Landlubber Mike

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!

Tom, no worries at all and many thanks for the kind words. I had a really hard time choosing the color scheme myself as these planes came in all different colors, including white, black, green, yellow, etc. Some had the full cowl painted like the ones I did, others had only half the cowl painted. I'd probably still be trying to decide if I had only one kit in the stash Great start on the Vaporetto by the way. Looking forward to watching you progress on that one!

Great start Tom! And love the organized work space!

Yves, this is absolutely incredible work. Just caught up on your log and I'm just completely astounded. I would have given a thumbs up to every one of your posts, but I didn't want to blow up your notifications box Nice job! For flags, you can also see if you can find a cloth/vinyl flag. They are easy to fold and add PVA to hold the creases in place. I've seen some take aluminum foil and paint it but my guess is the flag is too complicated in design to do that.

Incredible work as always! Very nice job, thanks for sharing with us.

Hello! A warm welcome to the forum from across the Potomac!

Absolutely beautiful! Very nice job!

Looking great Greg, another masterpiece in the works. I'll also echo what others said - that catapult is absolutely amazing, very nicely done.

Looking really good OC. Nice to see it with some teeth in

Very cool! I have their wherry model kit, and saw that they also had these 1:1 kits. Looking forward to watching it come together! Probably can't build it on the kitchen table, eh?

Very nice job - especially given that scale! Thanks for sharing with us.

I'm in on this one! Agree with Egilman - so impressive that one can pull off these models with all the intricate curves using card as opposed to pre-formed plastic. Looking forward to following along!

Thanks Ken, really appreciate the tips. I did just pick up that JLC one from UMM along with the mini miter box. They look great, and I think will help a lot with the resin. Can never have too many tools

Here’s a question - some of the resin parts are on fairly big plugs that are bigger than a quarter in size and a good 5-10mm in depth. Any recommendations on how to remove the plug? I bought a micro razor saw and was thinking of using it to cut as much as I can off, and using a rotary tool and/or sanding blocks to remove the rest. I read that resin dust is harmful (but really, what dust isn’t?), So just want to do things as easily and safely as possible.