Official Alley Cat GB Sept2010-Sept2011

Erm, would that be the ejection handle your refering to?

yep, that would be the critter.  Sorry, I should have elaborated better.

Cheers,

Greg

In that case it most likley does have one. i shall find out for you.

Ignore my earlier statement. If its a pre 1960's version it would have a Grumman seat in it (see picture) which didnt have an upper ejection handle. If it was Post 1960's then it would have had the MB Mk.V seat. again with no upper ejection handle.

That setup is the grumman ejection training rig. (testing? training? not completely sure.)

Thanks Mike.  Cool picture too.

Cheers,

Greg

no worries. im always here to help. Except this weekend. going with my dad to ashburton to see the newly arrived meteor. then cookin him and my sister a roast for fathers day. then sunday its clean clean clean for the inspection on tuesday. 

kg, Great idea for the Tigercat.   Boy, I've got a good start on an AMT F7F-3N in 1/48, but it's going to be a "boring" operational night fighter.  From what I have read, this bird was a great flier.  Pilots loved it.  With its speed and firepower, it would have been interesting how it would have fared chasing down meatballs in the South Pacific.  I love the lines on the Tigercat.  AMT has molded in very nice, subtle recessed panel lines.  It really has some nice details.  I'd like to get the Cat to sit on all three feet, but there is a lot of tail back there.  By the time I fill that nose with bolts, the landing gear will probably collapse.  Oh well, here we go.  Rick.       

Theres always the option of attatching it to a base?

OK.  Here is the Hobbyboss F4F-4 I will build first.  I have the Eduard landing flaps and interior set to spruce it up a little bit.

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Here are the sprues

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The overall detail looks pretty good IMHO.  I hope it goes together better the the Revell B-1

Macattack,

Believe me, the Hobbyboss cats are alot of bang for buck I am confident you will love it!

Been working on my hwllcat for a bit now and have the pit and engine done:

Ok, back to the bench for me Thanks for watching.

Richard

kermit

Macattack,

Believe me, the Hobbyboss cats are alot of bang for buck I am confident you will love it!

Seconded. Got into my twin Wildcats tonight and I have to say I'm still loving the cockpit design. The fuselage halves seem a bit janky in terms of fit, but I think that's because of how they attach to the sprues and the fact that I haven't gotten around to full construction prep on them yet.

Here are a few cockpit WIP pics. The big sections are painted. Next up, touch-ups, drybrushing, details and then a wash. I'm contemplating whether or not to try out my new punch set and Mike Grant instrument decals. The kits seem perfect for them, but since they're being built as decoration for the kids' rooms I don't know if I want to use up such a precious resource... 

Richard - nice bit of work on your Hellcat build!

Is the cockpit fully assembled? I've got mine staying up deck-of-cards style, and once I've got everything detailed the way I want I'm planning to shove it up into the fuselage and glue the bulkhead and instrument panel tabs from the bottom to make sure everything lines up just right.

this is the current state of the 1/32 cat is this elligable?

iv also got untouched 1/72 and 1/48 tomcats for this

Okay, couple pics.

First is the instrument panel.  Kind of blury, sorry.  I used Mike grant IP decals. 

Right side of the pit.  Based on a pic I found I only have to add a smail remote control panel to the rear pit for the drone controller then modify the skin to accept the bearcat canopy.  Anyone have a scrapped F8F with a good canopy you can spare?  

The engines are just getting basic paint job but I am adding ignition wires. 

Sorry all. It looks like i'll be starting late. We're moving in a couple of weeks to the other side of town. Hopefully I can get settled quick and get my Tomcat out and started.

kg4kgp,

Very nice work sofar sir! Is that interior green brush painted? In any case i like the colour shift. Gives it a used worn look IMHO. What paints did you use? Also, is that IP a decal or painted? Like your work sofar

Richard

P.s. Medicman,

Good luck on the moving!

Doog,

Sorry, missed your post initially... Your pits look great indeed. But is it your camera/ lighting or me... interior bronze green looks so greyish.... Don't get me wrong i really love your work sofar sir. Just curious.

My pit is fully assembled and painted. Just this afternoon (different timezone) i glued it together with the fuselage and also assembled the lower fuselage bit. Design has sofar been easier than the wildcats. No gaps, no problems just following the instructions. The putty and sanding part of these parts is in progress as i speak and WIP pics to follow soon

Only real critic i have sofar about this Hobbyboss hellcat is the fact that painting instructions are very sparse. After partial pit color suggestions, the instructions don't state any color instructions whatsoever. Anyone building this kit would have to do some research...

Richard

I think  the real bronze green - at least the pictures I've been able to run down, has a lot more blue in it. It almost looks more like bronze aqua to me. But I think that might also be long-term wear. I haven't done the research to discover whether bronze green actually had bronze in it, but if it did the patina effect would explain the blue cast.

I just used straight Vallejo Bronze Green, which looks pretty close to Humbrol's bronze green, but just a touch darker:

Glad to hear the Hellcat's going together so well! Is it going to get the tri-color scheme or the later shiny blue?

