Landlubber Mike

It amazes me that they did all this back then without computers. Like figuring out the firing rate where guns located in the cowl itself and had to be timed to not hit the propeller. Real ingenuity!

I have always loved the wings on these planes. They make the plane look ready for business. Nice job!

Thank you guys, really appreciate all the help! I have to say, building with these detail sets makes one learn more of the inner components and workings of these planes which is really interesting (at least to me). Certainly there's a lot to learn about the exterior, but learning about the inner guts and seeing the development over time across models has been fun.

Thanks guys! Mark, yeah that's not a bad idea to show a gun separately. Frankly, the resin bay and guns are a bit underwhelming. I have some of the Eduard resin upgrade sets for other models and the guns and bays look much more crisp. In addition, I'd have to modify the bays as well - the F4F-4 had three guns per wing, and the FM-1 only had two. So, I'd have to reduce the Aires resin bays as well as carve out an area in the solid resin wing from Wolfpack. Speaking of the Wolfpack FM-1 set, the wing panel lines over the gun bays are properly reduced to cover a bay with only two guns. Nice to see that they were accurate in this respect.

Lou (and Popeye), many thanks for that info! Makes a lot of sense on the mechanics of everything. And Lou, I believe you are correct that the pictures I show of the model above are of the F6F - good eye! It was the clearest picture I pulled to show what the PE cowl framing looks like. On the gun bays, here are a couple of pictures of a model that included them open with the wings folded. It's the Tamiya F4F-4 kit with the Aires super detail set: I guess it doesn't bother me too much if it's not technically correct that the gun bays would be open. At the same time, it wouldn't bother me too much not to include them. The Aires set has the gun bays as drop in resin parts - but since the kit wings come in two halves with a gap in between, you're not doing too much surgery, just cutting through the plastic on the top wing. The Wolfpack wings are one piece and solid resin though, so I'd pretty much have to hollow out a chunk of the wing to fit in the gun bay. Probably not too difficult, but certainly would take some work.

OC - good point! Tamiya says the inside of the cowl is white, so maybe the outer face of that bulkhead should be the same.

Thanks, appreciate the kind words! If you guys don't mind, I had some questions I was hoping you could help me with. 1. I'm not sure what you call the ring on which the engine is mounted (see below), but does anyone know or have any recommendations as to what color it should be? The inner side facing the firewall is white I believe, but I'm thinking the outer facing side should be some kind of metallic color. 2. The Aires set has you cut out panels in the cowl and replace them with PE and resin parts. I started doing that here: I cut out the panels along the kit part's panel lines. The Aires PE part doesn't seem to fit though. I'm wondering how it's supposed to attach. In the picture above, it looks like these PE parts are supposed to be sort of an under frame onto which the actual panels would be riveted onto. If so, should I glue it into the cowl from the inside? And if I do so, should I thin down the cowl from the inside to accept the PE so that it fits flush with the rest of the cowl? The kit plastic seems fairly thick, and possibly thicker than what a fuselage panel would be. I worry if I just glued the PE directly from the inside without thinning that the kit plastic would look too thick. 3. I plan on displaying this model with the wings folded. The Aires detail set has gun bay detail parts so you can open up the gun bays on the model. Would the gun bays ever be open on a plane if the wings were folded? I've seen folks do that on various models, but wasn't sure if that was technically accurate. Many thanks in advance!

