F4F-4 built as FM-1 Wildcat by Landlubber Mike - FINISHED - Tamiya - 1/48

[Landlubber Mike]

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.  

Edited October 29, 2020 by Landlubber Mike

[mtaylor]

Nice work, Mike.  Given the scale, I"m surprised at the amount of parts.   You're doing great on something so tiny.

[lmagna]

You are doing some pretty nice work Mike. It looks like at this point that this will be another masterpiece that you will be proud to show. Keep it up!

[Landlubber Mike]

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!  

[Old Collingwood]

Great work  you are doing there Mike,   with the  circular engine  part  - would it just be called the  "Engine Bulkhead"   and colour wise,   perhaps same colour as the inside of the engine bay - if not perhaps  a flat alum  colour?

 

OC.

[Landlubber Mike]

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

[lmagna]

Here are a couple of possibilities based on almost total ignorance Mike.

 

First off, I think the plate behind the engine is mostly an air deflector, designed to direct the air around the cylinders in a way to maximize cooling, especially when the cowling flaps are open. In addition I suspect it acted as an oil shield, keeping excess oil out of the wheel well that is located just behind it. Radial engines are notorious oil leakers. As such it was probably just a stamped out aluminum plate and probably not painted at all. But painted ort not it would more than likely be heavily oil stained and possibly blackened as well from various engine stuff or even dirt from landing and taking off from dirt airfields when not using the carrier deck.

 

As for reloading the guns while the wings are folded, I'm not certain this is possible. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the guns, are located on the outer portion of the wing, (The part that folds) and the access doors are on the top of the wing. On the Wildcat that upper surface is almost completely vertical against the fuselage when the wing is folded making it almost impossible to lay a belt of ammo to feed each gun while fully folded. There may have been a more built in crank style of ammo reload system on the F4F to allow this style of reloading but I don't think so. Remember that the F4F was so old of a design that even the landing gear retract system was a hand crank operation as I believe so were the flaps. There was not much that was all that sophisticated about the plane at all. The early versions didn't even have folding wings I believe.

 

Having said all of that, I suppose one COULD replace guns or perform at least some maintenance using the gun doors as access while the wing was folded.

 

BTW, I think your pictures are of a F6F model not a F4F. 

Edited October 30, 2020 by lmagna

[popeye the sailor]

look'in great Mike...........quite a bit of surgery there    I agree with Lou......easier to service if the wings were down.  

[Landlubber Mike]

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.

 

[mtaylor]

If I remember right, they did arm the planes on the hanger deck in many cases early on in the war and then learned the hard way not to do that.  So they probably would have the guns in place, but no ammo.  The reason for not removing the guns was they had to be boresighted each time they were removed and replaced.

[lmagna]

Like I said, it is possible that they might replace the guns or perform some other maintenance with the wings folded that would require that the gun hatches be open.

 

The big exception would be the laying of the belts of ammo, (At least in my opinion) The F4F was noted as an aircraft that had some problems with the guns jamming. Ask Mark to be certain, but I think outside of head space and timing, problems with jams on the M2 is the belt feed system, so laying the belts into their proper location to insure proper feed was one of the critical needs in reloading the guns and would be done with the wings extended and the ammo bays horizontal. 

 

I think that with all of the extra detail you are already adding that having the gun bays exposed would be just a matter of extra frosting and would not be missed as a required detail. 

[mtaylor]

Yeah.. what Lou said.   Ammo would be a no with folded wings.   From what I remember, we left the ammo in the boxes and some guys actually made special "lids' that only let one thickness of ammo come out.  .50 cal ammo is surprising heavy.  A lot heavier than 7.65 mm round.

 

Maybe have one gun out and on a cart for "maintenance" as visual interest thing?

[Landlubber Mike]

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.

[lmagna]

1 hour ago, Landlubber Mike said:

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.

I think that unlike most planes where the guns are grouped close together in each wing, the six gun F4Fs had the third gun in each wing located much further out on the wing in it's own bay. In your picture above, of the F4F with the bays open when the wings are folded, the third gun is the long narrow bay located on the far left of the second picture.

Edited October 30, 2020 by lmagna

[Egilman]

9 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

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.

