Grumman F3F-1 and F3F-2 by Landlubber Mike - FINISHED - Accurate Miniatures - 1/48 - PLASTIC - with aftermarket

[CDW]

We all have a long way to go, Mike. The journey is the fun of it. 🙂

You are doing just great!

[Egilman]

1 hour ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Thanks for the kind words!  I feel like I still have a long way to go up the learning curve, but have greatly benefited from folks like you and others here who have graciously posted your tips and experiences and have answered my many questions.  I couldn’t thank you all enough.

That's what we are here for brother... to ask and answer....  the pleasure comes from watching models come alive like this pair of birds...

 

Nice BMF job as well, it fits the scale.... And yes get some nice dry nitrile gloves.....  don't want no finger oils discoloring or taking the finish off.....

 

Coming along nicely......

[lmagna]

On 8/18/2020 at 9:11 AM, Landlubber Mike said:

folks like you and others here who have graciously posted your tips and experiences and have answered my many questions

No tips or much experience to offer but I do know how to look, and from what I see your planes are turning out nice Mike. 

[Landlubber Mike]

Made some additional progress with the F3Fs the past few days.  Had some fit issues with the cowl for the F3F-2, but managed to get it on ok.  Cowl for the F3F-1 is going to need the red re-done.  Some of the aluminum color had run under the masking, and no matter how many coats of red I've added on top of it (even trying to add primer) it's a bit dark in that area.  Probably would be ok if I weather, but I'm going to keep the weathering to a minimum given that these didn't see combat and likely were kept in fairly nice condition (plus, the colors on these are just too vibrant to darken too much).  So, I'm just going to start over on the red section, using Mr. Surfacer, then a coat of Tamiya white primer, then the Vallejo red.  Otherwise, everything so far is going ok:

 

 

I think I mentioned earlier that I tried painting the US insignias using the Montex stencils.  Decals would have been a lot easier, as paint ran a bit under the various stencils.  Have been spending quite a bit of time trying to touch them up.  They aren't perfect, but they came out fairly nicely I think:

 

 

I think I'm going to apply the decals and weathering directly, and not add a coat of Future.  I don't want to dull the metallic colors too much by adding multiple clear coats.  We'll see how that goes.  After, I'll use Vallejo's metal varnish to seal things.

 

Thanks for looking in!

[Javlin]

Doing a Superb Job Mike looking very Nice Sir!

[Roger Pellett]

Fairly Nice is an understatement!  Your paint job looks great.

 

Your models really show how “fat” these Grumman planes were.  A design philosophy that apparently carried over to their Wildcat and Hellcat fighters.

 

I had a friend in college whose father was an executive with Grumman.  It turned out that prior to joining Grumman, his father had been the designer of the 1930’s air racer Gee Bee, the epitome of the short, fat radial engine powered aircraft, and supposedly very hard to fly.

 

I wonder to what extent he influenced the design of these planes.

 

Roger

 

 

[Edwardkenway]

Lovely BM paint work Mike.😁

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks for the kind compliments gentlemen, really appreciate it!  Roger, my dad worked for Grumman for a stretch in the 80s-90s if I recall correctly.  I remember there was a corporate picnic one summer when I was a kid and we got to see planes like E2-C Hawkeye and the F-14 Tomcat.  I forget if they had older planes like the F3F out as well.  Back then I was more interested in modern fighters like the F-14 bristling with Phoenix, Sidewinder, Sparrow missiles, bombs, etc.  Nowadays I find the older aircraft absolutely fascinating.  Cool to see all the quirky designs in the WWI era, refined into the WWII era.  And big props to the pilots and gunners of aircraft during this period!  