Thanks everyone for the kind words! I've made some progress over the last couple of weeks. The kit is fairly simple (but very nicely done) and my guess is one can put it together in about a week as Joe mentioned. The Aires set is probably going to double the time building this kit, at least for me. I'm still fairly new to plastic models, and this is my first super detail set that I've worked with. Engine Here's where I am with the engine. I calculated that there were 90 individual pieces when all was said and done, including the resin detail parts and the individual rods that you had to cut and add (I used thin plastic rod) Thankfully the Aires set includes a PE ring containing all the ignition wires that made things fairly easy. At this point, I painted with Vallejo Metal Color Duralinum, and added a black wash. Still need to paint the ignition wires, rods, and center cap, add a little grime and highlights, etc., but I think the engine is looking fairly nice. Cockpit The cockpit components from the Aires set are really nice when it comes to detail. Here are some of the pieces after painting and washes: Warning! The fit of the cockpit set is terrible! Apparently others have had similar complaints, so this is not my typical case of user error. The instructions essentially have you build the full cockpit, then insert the consolidated cockpit into the fuselage. The parts fit together cleanly outside the fuselage, but when you try to fit everything in, you run into bad fit problems. The tub fits perfectly fine, but the side panels and frame for the seat are off. Am definitely glad I test fitted things in advance or I would have been in for a nasty surprise. Instead of assembling the cockpit completely and popping it into the fuselage, I'm essentially modifying and gluing things like the side panels, seat frame, and instrument panel separately into the top half of the fuselage, then will pop the tub into the bottom half. A little frustrating in that this stage has taken hours but I think I have a plan forward. Bottom of fuselage/firewall/engine mount area Between the Aires set and the Wolfpack wing fold conversion, there won't be much left of the original kit. First, here is what the kit provides for the bottom of the fuselage and wings: This is what you end up with (with the Aires firewall and landing gear support included). The wings come off to add the Wolfpack wings, and the front of the fuselage where the engine mount comes off for the Aires details. The Aires instructions leave a lot to be desired. For example, they suggest that this section of the build comes after the cockpit, but for a variety of reasons, especially with the poor fit of the cockpit parts, I think it's better to nail this section down first before installing the cockpit. Speaking of fit, the firewall doesn't fit very well - it's got two winged tabs on either side that make it too wide to fit into the fuselage without surgery to the fuselage. Since those pieces aren't going to be seen, I just went ahead and removed them. I still have to include the framing and fuel tank pieces, but I think I've finally worked out a plan on how all these parts fit together and things are coming along. For colors, I understand that the interior fuselage was painted Interior Green from the firewall back, and "white" from the firewall forward. I'm using Vallejo US Light Green for the green sections. Rather than use "white" I'm using Vallejo gray primer which actually comes out like an off white with a grayish hue. I think that would be a better base than white, I can detail with washes and white highlights as need be. Landing Gear Tamiya has you essentially assemble the landing gear as one piece that is added later in the build. Aires does it a little differently, with the bottom frame already attached to the firewall, and the top halves of the landing gear legs assembled against the firewall early in the construction. So, I needed to cut off the top halves of the kit parts, and drill holes into the tops to accept the Aires parts. Wasn't too bad, but the Aires instructions don't make any mention of this. I should say that while I've been critical of the Aires detail set, it's quite nice aside from the fit issues and fairly rudimentary instructions. The parts are very crisp and the resin used is pretty robust. I read a build log where someone used the KMC resin cockpit set for this kit and the resin was so fragile, the parts were crumbling during assembly. Not the case here, though you certainly need to be careful. I'm not sure if Aires offers this set anymore, but it does pop up on eBay here and there.

Thanks Joe, really appreciate it!

When I was working on the Corel Unicorn, I was considering converting it to the Lyme which had add an extra gun port per the NMM plans. To line the gun ports, the kit included brass rings. I was short one ring on each side so asked Corel if I could purchase an extra pair. I received an immediate response and received the extra rings (I believe they gave me a full set) at no charge. I was incredibly touched by their kindness and service, so highly recommend them.

Completely understand Mark! We'll be hear to share the next steps with you.

Really beautiful work Greg. You're a master at laying down colors for complex, yet subtle effects.

Super cool! Lot of nice detail in your skilled hands.

Wow, very nice job man!

I'm in for the ride on this one - great start on a great subject OC!

What a beautiful subject! Nice job James! I like seeing how there's all that extra support for the decking. That's going to be a very sturdy model.