A bit more on the bronze green. I dug up Tom Cleaver's review of the Trumpeter F4F-3 over on Modeling Madness, and his bronze green looks pretty close to what I'm using:

http://modelingmadness.com/reviews/allies/cleaver/tmc-3.htm

His assembly order also has me thoroughly intrigued, especially since the Hobbyboss Wildcats are basically Trumpeter's 1/32 kits scaled down to 1/48th. I mean, fit the wings to the fuselage before the fuse halves are joined? Weird, but I was planning to assemble the wings ahead of the fuselage anyway, so I might just give it a go.

I stand corrected Doog. My assumptions are purely and entirely based on this essay i found on the IPMS stockholm website. To me their sample looked more like a greyish green gray as opposed to a greenish grey as you seem to have found valid.

Like Zinc Chromate, the term Bronze Green is generic and describes a dark green finish obtained using oxidized bronze as a pigment. Still used today, the term is another example of a name designating a chemical composition becoming the name of a colour. Many people associate the word Bronze with red-brown colour, but this is not the case for Bronze Green. The pigment itself contains mostly Copper Carbonate, a compound responsible for the green patina often seen on old Bronze monuments

http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2004/01/images/us_interior_colours_03.jpg

I suppose nitpicking like this will occur for all eternity as almost none of us have actually seen combat in WW2. Your work is of the highest standard sofar and i did not intend to be a whining SOB in any way my friend.

Richard

Richard

kermit

I suppose nitpicking like this will occur for all eternity as almost none of us have actually seen combat in WW2. Your work is of the highest standard sofar and i did not intend to be a whining SOB in any way my friend.

Richard

I'm so offended that I'm going to quit the forum!

In all seriousness, though, I dig this kind of back and forth. I think it makes us all better modelers and, yes, historians. Besides...I majored in history with a Classics bent...and I'm still a total dork for the middle Roman Republic. This is nothing next to the butthurt people get into debating such minutiae as when the legions started using the gladius we're all familiar with. I mean, none of us are staking academic careers on any of this.

And no worries about being a whining SOB! I was being a lazy SOB by just grabbing the bronze green without actually trying to run down what it looked like in an actual aircraft...

Hey guys, this threads been humming since i saw it last.

eatthis. its probly a bit far along for most GB's. but im interested to see it finished. do you have any WIP shots? If you backdate them ill accept them :P (bit like a cheque for the power bill lol)

Great work so far everbody. Sorry ive been a bit absent. Been dealing with a nasty earthquake. quite a bit of damage round town. 7.4 magnitude (some saying 7.1) 10km deep just outside of christchurch (where i live) Luckily me and the missus are fine. appartments fine. everyone in our area is fine. Ive made a thread in the odds and ends section to let people know.

Also Hans Von Hammer has had a few problems aswell, got a message from him this morning when i could get online again. If we could all send our support to him that would be awesome guys.

Wow. Glad to hear ya'll are ok. My support and prayers to you all.

Yeesh...never lived anywhere prone to anything like an earthquake so I can only imagine. Glad you're alright.

that quake has made the uk news mate! glad everybodys ok

iv got some wip pictures il post em when i cba

Thanks for the support guys. I think the scarriest part is CHCH isnt prone to earthquakes. in the last century theres been about 6 in the greater cantabury area not including the latest ones.

Heres a picture to illustrate.

It reads Date followed by magnitude.

Thanks Richard.  Brush painted pit with Mike Grant dial decals on the panel.  Each guage has to be cut from the sheet so a bit tedious.  I still have to weather both pitsl but waiting until I finish the modifications for the rear bubble canopy.  Paint is Model Master acryllic.

Chris 

kermit

kg4kgp,

Very nice work sofar sir! Is that interior green brush painted? In any case i like the colour shift. Gives it a used worn look IMHO. What paints did you use? Also, is that IP a decal or painted? Like your work sofar

Richard

P.s. Medicman,

Good luck on the moving!

Got the Wildcat cockpits done tonight. Also got the gear bay trestle assemblies glued together, but those aren't interesting until they're painted...

Ultimately I decided against using the Mike Grant IP decals. The way things slot up into the fuselage, I'm not even sure the instrument panel will be visible without serious intent.

Instead I used a trick that I've found works really well for "good enough" gauges. After the drybrushing, I draw hashes and lines and such on the gauge faces with a silver Prismacolor pencil (I'm sure white would work even better...alas...you go to war with the colored pencil that you have, not the colored pencil you want), then apply a few drops of Future via toothpick to simulate glass.

It's not ideal, but for kind of buried instrument panels, it works pretty well. Who knows, maybe somebody else will find it of use.

Gorgeous pits Doogs! Really like em. Those Hobbyboss cats are great in OOB detail, fit, price and ease of building. My hellcat (as i hoped and expected) is no different from that.

BTW, glad to hear nobody got hurt in the quake Scorpionmikey. I remember a little quake when i was a little boy with a force of 7.0 about 200 miles away. Still trembled me awake and out of bed from that far. I clearly remember wondering what the h*ck just happened

Anyways.... my WIP post....

Work on the hellcat is going at a steady pace and without trouble sofar. Only have to fill up the wing roots a bit and finalize construction before it hits the booth somewhere next week:

Due to the design of the model with "slots" for the wings this part went together seamless and without any filling up whatsoever.

The interior of the wings is very detailed OOB. Added a black wash to dirty it up. Still have to drybrush it a bit...

And when i dryfit the lot it looks like this:

Think i will paint the wings separate from the aircraft due to them being so close to the fuselage and to make masking work easier. News to follow soon! Thanks for watching

Richard