fun to put together some small diorama pieces. At the very least, would give the model a little extra protection.

Here's a couple of questions for you guys: 1. The auction for this Wildcat kit included not only the Aires detail set, but also a Taurus cockpit: This is probably a dumb question, but I assume I need to carefully cut it out of the mold - seems like it could be tricky without a very sharp blade as any bending of the piece will lead to some sort of crazing effect on the glass. Any tips on how to do this? Also, the kit includes the cockpit in two sections so you can open it up. This includes the cockpit as a single piece, so I'm assuming this means if I used it I would be stuck with a closed cockpit? Even if I cut it into two, the end frames would be too thin to include on the model. Maybe I'm missing something? I was planning on displaying the cockpit open since the cockpit didn't come out too badly, so maybe I just end up practicing on this one. 2. Has anyone made a WWII US carrier deck for diorama purposes? I bought a Verlinden one that is supposed to arrive this week and a True Details one that looks ok. I did notice that Tom's Model Works sells a PE set for the tie-downs (#215): Has anyone used these before? If so, do these tie downs sit flush with the wood deck around them? Any color difference between these and the surrounding wood? I believe these were metal, but just trying to think about how one would lay these into wooden deck. Thanks in advance!

Thanks Ken, that is a good idea. I've seen people free hand scribe panels, and while I have steady hands, seems like a recipe for disaster on a round area like the belly. Thanks man, really appreciate it. I'm hoping to make some substantial progress on my outstanding builds over the next few weeks with lots of vacation time planned, etc. I did spend a bunch of time these last few weeks thinking about dioramas and picking up diorama figures and other accessories where I could find good deals, as well as taking inventory of my stash and re-arranging/re-locating boxes so that I didn't end up with crushed boxes. So, I suppose that's model related

Hello everyone, hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving (for those in the US or that have similar holidays). With the holidays, various home projects, etc., I haven't made as much progress on the Wildcat as I've hoped, but I did cross a couple of big thresholds. The lower tub is now glued into the fuselage. Took some slight modifications to help get everything to fit correctly as there are multiple parts with the deflector plate, the PE open panel parts, etc., and I decided to use 2-part epoxy to make sure it all holds together. Big relief that I'm passed that stage. As you can see, I added a few wires in the open engine mount area, and opened up the fuselage panel at the top of the nose which leads to the oil tank. Last night I glued the wing stubs from the Wolfpack set also using 2-part epoxy. They went on fairly easily, which just some slight sanding to help get them to sit correctly. Looks ugly, but hopefully things will smooth over after filled and painted. I've got a tiny amount of filler to use, but so far everything is generally fitting together fairly well. I do have an issue with the underbelly where the tub and the fuselage didn't exactly line up too well, so I'll have to sand it down, rescribe the panel line, and add rivets. Will be a first for me, and hopefully it looks ok given that this kit has raised panel lines. Oh, and I broke (1) one of the landing gear legs, (2) the tail wheel, and (3) the antenna rod on the top of the fuselage. Ugh. For next steps, I need to clean things up in preparation for painting. I might try out black basing, though again, that will be new for me. What will be tricky on the painting is whether to add the engine and cowl so that the paint lines are smooth across the model and with a consistent color (on the flip side, there will be some tricky masking with the open panels). Of course the folded wing sections have to be worked in somehow as well to keep a consistent shade. Thanks for looking in!

Beautiful work Dan! No critique here except I hope that I can someday paint a camo scheme half as well as you can!

Very cool! I'm in for this one.

Looks fantastic. I agree with Egilman. Great work!!

Sorry to hear Chris, but sounds like this was the right decision. This is supposed to be a fun hobby. I terminated a wooden ship build and was disappointed in doing so, but either it or myself was going to be thrown out the window so better to just leave it where it stood.

Awesome, I'm in! I saw a Ford Galaxy in an episode of Counting Cars. Really sharp looking car - understated powerful look.

Beautiful job as always Craig. Very sharp paint job, well done! I see you have lots more room on the shelves for your "car garage" - glad to see you started a new one! Can I ask a question? Did you do anything to the door and trunk lines? They look darker/shaded perfectly. Wondering how you achieved that effect. I've been hemming and hawing on my CV2 on what to do, if anything, there and my build pretty much stalled.

Nice choice Kevin, I'm in for this one! I like the bottom one as something a little more unique but certainly more challenging. The top one is definitely a nice look as well.

Sorry, didn't catch that you were using oils either. I've never used oils so disregard what I said

Awesome! Excited to see this starting. Those Kraken upgrade sets look fantastic. Along with the very nice crispness and detail, I like the fact that they directly replace the kit parts, rather than have you remove sections of a part and replace with PE, etc. Much cleaner and less fuss that way. Could the issue be that the paints are thinned a bit too much? I see what you mean about the camo pattern being tricky, but if it were me, I think I would try to mask and airbrush -- but that's mostly because I suck at hand brushing. I'm certainly nowhere near as experienced or skilled as you, so take my thoughts for what you paid for them. But, if I was going to mask, I could see going one of two ways. First way would be to draw the camo lines in pencil on the hull, add a thin masking tape like Tamiya over the section, trace the outline onto the tape, remove the tape, cut the outline, and then add the tape back. That would be two tape lifts before the final stick on the hull, so that might be pushing things when it comes to getting the tape to tightly fit to the hull. Another approach might be to again draw the lines in camo, then use a liquid mask. I haven't tried liquid masks yet, but from what I've seen, they seem to work nicely when lines are irregular. Again, just how I would think about approaching the camo. Good luck - this is going to be a fantastic build (and an educational log to follow!), so I'm happy to see you started.

Looking great Popeye, you're on the home stretch! Nice work!

Ha! For some reason she seemed somewhat supportive of the idea - or at least didn't hit me with a frying pan or anything.