Official Alley Cat GB Sept2010-Sept2011

DoogsATX

Chris - try this http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=SQ9521

or this: http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=SQ9616

 

Thanks for the links.  Seen them before, just didn't feel like dropping 10 bucks on a tiny little piece of plastic.  I think I'm just going to do a different scheme.  Though about a race plane but their markings look just like the military schemes.  I haven't been able to find anything exotic yet.

Nice to know. ill keep an eye out next time im shopping around. As for exhaust stubs lately Ive seen them being molded into the fuselage halves or already on one of the engine parts. They'll be there somewhere.

Scorpiomikey

Sweet, you're on the list. Never seen that company before. whats the kit like?

 Very nice for under $20 at my local Hobbytown. Some light flash here and there , nothing to get in a twist about. Cockpit is detailed enough to be presentable OOB even with the canopy open , although the glass seems a little on the thick side . Details are crisply molded, especially the outside. Nice engraved panel lines . Strangly though ,I can't locate exhaust stacks. Easily solved with bits of brass tube.

Decals seem ok , not much on the sheet though. Basically the box art aircraft, but with aftermarket and printable decal sheets , markings abound.

Liked it well enough to run back a few days later and pick up an A6M5 Zero and Raiden"Jack" . Got to have some opposition after all.

 I've heard this comany has the Otaki molds. I would say compareable to the Monogram kits of the late 70s early 80s. Maybe a step up.

 The 3 Arii kits I picked up would build into very beautiful models with minimum effort , but would also be great starting points for all out super detailing. Would recommend to any one trying keep kit cost down ,yet still build nice models

Howard

Sweet, you're on the list. Never seen that company before. whats the kit like?

Would like to get in one this one with the ARII F6F-3.

This is my first kit from Arii , not a bad kit for the price. The interior is nice ,if not overly detailed. The exterior is wondeful.

 Will probably build OOB with canopy closed and focus on paint, markings and weathering.

 I haven't decided on whose markings to go with yet, but I'm thinking of the Hellcats flying from the Princeton. I just love the faces on those cats. Also will be an ace's bird . Why, of course, for a Zero killer.

 Howard

Chris - try this 

http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=SQ9521

or this:

http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=SQ9616

Hate to ask guys, but I'm stuck.  The original aircraft I am building was modified with the canopy from an F8F Bearcat.  I don't have one.  Would anyone have a Bearcat you scuttled and don't need?  1/48 Testors or Hobby Craft.  Just need canopy parts.  Only problem with Testors is the canopy fram is partly integrated with the fuselage.  If anyone can I appreciate it.  If not, no biggie, I can change my theme.

Chris

The Wildcats reached their stall out point last night. They're now on hold until the vacform canopies and Gunze paint show up.

Also...relearned yesterday why I don't spray Tamiya white primer straight from the rattlecan. Had to strip whole areas off with lacquer thinner...which ate a portion of the starboard wing detail on both planes. Not sure why the starboard and not port...

i use bluetack to hold my weights in

hey guys, I'm not in this build. ( yet ).. but I am lurking... and I have few suggestions for the Tripod bird builders..

1: not all the weight for the bird to sit on the nose gear needs to be in the nose.. you can place weight anywhere infront of your balance point. And the balance point may change between the with the wheels on the gear or not. I place weights in the engines , fuselage and anywhere thats on the side the needs the weight, this can cut down how much wieght is needed on the nose gear, places some weight on the main gear.

2: try wheel wieghts... get them from local auto parts stores, or used ones from tire balancing shops. I cut them with good wire cutters to size, then shape them with pliers, their very mallable.

3; attach your weights with 2 part epoxy.. I use 2 types,, liquid or putty... depending on what, and where.. both work good and won't melt your plastic..

heres where the 1/48 tomcat is atm

some size comparisons with the 1/48 tsr 2

imho theyr both fantastic looking airplanes :)

I melted the nose of an A-6 once upon a time trying to secure some nose weights...one reason I prefer taildraggers!

Got the engines done on the Wildcats last night. Nothing special...MM Magnesium cylinders, dark gray crankcase, etc. 

Not much more I can do until the Gunze paint and vacform canopies arrive, now. And I don't even have shipping confirmation for either yet, so further Wildcat updates may be several days away...