 

I've had some time the last couple of days and made some additional progress on the F3F-1.  Got the decals on the fuselage (love Felix the Cat!), and just need to add the pinstripe to the cowl when the cowl is repainted (as well as some detail decals to the propeller).  I was originally going to go with a 6-F-1 designation from the Yellow Wings decals set, but the decals were slightly wider than the belly band I had painted.  So, I just went with the kit's 3-F-1 decals instead.  I had already added the numbering decal to the tail, so had to remove it and add the matching decal for the 3-F-1.  Who knows if anyone would have realized the numbers were a mismatch, but it probably would have bothered me.  Decal came off pretty easily with Micro Set, so all is good.  The white pinstripes around the belly band were a pain because of the curves in the fuselage, but I think I got it to lay down properly.  I'll need to do a little touch ups but am pretty happy with how things look.

 

 

I also added the white border lines along the upper wing chevron.  The US insignia was painted using stencils - three sets of masks!  First to apply to white background, then the blue border around the white star, finally the red center.  After doing it to two sets of upper and lower wings, maybe I'll just go with the kit decals in the future, it's a lot of work - especially when you have to touch up things because paint got under the mask.  One nice lesson I learned in all of it is that Vallejo is easy to scratch off a Tamiya or Mr. Surfacer primer undercoat using a toothpick.  I had painted the wings with Mr. Surfacer grey, then Tamiya white primer.  The white primer served as the white for the insignia and base coat for the Tamiya Camel Yellow.  The blue and red for the insignia were Vallejo Arctic Blue and Red.  For whatever reason, the Vallejo leaked under the mask, and I was horrified.  Thankfully I was able to scratch most of it off, which has made it easier to touch up the white areas.

 

 

Exciting to see this come along and nearing completion.  Gets a little boring having bunches of pre-assembled, pre-painted parts sitting around.  Nice to start putting it all together and see the real thing.  I learned my lesson on my last kit of the 1/72 F4B-1 and P-6E, where I assembled, and then painted.  Lot less masking to pre-paint and then assemble!  What has helped is the really nice fit of this Accurate Miniatures kit - the tail and horizontal stabilizers fit like a glove with no gaps.  The stabilizer bars needed some work to get them to fit, but AM designed them with extra material so that you could customize the fit to your build.  Took some time, but much better than having the parts be too short leading to some nasty gaps.

[Old Collingwood]

Very nice work  - the detail in the Alum parts  and the contrast with the painted details  - first class work.

 

OC.

[G.L.]

Wonderful work, Mike.

I like very much the shape of those planes.

It is amazing how short their operational life in the Navy was, only three or four years. When I imagine that our Air force began to fly F16 in the eighties and they are still flying with now.

It is just like they would still be flying Spitfires at the time when I joined our Navy in 1975.

[MadDogMcQ]

Boy, I'm really enjoying these little beauts Mike! Excellent work. I love all things aviation and will surely purchase an aircraft model at some point. This all takes me back to my youth when I was a prolific (and very amateur) aircraft model builder.

 

Tom.

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks for all the kind words guys.  For my second pair of plane models, I am liking how they are coming out.  I've learned that painting reds and yellows are tricky, as they are very apt to be affected by any colors underneath.  I tried repainting the red cowl on the F3F-1, but it was just looking messier and messier, so yesterday I decided to strip off all the paint and start again 😤  So, once again used Mr. Surfacer 1200 rattle can primer (gray) for the base coat, followed by Tamiya white rattle can primer to give the red a nice base.  A few minutes ago I sprayed Vallejo Air red.  I'll give that 24 hours to dry, then tape and spray the black gloss primer followed by Vallejo Metal Air aluminum for the cowl's aluminum band.

 

For more positive news, after more hours of work than I would have expected, I added the decals to the F3F-2.  Am very happy with how this one is looking!  

 

 

This was a little more different in that I was going for a different plane than the stock one in the kit, which meant that the 7-F-7 and 1028 markings were all done using individual decals for each number/letter.  The kit's decal sheet includes lots of extra individual numbers and letters, which gives you lots of flexibility.  Interestingly, the F3F-2 did not have the grasshopper insignia in it, but the decal sheet for the F3F-1 had it.  The grasshopper decals in the Yellow Wings decal sets could have worked, but I liked the colors a little better on the kit sheet.  Also, rather than painting the US insignia on the front of the fuselage, I went ahead and used the kit decals.  Masking that area would have been a nightmare, and I didn't want to press my luck too much given that I had painted the insignias on the wings and they came out decent.  

