Hello everyone
I was an avid modeler as a kid, but drifted off as I got into girls and rock and roll. After 30+ years, I decided to have a go at doing a build again. While I had considered picking up a kit over the years, I was always dissuaded by huge amount of stuff you need to actually put one together to any standard. The impetus that finally overcame that was running across some artifacts from my grandfather’s service in WWII and wanting to somehow connect with that.
2nd Lt Jacob AO Stub was a pilot with VMF-121 and served at Guadalcanal at the height of the battle, from late September 1942 through the end of the year and was awarded the DFC. (This shot is from 1944.)
He’s credited with 4 aerial victories in that action. While I don’t know the details, as a kid I do remember being told something about Bettys and thinking that wasn't as glamorous as Zeros. (Kids… sheesh.)
On November 7, both he and Joe Foss were separately shot down and forced to ditch off of Malaita. Foss was picked up a few days later, and Stub a few days after that. (My grandfather would eventually reconnect with Foss in VMF-115.)
Since a squadron would only have about half as many planes as pilots, pilots didn’t really get assigned to a particular aircraft, and I haven’t been able to find any record or photo showing him with a particular plane. Except one. The military dutifully records the BuNo of every aircraft that went down, and his is no exception: BuNo 03480. The plane Foss ditched that day was 03453, and he famously flew ‘black 53’ so I’m going with 80, the last two digits as the id number. Top right below is the only shot I've been able to find of that aircraft. Note how far back the fuselage star is.
The build...
I’m building the Tamiya 1/48 F4F-4 as it would appear in late October, early November 1942.
As everyone mentions, it seems like a pretty good kit, though my frame of reference is a bit outdated so I don’t really know. (My entire stash consists of one other kit: a 1/48 Tamiya F4F-1A, which will be from VMF-115 at Emirau circa August 1944.)
Because I’m a bit of a glutton, instead of just doing a nice, simple, out of the box build, I’ve decided to make a few modifications:
- The Tamiya engine just doesn’t look like any references, so I’m using the Quickboost resin.
- A parked Wildcat should have open cowl flaps and dropped elevators from pushing the stick forward to exit the cockpit.
- Quickboost seat and Finemolds harness/belts, plus a few scratch built details.
- Wildcats at Henderson Field in late ’42 were mostly scrambling to defend the strip and harassing Japanese ships in the slot, thus not going very far, so fill the drop tank holes.
- Replace the molded guns with aluminum tubes.
- Squadron vacuform canopy and windscreen. (I might regret this.)
- Turn the rudder and tail wheel slightly so they look more naturally parked.
As I mentioned, this is my first attempt in 33 years so please go easy, but I welcome any tips or advice.
I started with the cockpit. Yep. And the first thing is to cut out the floor.
While it looks okay out of the box, the seat and harness are what you really see, so seemed to benefit from aftermarket improvements. I tried the Eduard PE harness and couldn’t get it to look right. The Finemolds stuff is really cool—great detail and a lot of pliability. I wish I got a slightly more natural drape, but I think it works well enough that I don’t want to go back at this point.
In this shot you can also see some of the plumbing detail I added coming out of the electrical boxes. Probably not all that accurate, but gets across the vibe. I did nudge the stick forward, but not sure it really comes across.
The main electrical box is inexplicably undetailed in the kit, so I added switches with styrene and fine wire. It’s not all that accurate, and the modeling isn’t especially clean, but hopefully is close enough. (In this shot I had decided the paint job wasn't right and had windexed clean to start over. I think I ended up painting it three times all together.)
The IP is drybrushed and then the dials filled out with Pledge/Future.
I impulse bought the Airscale Cockpit Placard Decal set one night. There isn’t enough resolution to actually register words, and some of them aren’t really authentic to the prototype but I sprinkled them around.
I've also got the engine about done. The ignition ring is .030 square styrene and the wires are .3mm lead wire glued w/ CA, which I think is a lot easier to work with than electrical wire. This is pretty much straight out of lawdog's playbook. Almost every reference I've found has black insulation on the harness wire, but that just disappears, so I mixed Tamiya Buff and Nato Grey to get a kind of neutral rubbery color. The connectors to ring are just built up CA. Next time I'm going to try to get them a little cleaner, maybe with short rods or tubes ala lawdog's method.
The silver color is Alclad Aluminum, just because I wanted to try it to see how it sprays. At the end I did an oil wash which helped get everything to sit down. You can't see it here, but I tried painting the PW logo which is molded onto the case. It's basically a sky blue blob with a brown surround and doesn't look like anything. Oh well.
I've got the fuselage and wings (w/ aluminum tubes for the guns) going but don't have pics.
Thanks so much for looking and in advance for any feedback.
-J