Hey guys. sorry for my absence lately. Nice to know about the lead tape guys. could come in handy. As for the putty melting the plastic. i had a similar experience when i was first starting out. I was building a 1:48 Golster Meteor. Id painted it before i built it (as id been taught by various cousins/family members/family friends) and during the building process i came to the conclusion (as most kids do) "More glue equals More sticky" so i put buckets of glue in to hold the engine in place (it kept coming off) i went to check on it the next day and found a little spot of paint with no plastic behind it. Thought it was pretty cool actually lol.

As for my cats it might take me a while to get started. Ive been really unmotivated lately and been trying a couple new kits to try out new methods (NMF to be exact) Hopefully ill get into them at the end of the month. September kinda snuck up on me a little. Oh well.

Nice to see everybody's working hard (except me). Check the front page. kermits up.Your welcome to the badge now kermit if you haven't grabbed it already. (you made it so i assume you've got it lol) Thats all on my front for now guys. Keep up the good work. 

Rick,

Check the golf section of your local sporting goods store as well.

As for lead tape, the owner of my LHS gets his at Bass Pro-Shops.  He also found a bunch of lead line in different thicknesses too.  That stuff looks like it could have a million uses.  I don't know if that helps.

Wow, I am impressed with all the progress everybody is making.  You guys are blowing me out of the water.  Kermit is even done!  Awesome looking hellcat!  With any luck, I will get some time with the paint booth this week.  Then I should make some photographable progress.  I am really enjoying all the builds here, good stuff.

Cheers,

Greg

BODY PUTTY 101:  Do not use Squadron Green putty to embed your nose weights.

I got some Painting done in the gear bays and then proceeded to find the weight needed to get the Tigercat to set on all three.  I dry fitted all the components onto the airframe and put a fulcrum where the landing gear will attach.  I found a couple of bolts and some lead tape that fit into the nose.  I secured the bolts with Squadron green putty.  Big mistake!  The starboard side nose now has a big soft spot from the instrument panel line to the front gear bulkhead.  It'll have to set until the putty and plastic harden and the I'll get to some body work on the fenders in 1/48.  Does any one know a good source for lead tape?  What I had  came from a ceiling fan kit.  It was kind of nice to work with.  Rick

the 1/32 tomcat is on hold till i get hold of the missing part i need. heres where its at now

the antiglare is oh so slightly out the camera is brilliant for picking things like that up!

iv started an italeri 1/48 tomcat heres the progress on that

for those of you whove never heard of tsr2 here it is side by side really shows its size off here

Wow, Richard! Even if I had all day, every day to work on them, I don't think I could churn out one of these Wildcats as fast as you did that Hellcat! Very impressive!

And I have to admit I snickered at the stencils that just say "GUNS". Makes me wonder if there's another that says "ENGINE"!

kermit

Have to say that this cat is and has been just as much fun and easy to build as the hobby boss Wildcats. As Doogs is pointing out these kits do have their little quirks but if you work with some care these kits build into fine models worthy of a VIP space on your shelf

Richard

Don't mind my griping! Probably half of it is because I'm currently slogging through my least favorite part of the build - sanding, filling, sanding again, debating what little bits to attach now, and what to keep off until at least the yellow gets sprayed, etc. And I don't even have canopies to mask yet!

The one thing I will say about the kits is that they seem kind of randomly inconsistent. For example, the cockpit fits together like a dream, and can stay up on its own without any sort of adhesive. The wings, too, fit together with Tamiya-like perfection. Same with the cowl over the forward fuselage. And unlike the Accurate Dauntless I'm coming off of, it seats in with a lot of contact surface for your adhesive of choice. But then you have the crankcase, which only kind of vaguely locates over the rest of the engine. Or the too-tall windscreen, etc. 

Speaking of the Wildcats...more filling fun last night. Squadron putty has been acting all crumbly and stupid, so I switched over to DAP spackling compound, which I've seen recommended here and there. Mixed a few drops of water in to soften things up, and it went on pretty well. Also managed to get the engine and inside of the cowl primed since the rain finally cleared out. Hoping to get those pieces painted tonight in between sanding.

Eatthis, Still going strong i see. Looking great!!