 

Finally, the pin striping went on much easier than with the F3F-1.  Per the Micro Set instructions, I was brushing on Micro Set onto the model prior to adding the decal, and then added more Micro Set on top.  The Micro Set makes decals get soft quickly, which can be a problem when dealing with long thin decals like the pinstripes.  This time around I worked with water only, and then when the decal was positioned in the right place and a bit drier, I used Micro Set (in some cases, I followed up with Micro Sol when I was sure that the decal was set and positioned correctly).  That made adding and positioning the decals a lot easier.

 

Here are the two planes side by side.  I don't have the best lighting set up, but I would say that the aluminum fuselages are probably somewhere in between the two planes (maybe a touch darker than the F3F-1).  I'm liking the bright bodies, so I think I'll just add light applications of washes to the panel lines to add some depth and highlight things, and call it a day.

 

 

Thanks for looking in.  For those in the US, happy Labor Day weekend!

[Egilman]

1 hour ago, Landlubber Mike said:

This time around I worked with water only, and then when the decal was positioned in the right place and a bit drier, I used Micro Set (in some cases, I followed up with Micro Sol when I was sure that the decal was set and positioned correctly).  That made adding the and positioning the decals a lot easier.

This is pretty much my technique, I use the water they are soaked with to initially position, micro set for final positioning, and when that is completely dry, micro sol for locking them in place...

 

Beautiful job my friend they really look the business... like you say a bit of panel line highlighting (a small amount) and they will be stunning.....

 

Beautiful yellow birds.... Well done fuselage work.....

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks man, really appreciate the kind words!  These make for cool colorful little planes and the Accurate Miniatures kits for them are very well done.  I have some other US planes in the stash (WWII era) but the coloring is a bit more drab with just blues and grays.

 

Speaking of the other kits, I have the TBF-1 Avenger from Accurate Miniatures, SB2C-4 Helldiver from Pro Modeler, and the F4F-4 Wildcat from Tamiya (that I will like convert to a FM-1 Wildcat with a wing folding conversion set I found).  I picked them up off of eBay as packages with full aftermarket accessories, so that should be an interesting jump in building for me.  I was going to do the Helldiver next given that the box is very big and taking up a lot of stash space, but I’ll probably start the Wildcat next, given that the box is falling apart.

[Egilman]

4 minutes ago, Landlubber Mike said:

the F4F-4 Wildcat from Tamiya (that I will like convert to a FM-1 Wildcat with a wing folding conversion set I found)

Good deal!..

 

The F4F-4 IS an FM-1 the only difference being it was built at the Eastern Aircraft division of General Motors in Linden New Jersey.... (a mid war, late model F4F) the definitive example is in the NASM....

The Wildcat in the National Air and Space Museum, Navy Bureau of Aeronautics serial number 15392, is the four-hundredth FM-1 built by GM, it served for 13 months at the NAS, Norman Ok. when it was struck and put in storage. It was donated to the Museum in 1960.... A completely unaltered, in service, midwar, FM-1....

 

Can't beat a reference like that....

 

I'll tell ya right now I'm in..... Shame it can't be done correctly as a yellowbird, but it would be one step from it....

[Landlubber Mike]

I believe there were slight modifications to the guns and bomb racks, and possibly wing shapes.  I think I have the Wolfpack wing fold set for it.  Thanks for that picture, looks really cool!  The kit I won came with the mega detail Aires set which includes a super detailed resin engine, so I might leave some of the panels off to display the engine like the one in your picture.
 

A little more boring of a color scheme, but after the four yellow wings, I’m looking forward to working on something a little different.