Been slowly making progress on the Wildcat. I'd probably be halfway done with the build by now with the time I've spent if I was building this out of the box, but the Aires resin set is adding a ton of time. A bunch of time was spent taking the parts off the plugs (and some of the plugs are fairly thick and hard) and repairing some of the parts that had cracked. I'm not exactly sure why, but sometimes the CA grabs immediately, and other times, it just doesn't want to bond resin together at all. Also, the instructions are pretty sparse, and being not all that familiar with things like the engine, engine mounts, firewalls, etc., I've been spending more time looking online to figure out how things are supposed to work. But, it's been a fun learning experience. Cockpit The cockpit is going together ok so far. I painted the interior using Vallejo US Light Green, which is supposed to match "Interior Green" (ANA611). Apparently there were all types of greens and other colors used during this period. If you're interested in three pages of well-done research on the topic of interior colors of WWII US aircraft, here is a good place to go: http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2004/01/stuff_eng_interior_colours_us.htm I added some of the cockpit PE details from the Eduard set - the nice thing about the PE set is that it is colored. I need to touch up and add a little highlighting and shading, but so far is looking ok color wise. Where I'm having issues is with the fit, however. The tub fits nicely, but the rest of the cockpit definitely is not plug and play! The seat, for example, seems a little too big so I might try seeing if the Eduard PE seat is a better match. The bigger issue is getting the side panels to fit properly inside the interior. They keep pushing up above the canopy line, so I might need to do a little surgery. Others seem to have the same issue so it's good to know it's not user error. Firewall The firewall is a lot more detailed than the kit plastic, but is 2mm wider at the horizontal line where those tabs are sticking out along the sides (well, one of the tabs snapped off). Not exactly sure what was intended with them, but I'll probably have to cut them off to get the firewall to fit properly. Next to it you can see the kit part. I ended up assembling the framing to it because I couldn't for the life of me figure out from the instructions how the resin framing and other components were supposed to fit. If anyone is building a Wildcat, I highly recommend this build log - the modeler put together a fantastic step by step tutorial on what he did, including the research he collected, when building the 1/32 Trumpeter kit: https://www.largescaleplanes.com/articles/article.php?aid=774 From his log, you can see how the firewall, framing, and engine all fit together. Good example of how a picture is worth 1000 words! Engine Been slowly working on the engine too. There's probably 50+ parts when all is said and done. I stopped here because I couldn't figure out from the kit instructions which way the cylinders (think that's what they are) are supposed to face. Life Raft The Aires detail set has a lot of open panels to show off things like the engine, interior framing, and the life raft. This went in fairly easily. Had to cut the section out of the fuselage, then it was a matter of cutting and sanding back the base of the resin part so that it could slide up into area. A bit of CA and filler, and everything is looking good.

OC - masterful job of a beautiful subject! Congratulations on a fantastic build!

Nice work Kevin!

Looks fantastic OC! Glad the modeling gods were with you on the drop. 🧐

Thanks Lou for the support and the info. I’ve actually put in a few hours into the model over the past couple of days, but not much to show for it. 😑 The instructions for the Aires detail set would be a lot better if the diagrams more clearly shower where the parts are supposed to intersect. I think I’ve somewhat figured out how the cockpit goes together but it’s been a lot of test fitting. I’ve also had the added complication of figuring out whether (and how) to add the Eduard PE. It’s one of their color sets, which have a ton of detail, so I spent some time today scraping off some details on the Aires resin for the crisper Eduard PE. Good news is that the Aires set fits very well. I came across a build log for a Wildcat that used a KMC resin cockpit and the builder was frustrated with how fragile the resin was. Not the case with the Aires set. Interestingly, I saw that Aires has what looks like a plastic detail set for both the cockpit and engine (like their Quickboost line). Maybe Aires moved on from resin to plastic? I saw on Aires’ site that the resin set seems to no longer be offered.

Thinning sounds like a good idea. I've been mostly using Vallejo, which you can shoot straight from the bottle. I've found, however, that some of their products (like the Metal Varnish) greatly improve with a little Vallejo thinner added. Some of their primers are a bit thick too, so I might try thinning them a tad as well. In any event, now that I'm a little more familiar with various paints and the airbrush, I'll probably resort to thinning even Vallejo.

Thanks Popeye! I'll post pictures when I get to the stage, but the wingfold set makes things fairly easy. The kit has the bottom of the fuselage and the lower half of the wings as one set. You first cut the wings off that part. Then, the kit provides you with replacement wings that are in two pieces - the base stub that fits against the fuselage (and doesn't fold), and then the remaining part of the wing that's folded. So, probably a little less surgery than otherwise would be necessary if you were planning to use the kit parts to make the wing fold.

Thanks very much! I've read similar tips, as well as spraying a bit of clear coat to seal the edge. My guess is you have to be careful as you say not to spray too much and get a raised edge. One thing I personally need to be better about is spraying multiple thin coats rather than try to get the paint down in one go because I've gotten raised edges from putting too much paint down. Better to spray a light coat, and then come back if you need it. In the long run, saves much more time over having to fix raised lines, bleeding, etc.

Glad to hear you're coming along Lou - hopefully the dust settles sooner rather than later. Hang in there my friend!