A solid weekend of work has the two Seagulls finished for the USS San Francisco. I'll save you the "fits on a penny" shot, but these a/c are small. Tom's PE set came with one set of interplane struts, luckily two propellers, so everything else is from scratch with .010 wire.Pretty so-so.

Hans Von Hammer thank you for the paint mix, I like it.

Now, eight 5" guns.

Satch, you have been added to the roster. Once again, welcome aboard!

Vette, your Wildcat is coming along nicely! I would not worry about the shoulder harnesses for the pilot. I know that at some point early in the war the Navy went from lap belts only to the four point system later used. Unless someone has the records for that individual aircraft that can definitively, it's your call. The ones you put in look great. Most of the aircraft that flew during Guadalcanal were new production aircraft rushed to the battle area. Attrition was high so it is very likely that the plane had them. Keep it up!

Gsp great job on that interior, what plane is that

Vett the wildcat is coming alnong nicely and looking good doing it.

Jason

Hey guys hope you are ready for some more WIP pictures, thought I would post some while waiting for glue to dry. I should be ready to fire up the airbrush in the next few days.

Heres what my bench errrrrr TV tray looks like now, most airframe work is done.

As you can see I did end up with some seam issues on the leading and trailing edges of the wings. Other than these I have had no seam troubles with this kit.

Yeah my lil Wildcat will have 2 P-400s to fly high cover for !!

Cockpit came out pretty well although I think I may have blown it by adding the shoulder straps to the harness, some of the pictures I have been seeing showed no shoulder straps in the F4F-4. Too late to take them out now as they are glued in solid.

Here's a shot of my salted prop I am using for the paint chipping. You can't see the fine graines that are on there. I selected the salt grains one at a time with a wet paint brush and placed them, hopefully this time it will work better than it has in the past.

And finally a shot of the finished landing gear, still need to use a wash on it to dirty it up some. All and all this Tamiya kit has been a fast build for me, but I still like the old Revell kits.

Well after threatenig you guys with progress pics for a couple pf weeks I finally got to a point where I can post some. I am trying a new painting tecnique so my effects on this one might be over the top. Practice makes perfect!

The next two are the left and right sidewalls

The anooying thing with this kit is that there are ejector pin marks in serveral places on each of the sidewalls and since they are placed in the middle of the structural framing makes them almost impossible to remove.

 I am working on the rest of cockpit components and the rear machine gun. Will post more pics when I start to asemble them together.

 BTW nice work vetteman!

stikpusher wrote:

Beautiful work on the engine and cockpit! I think your techniques on both are dead bang on! Just one question, should the seat harness be in that OG color or more of a natural fabric color?

Stikpusher from what I read online a while back the cockpit harnes can be OD or natural, depended on what they had to use at the time, some were even leather. But I would think the leather ones were used earlier in the war. Wish I could remember the website address, or name as I did spend a bunch of time finding that info for an earlier build I did.

Thanks for the complements guys I thought I over did the weathering a bunch.

vetteman42 wrote:

Hey guys I know I am a couple auh days late but what can I say. Here are some WIP pictures, I am trying to get this weathering thing down and got what I think is very agressive this time. I used water colors, oils, pastels and some dry brushing, so help me out a bit and let me know what ya think. This build will also be my first historically correct build too, I hope. It will be Capt Jefferson DeBlonc's F4F-4 Wildcat with VMF 112.

Looking good so far. Keep up the good work.

Hey guys I know I am a couple auh days late but what can I say. Here are some WIP pictures, I am trying to get this weathering thing down and got what I think is very agressive this time. I used water colors, oils, pastels and some dry brushing, so help me out a bit and let me know what ya think.

This build will also be my first historically correct build too, I hope. It will be Capt Jefferson DeBlonc's F4F-4 Wildcat with VMF 112.

Well I went and done it, I opened the box, the Tamiya box, the Wildcat. I have only built one Tamiya model a Zero and that was a good, and for me a fast build, I build mostly Revell and Monogram kits ya know. Got some sprue clean up done and some interior painting done today along with some dry fitting. WOW but this is a sweet kit ! I will have some pictures to post in a day or two.

I don't understand how people do the rigging on some of these 700th ships. I've just started dabbeling in ships and find them to quite fun.

Jason

vetteman42 wrote:

The builds are all coming along very well Cant figure out how you guys build the ships so fast.

to that, I have been building a 1/350 Hobby Boss "POLA" kit as a warm up / learningbuild  to the "Washington" ! For a very crude basic kit it has involved a massive amount of time.  Ships definitely do not build as quick as aircraft. Least for me  

The builds are all coming along very well Cant figure out how you guys build the ships so fast.

Wanted to let you all know i havent forgotten this group. I have my Wildcat kit out and sitting on the bench and am hoping to start it Thursday or Friday. Wanna finish up my little Laird Solution first.

I guess mostly done was a little bit of a strech. but here a couple of pics

Jason

Very nice work on the ship I got my Tone mostly done and will try to get pics soon

Jason

Well, finally got a little started on the Suzuya. The hull sides are glued together and a single photoetched search light tower is done. The decks in the picture are just dry fitted as I still need to add the torpedo decks inside the hull.

Anyway, that I'd give an update.

See Ya

Scott

Looks OK to me...

BTW, for anyone that's interested..

http://www.pacificghosts.com/guadalcanal/index.html

stikpusher wrote:

Unless there are more sugestions from the participants, I think this one looks pretty good... Bueller.... Bueller..... anybody?

Ok, here is the deal then. I will leave this up for 24 more hours so everyone has a chance to give input. If no other changes are asked for I will be removing it from my signature. This is because I do not feel comfortable leaving in there until my model is done.

But at least, I finally, got the Suzuya in the mail and have the GMM set. So WIP pics soon.

See Ya

Scott