[popeye the sailor]

superb job on these two Mike!     your progress is really nice.   they really bring me back to the monogram kits I built long ago........>I've seen them.............>temped to pick them up.  I noticed those tabs that need to be cut off the cabane struts.........did you use them to handle the fuselage halves?  super silvery finish   

[lmagna]

Great work Mike. They are really turning out nicely, and are showing the results of all the extra effort. Looking forward to more.

[Landlubber Mike]

2 hours ago, popeye the sailor said:

superb job on these two Mike!     your progress is really nice.   they really bring me back to the monogram kits I built long ago........>I've seen them.............>temped to pick them up.  I noticed those tabs that need to be cut off the cabane struts.........did you use them to handle the fuselage halves?  super silvery finish   

Thanks, really appreciate it!  I don't think that these are Accurate Miniature reboots of older Monogram kits (unlike the F4B-1 and P-6E boxed set I put together a couple of months ago).  Aside from the tricky landing gear assembly (that you have to turn three different ways to pop it in), the kit has been really great to build and I highly recommend it.  They pop up on eBay from time to time for reasonable prices.  I don't think the aftermarket is necessary, the kit is great on its own.  The Eduard PE set looks great when you're putting the cockpit together, but then you can barely see any of the details once in the fuselage.  

 

Those tabs do need to be cut off.  I've left them to help handle the models as you noted.  Keeping them on for now helps too in avoiding getting paint on that area in case I want to use plastic cement as opposed to CA (I might just use two-part epoxy to lock everything in).

27 minutes ago, lmagna said:

Great work Mike. They are really turning out nicely, and are showing the results of all the extra effort. Looking forward to more.

Thanks Lou, appreciate the kind words and you looking in.  I've pretty much got everything but the canopies painted up and ready to go, but ran into a bit of an issue with the cowl on the F3F-1, needing to strip off the paint and start over.  So far, the red has gone on nicely, and last night I taped and sprayed gloss black as the base for the aluminum section of the cowl.  Fingers crossed that the masking this time works!  I burnished the tape with a toothpick, sprayed a lighter coat of the black, and hung the part to dry with the tape side high so any extra paint hopefully will flow down by gravity and not under the tape (hopefully any potential capillary action is not stronger than gravity!).  I find the Vallejo gloss black primer takes a while to cure, so I'll give it at least a full 24 hours before spraying the aluminum.

 

In the meantime, I started work on the canopies.  I dipped them twice in Future, and started the taping process last night.  Not a fun part of the build!  The canopy parts are so small.  I have Montex and Eduard sets, but they seem to only fit the F3F-1 (the F3F-2 has a different size and shape to the canopy).  Also, for some reason the masks for the rear section don't have and opening for the midline of the framing.  I think I'm just going to paint the canopies by hand in stages using the masks where I can, and otherwise using tape.  I don't think I'm going to make my own masks and then try to airbrush them, the canopy pieces are just too small.

[lmagna]

8 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

I think I'm just going to paint the canopies by hand

That should work out OK. I have noticed that with some of the new paints these days that in doing touch-up or small details it is virtually impossible to tell the hand painted places from the sprayed areas. I suspect that the silver you have been using will act like that. Keep your coffee intake down before the big event though.

[Landlubber Mike]

On the home stretch now.  Finally got the cowl on the F3F-1 all straightened out.  After stripping the paint, priming with Mr. Surfacer gray, followed by Tamiya white primer, I added the Vallejo red.  Then I taped and added the aluminum band (Vallejo gloss black primer followed by Vallejo Metal aluminum).  Everything was looking great when I started pulling the tape off, except I got a weird 3mm or so line of black paint on the red.  Argh!  Have no idea how that happened, except that it might have come through some tape when I was airbrushing the interior of the cowl.  I tried touching it up with white primer and followed by red, but it was noticeably whiter.  Another argh!  I tried a different approach of lightly sanding off the new red, white, and black to get back down to the original white primer coat.  Then I had to re-tape and spray the red a couple of coats across the full cowl to even out the color, and finally the modeling gods were with me and everything worked out.