The color would be chromate green I believe on the cylinder side, white on the carburetor/supercharger side.....  The ring is an airdam which directed the airflow around the cylinder bank out the cowl flaps.... Made the airflow controllable and kept the carb from being overpressured or inducting hot air and vapor locking while helping to control engine temps....

 

9 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

2. .......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?

Yes they are, and the panels would be dzus fastened to the frame, so they are easily removable for maintenance.... most slightly thin the cowl so the inner surface of the PE sits flush with the inner surface of the plastic cowl.... This should give a scale appearance, (and avoid fit problems) If your going to have the removed panels in the scene then you would need to thin their edges as well..... the insides of the cowl could be bare metal, white or chromate green depending on when it was built......

 

9 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

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.

It's not technically accurate...... Standard MG maintenance procedures established that all MG work from replacing them to loading ammo was done with the wings unfolded and locked...... (not to say it couldn't be done with wings folded as I'm sure the inventiveness of the aircraft maintenance people was at a very high level, but it was not standard procedure)

 

Beautiful work Mike, she is going to be a real beauty.....

[Canute]

Your FM-1 is progressing nicely, Mike. Love the details.

 

As an old Weapons Officer, I wonder how they bore-sighted or synchronized the guns. The USAAF/USAF used firing in butts to take an a/c to and live fire to make sure all guns were shooting at the same piece of sky. How and where did they do that on carriers? As we transitioned to Vulcan 20mm Gatling guns, we used a bore-sight board, parked 1,000 inches from the muzzle of the rotating set of barrels. No live fire required. We usually fired at targets between 1 and 2 thousand feet away, using a lead computing optical sight using radar ranging when we could get a radar track of said target. Firing inside of a thousand feet could lead to coming back home with souvenirs from the target.Do not ask how I know that.

[Landlubber Mike]

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.

[Landlubber Mike]

10 hours ago, Canute said:

As an old Weapons Officer, I wonder how they bore-sighted or synchronized the guns. The USAAF/USAF used firing in butts to take an a/c to and live fire to make sure all guns were shooting at the same piece of sky. How and where did they do that on carriers? As we transitioned to Vulcan 20mm Gatling guns, we used a bore-sight board, parked 1,000 inches from the muzzle of the rotating set of barrels. No live fire required. We usually fired at targets between 1 and 2 thousand feet away, using a lead computing optical sight using radar ranging when we could get a radar track of said target. Firing inside of a thousand feet could lead to coming back home with souvenirs from the target.Do not ask how I know that.

 

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!

[lmagna]

11 hours ago, Canute said:

I wonder how they bore-sighted or synchronized the guns.

I think that this picture may hold at least part of the answer Ken. Just shoot over the side and observe the impact of the rounds in the water.

Simple and pretty low tech but I would think it would get the job done. kind of using the side of a building to aim the headlights on your car back in the day.

1 hour ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Like figuring out the firing rate where guns located in the cowl itself and had to be timed to not hit the propeller

That was done with a fairly simple gear set up that was designed in WWI for the aircraft that mounted the guns behind the prop. It is just a matter of stopping or delaying the firing of the next round as the blade comes into the field of fire. It was all geared to the crank shaft of the engine and would work at any RPM changing the rate of fire of the gun(s) as needed automatically. 

Edited October 31, 2020 by lmagna

[Old Collingwood]

6 minutes ago, lmagna said:

I think that this picture may hold at least part of the answer Ken. Just shoot over the side and observe the impact of the rounds in the water.

Simple and pretty low tech but I would think it would get the job done. kind of using the side of a building to aim the headlights on your car back in the day.

That was done with a fairly simple gear set up that was designed in WWI for the aircraft that mounted the guns behind the prop. It is just a matter of stopping or delaying the firing of the next round as the blade comes into the field of fire. It was all geared to the crank shaft of the engine and would work at any RPM changing the rate of fire of the gun(s) as needed automatically. 

Picture is missing Lou.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

32 minutes ago, Old Collingwood said:

Picture is missing Lou.

Strange........... it shows on my computer in both the original post and your quote. I added another of the same picture, hope it works this time.

[Old Collingwood]

1 hour ago, lmagna said:

Strange........... it shows on my computer in both the original post and your quote. I added another of the same picture, hope it works this time.

Yep,    I see it now Lou  - thanks.

