ccoyle

I see several other members have beaten me to the recommendation about the cannon. They are not period-correct. Amati's off-the-shelf swivel guns are not great, either.

Fairings, fairings, fairings . . . First we have a couple of the flat parts, a bunch of partially shaped ones, and the scribing tool I used to help shape them. Did you know that a Wildcat has eighteen underwing fairings in five different sizes? 😑

I strongly suspect that the rigging is not original to the model. Decorator models typically have rigging that is as fanciful as the rest of the piece. It looks to me like a previous owner re-rigged it and tried to make it somewhat more reflective of actual practice, although it is apparent that certain aspects of the model hindered his efforts, as can be seen, for example, with the stays at the mast tops.

Very nice, but a finished model should go in the gallery.

Lovely result! The lights look fantastic.

Well done! Congratulations!

That's coming along very nicely, Andrew! If it turns out that you are, in fact, short three benches, scratch-building some replacements should be relatively easy.

Moin, moin! Welcome to MSW! I look forward to seeing some of your projects. Cheers!

Outstanding -- a great improvement over the kit parts!

I see a Tamiya Matilda Mk. III on your shelf -- built one when I was a kid.

Looking very good!

I remember reading about von Werra when I was a kid.

Fabulous!

Much cheaper to acquire than either plastic or wood, but far less water-resistant. 😏 Like most modeling media, card has a learning curve, and the masters of it are very, very good. I am not a master. Here's Halinski's Mk.V kit built by someone who knew what they were doing:

Very nice work! Great improvements to the basic kit, too.

Hey, I have that same aircraft waiting on my shelf, too! Except mine is the Halinski card version. 😉

Very nice result! Congratulations!

A small amount of progress today. Further work on the gear: While waiting for these to dry, I decided to work on the numerous fairings and other bits on the lower wing surfaces, starting with two large intakes. IMO, these are over-engineered and result in no significant gain in either sturdiness or ease of construction. The Halinski Wildcat uses a mere three parts to make each of these structures; the WAK kit uses SEVEN -- three separate outer skins plus four internal frames. Despite their apparent simplicity, these were no cakewalk to make, and I'm not completely happy with how they turned out. Cheers!

Welcome to MSW, Dave!

So, if you remember your F4Fs well, then you'll recall that the Wildcat had a shockingly complicated (and manually retractable!) landing gear. Here's where we get to see that a 'card' model typically includes media other than card -- wire and styrene rod in this case. First we have the bits that go inside the gear bay, twelve pieces in all. And then we have to start building the complex struts themselves. Like most all card kits, this one includes templates for making the various wire or styrene pieces -- they're just not usually this labor-intensive. So far I'm pleased with how these are turning out. BTW, I'm not showing you the finished cowling scoop. The poor Wildcat's nose really is a weakness in this kit. 😑

I don't wish to derail this topic and turn it into another endless "everybody's VM wish list" discussion, but I will make the following general observations: (1) While there may not be a kit of Susan Constant available, there is already a decent number of kits for small galleons (or similar) on the market. (2) If you do ever decide to go non-UK, bear in mind that US East Coast types are already well-represented by Model Shipways, BlueJacket, and Wye River Models. (3) On the other hand, there is nearly a complete lack of US West Coast types on the market.

I agree! That's a superb result, especially for a first effort.

I'll build another one and put it on an engine stand next to the finished bird. Ha ha -- not! 😂

Super-Hobby is actually an internet store with its home base in Poland. It's the same kit (see post #1 in this topic). Well, thank you, I'm flattered! But I'm also realistic -- I'm no match for the kit's beta builder. I'd like to get there someday, but I don't know that I ever will. It's difficult to learn the secrets of the masters when all of them live in Poland and are mainly active on the various Polish-language forums. Cheers!

Last night I finished the cowling and mounted both it and the engine to the fuselage. When it comes to cowlings, card model designers have two options. By far the more common option is to make the cowling from a series of rings, like those seen here for my earlier F6F build: The other and thankfully less common option is to design the cowling as what's called a "petal structure" in the hobby, i.e., the cowling is a single strip (or two strips in this case -- an inner one plus an outer one) from which a series of tapered darts is removed, creating a row of 'petals'. The petals are then rolled to bring their tips together, creating the rounded cowling. I absolutely, positively despise petal structures. In the first place, they are an absolute nightmare to shape properly. I don't know how the Poles do it, but I'm far from mastering the technique. In addition, and for obvious reasons, a petal structure has a large number of seams -- sixteen in this instance. Lastly, it is very difficult, for me at least, to judge whether I have achieved the correct amount of 'roll'. The roll is largely determined by the petal shape -- you simply roll them until the edges come together -- but there's still a certain amount of leeway between getting it just right and almost right. Happily, the whole thing does not look as bad in real life as this unflattering close-up makes it appear. Still to be added is the air scoop that sits atop the cowling. The dash-four had two additional scoops inside the cowling at roughly the four and eight o'clock positions, as you can see in this photo: The kit makes no provision for the inside scoops, so I'll have to give some thought to whether to add them. Anyways, that's where we're at for now.