 

Then I was able to add the pinstripe (need to touch up a tiny spot that seems to have ripped), so the F3F-1 is finally, after all the cowl trials and tribulations, caught up to the F3F-2.  Everything is pretty much painted except for the canopy pieces.  Next up is some very light weathering/shadowing/highlighting (to keep the bright look of the planes), final clear coat, and remaining assembly and rigging.   

 

 

Wings came out fairly well too - the numbers and pinstripes along the chevrons are decals, the US insignia markings are painted on:

 

 

 

Looking ahead, I'm next going to work on the Tamiya F4F-1, to be converted to a FM-1 (same plane really, just made by a different manufacturer with different gun specifications) with a wing fold set.  I have the Aires full resin detail set for it, which will add a layer of difficulty, but the paint scheme will be significantly less complicated than these yellow wings.  I'm glad I tried painting the US insignia on these F3Fs rather than using decals, but that made for a ton of extra work.  Famous last words, but the FM-1 should be easier, at least in terms of painting.

 

 

Thanks for looking in!

[yvesvidal]

Superb little fleet and beautiful decals, Mike. Your painted insignia are out of this world..... That must be a tremendous amount of work.

Could you describe for us, how you approached that daunting task?

 

Yves

[Landlubber Mike]

Yves, thanks very much for the kind words.  For the insignia, I used the following set from Montex which makes things a lot easier:

 

 

 

 

Here are the steps I took:

 

1.  For the yellow top wing, after priming with Mr. Surfacer 1200 spray primer, I then sprayed with Tamiya white primer (from the rattle can), followed by Tamiya Camel Yellow (decanted from the Tamiya rattle can).  For the lower wings, I sprayed with Mr. Surfacer 1200, then followed up with Vallejo Gloss Black primer (recommended for use as undercoat when using Vallejo Metal color paints), then sprayed with Vallejo Metal color (I believe I used white aluminum for a slight color different from the fuselage where i used aluminum).

 

2.  Next I painted the decals.  I started with the square mask (e.g., on the upper right corner of the green sheet), but left the interior circle out to be able to paint the underlying white disc.  For that, I believe I once again primed with Mr. Surfacer 1200 (as white can tend to show underlying colors like yellows and reds), then sprayed Tamiya white primer.  That left me with white discs.

 

3.  Next I painted the blue background of the insignia.  Leaving on the square mask, I took the star and added it to the disc to seal off the white star of the insignia.  Then I sprayed with Vallejo Arctic Blue.

 

4.  Last was to paint the red circle in the middle of the star.  I removed the square and star masks I used in steps 2 and 3, and then used the circle masks (e.g., on the upper left corner of the green sheet).  I placed the open circle in the middle of that mask onto the white star, and then had the red circle.  For that color, I used Vallejo Red.  The Montex mask is a bit translucent, so you can easily see where you need to position it on the star so that the circle is in the center.

 

 

Those were the steps that I took, maybe there are other ways to do it.  Some tips and other experiences to pass along if anyone is a masochist and wants to paint their own insignia:

 

1.  Make sure that you burnish the edges of the masks as much as possible just before you actually paint.  The white discs worked really well.  I had some bleed under with the next two masks quite likely because (a) I did not take the time to burnish them as well as I did with the white disc mask, and (b) I might have sprayed too heavily, when I should have just sprayed a few lighter coats (big lesson for me!).  I almost cried when I lifted them and saw that the blue and red had run under.  Interestingly, the top wings were fairly blemish free.  The bottom wings on the other hand look horrendous.

 

2.  Thankfully, with the Tamiya synthetic lacquer white undercoat, I was able to take a wooden toothpick and gently scrape off the Vallejo colors that had run under the mask.  The paints still left a very light stain, but was much easier to paint over the stained areas than if the full paint remained.  Touch ups were done by hand using the same paints.