 

OC.

[Landlubber Mike]

On 10/30/2020 at 3:06 AM, lmagna said:

I think that unlike most planes where the guns are grouped close together in each wing, the six gun F4Fs had the third gun in each wing located much further out on the wing in it's own bay. In your picture above, of the F4F with the bays open when the wings are folded, the third gun is the long narrow bay located on the far left of the second picture.

 

You can see how the wings on the F4F and FM-1 differ in the picture below.  The top is the wing from the Wolfpack FM-1 wing fold conversion set, the bottom the kit wing.  Lou, you're correct that the extra gun per wing was located further out (see the smaller second upside down "L" shape panel).  To the left in yellow, is the Aires gun bay.  If I wanted to open the gun bays on the FM-1, I'd have to essentially cut off the right half of the Aires resin part.  You can see how the Wolfpack wings are nicely detailed.

 

 

The Aires detail set also includes parts for a wing fold version.  Instead of giving replacement wings, the Aires set has you cut up the wings and insert these resin parts into the open section between the top and bottom halves of the wing.  The parts look fairly nice.  I went with the Wolfpack set as I thought I would do the FM-1 version, and thought it was going to be a little easier using the replacement wings as opposed to cutting up the kit wings.

 

 

 

I think I'm just about done with the engine.  Lot of detail in the Aires resin for sure.

 

 

These were all done with Vallejo products.  Vallejo Metal "Duralinum" for the base, a mixture to  get to the bluish-gray engine cover, dark rubber for the control rods, brass for the ignition wires.  Then I used Vallejo black wash for the recesses, and dirtied them up a bit using these Vallejo washes (first time using them, but really like them):

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Landlubber Mike

[Old Collingwood]

Superb work Mike  - they are so lifelike.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

Just to show you how masochistic I can be sometimes, I think I would be tempted to build both wings. You could have one wing folded and the other down with the gun bays displayed.

 

Is it just the camera angle or are the kit wings larger than the aftermarket wings? 

[mtaylor]

I was thinking the same thing Lou suggested.  Just a bit slow reading and getting here.  

[Edwardkenway]

40 minutes ago, lmagna said:

You could have one wing folded and the other down with the gun bays displayed.

 

1 minute ago, mtaylor said:

I was thinking the same thing Lou suggested.  Just a bit slow reading and getting here.  

Oooh that's a good idea😈 Seriously though Mike it'd look great!!

Engine's turned out superb!

[Old Collingwood]

47 minutes ago, Edwardkenway said:

 

Oooh that's a good idea😈 Seriously though Mike it'd look great!!

Engine's turned out superb!

I dont just "Second that emotion"  I Third it.

 

OC.

[Landlubber Mike]

 

2 hours ago, Old Collingwood said:

Superb work Mike  - they are so lifelike.

 

OC.

Thanks guys!  I’m pretty happy with the way the engine came out.  A little bit of dark wash followed by the engine grease and oil washes really goes a long way.  One reason I stayed away from plastic models all these years is that I didn’t think the solid blocks of color looked very realistic.  With the various washes you can use for panel lines, filters, etc., I’m slowly learning you can come up with more subtle and complex colorings that make things look more realistic.  I’m still way low on the learning curve though.

 

2 hours ago, lmagna said:

Just to show you how masochistic I can be sometimes, I think I would be tempted to build both wings. You could have one wing folded and the other down with the gun bays displayed.

 

Is it just the camera angle or are the kit wings larger than the aftermarket wings? 

 

The wings are actually the same size (just measured them).  My guess is that Wolfpack cast the Tamiya wings and modified them for the two gun per wing arrangement.  I took the picture from an angle to avoid glare from the overhead lights so it’s probably just the perspective coming into play.
 

Lou you masochist you!!  In some respects I was hoping to keep this with both wings up to take up less room.  But, I’ve thought about doing one wing down (and gun bay open) and one up (and gun bay closed).  If I can find a picture of a real plane in that configuration maybe I’ll try that.  Depending on how this one is looking, I might put it in a diorama as I picked up a few pilot and mechanic figures that might make for an interesting display.  

Edited November 2, 2020 by Landlubber Mike

[Old Collingwood]

Sounds like a Plan Mike,     can't beat a Dio😉

 

OC.