 

3.  I thought I was being smart and added the radio PE parts to the upper wings so that I could prime and paint them yellow along with the rest of the wing in one shot.  Problem I soon discovered was I had a really rough time adding the disc mask to the wing because that PE part was in the way.  I ended up having to add a small slit on the mask to let the mask lie as flat as possible on the wing (essentially the PE part sticking straight through).  A bit of paint went through that area, but was fairly easy to touch up.

 

4.  Each time I painted, I left the mask on for 24 hours for the paint to cure.  I was particularly worried about the Vallejo which can get pulled up from masks I've found.  Happened again here.

 

 

Decals make things much easier obviously, and you are left with very crisp edges.  Painting gives you a little more freedom on colors, and I think can look a little more vibrant.  You also don't have to worry about decal issues like color mismatches to other similar colors on the model, bubbles, rips, underlying colors bleeding through, etc.  I tend to like a challenge so I might try painting them again sometime.  On this model, I could have also used the Montex masks to paint the numbering along the belly band, and the smaller insignias on the front of the F3F-2 fuselage.  I decided not to as I didn't want to potentially ruin the aluminum finish that I had on the fuselage, and figured I had already used up a lot of luck in getting to where I already was.

 

Hope that helps!

[yvesvidal]

Mike,

 

Thank you for these excellent directions and hints. I will definitely refer back to them for my upcoming projects.

 

Yves

[popeye the sailor]

really nice job!  the stenciling came out great    they are gonna look super when assembled  

[MadDogMcQ]

Fantastic work Mike - and valuable tips too. 👍🙏

[jwvolz]

Nice job Mike. 

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks for the likes and the kind words, really appreciate it.

 

I used some Vallejo dark gray wash to add a little more depth to the panel lines and other details, except for the top wing where I used Vallejo dark yellow wash to break up the solid mass of yellow and highlight the ribs a bit.  I put a bit of wash on a thin brush and ran it down the panel lines, etc., then used a damp Q-tip to wipe most of it up.  I didn't want to get into weathering the planes to preserve the bright colors, and would note that these planes didn't really see any action so they tended to be maintained in a pretty good condition.  I quite like the effect which tended to highlight panel lines from certain angles, and not be very stark as you see in some models.

 

Here are some pictures - sorry, the lighting is not the best where I took the pictures.

 

 

I sprayed the fuselage and the aluminum sections of the wings with Vallejo Metal Varnish.  It's kept the shine of the original Vallejo Metal color paints, but is making the non-aluminum sections like the cowl and belly bands look a bit wet and not smooth in finish (though, it gave the red and blue a very rich tone that I like).  Not the best picture in the world, but here goes:

 

 

I found that spraying the Vallejo Metal Varnish, the airbrush was prone to dry tip.  Had to clean out the nozzle a few times, so I probably should have added a retarder. 😐  Wondering if I should have masked off the cowl and belly band and added a different clear coat from the start, but was interested in seeing how the Metal Varnish would look.  There are some videos on how to spray Vallejo finishes so I will have to check those out as well. 

 

Can't really see the wet, bumpy look on the aluminum, but the cowls and belly bands bother me a little.  Not sure if I'm going to leave it as is and call it a learning experience, or try to touch up the cowl and belly band by spraying a semi-gloss clear coat.  I've been using the Gunze clear coats and they spray perfectly - excellent coverage, self leveling, etc.  Not sure if I want to get into taping off the aluminum sections, but I might try it out.  A little tricky with these colorful planes as I'm not quite sure if the non-metal colors should be equally glossy as the aluminum or dialed back to semi/satin gloss.   I'm thinking using semi-gloss on the red and blue sections might be a good approach.  I ordered an Olfa circle cutter that should arrive this week so that I should be able to cut masks for the insignia, which I would also spray semi-gloss.

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

[Roger Pellett]

I’m curious.  Was the bottom wing Aluminum and the top wing fabric covered?   

 

Roger

[Landlubber Mike]

I believe the wings and even the tail were fabric.