Wabashwheels,

Love the engine work! Been thinking about doing something like that myself if and when i build a model with an engine that is worth the effort. It does make things come to life tremendously. Love it!

Well,.... Had the opportunity to work on my own cat all day yesterday and finished her up. Just now, with better lighting conditions i took my final pics of the folded wing Hellcat:

As you can see i took quite some time trying to weather and fade the whole lot a bit using the white in my tamyia weathering set and a drybrush with white paint. Also used the black and brown in the same set to dirty her up a bit and add exhaust streaks on her belly.

Finally, i always do a couple in sepia:

Have to say that this cat is and has been just as much fun and easy to build as the hobby boss Wildcats. As Doogs is pointing out these kits do have their little quirks but if you work with some care these kits build into fine models worthy of a VIP space on your shelf

Had great fun with the group here and most likely will attempt another build in the future. Thank you all for your comments and thanks for watching!

Richard

a few progress pics

as you can see iv done that wrong so il do it again

Scorpiomikey

Nice work everyone. Ive seen a couple photos of tomcats with those winglets out. But ive got no idea what theyre for. I might glue them in and putty over them maybe. who knows. As for the wings i kinda have to choose early on if im gonna go wings out or wings in. Its a reasonably old Hasegawa 1:72 kit. (photo below) More detail than ive ever worked with before and to make things harder a younger me managed to butcher alot of the cockpit parts early on lol.

the winglets came out at supersonic speed to add lift and counteract the change of cog. it was found that they just wernt needed and added weight and complexity for no real gain so they deleted them i dont know when though

Nice work everyone. Ive seen a couple photos of tomcats with those winglets out. But ive got no idea what theyre for. I might glue them in and putty over them maybe. who knows. As for the wings i kinda have to choose early on if im gonna go wings out or wings in. Its a reasonably old Hasegawa 1:72 kit. (photo below) More detail than ive ever worked with before and to make things harder a younger me managed to butcher alot of the cockpit parts early on lol.

Rick - those engines sure do look impressive! Great job! And that landing gear...I thought the Wildcat's landing gear was janky and fragile, but geez! Here I thought Navy birds had their landing gear strengthened to withstand the stresses of carrier operations!

DoogsATX

Thanks Rick! I did a half-hearted search for Squadron canopies late last night and didn't see anything. Do you happen to know the part #?

Nevermind. Tracked down some standalone canopies and ordered ones for the Monogram kit, since I've seen them used on Hobbyboss 'cats here and there.

I've got a good start on the AMT F7F Tigercat. I've put together the landing gear and gave the cockpit a basic paint job.  The cockpit is narrow and I'm going to sit a pilot in this one.  I took a standard Tamiya guy and realigned his head to give him a little interest.  With him strapped in there and a dry brushed IP, I think the cockpit will look pretty good.  I'm debating about a radar operator.  I had mentioned earlier about how nicely the kit was molded (except for a lot of flash).  Well, the two radial engines are impressive.  I couldn't resist wiring them up with some 26 gauge copper.  I love the look.  It really gives a lot of depth to the engine.  This kit comes with the real rubber tires that I've not heard anything good about.  So... I think I'll put a good coat of enamel on the inside of the hubs and see if they look good and last.  The rubber really does look pretty nice.  I'm gonna try to set the cat on three feet with weight in the nose.  We'll see if those spindly looking legs are up to it.  Here are a few pictures of the start:

Bare bones, nothing fancy.

Erector set landing gear.

The muscle of the beast.

Thanks Rick! I did a half-hearted search for Squadron canopies late last night and didn't see anything. Do you happen to know the part #? The only one's I've turned up are parts of large canopy sets that include a number of aircraft. Seems kind of random, and vacform canopies still intimidate me (don't trust myself that much with a scalpel yet), but I called Tamiya today and they have to request the parts from Japan, so 8-12 weeks out.

Squadron makes a nice canopy. You could make them open or closed.   Two canopies are included when you buy.  Actually they are cheap enough, you could just order two sets just in case.   Rick.

Combination of progress and intense frustration with the Wildcats last night.

It was still raining pretty good last night, so no dice on priming the engine or cowl interior. One day...

In the meantime, I got the wings installed, finished up my initial Mr. Surfacer/sanding pass of the main fuselage seams, and went back in with the putty.

The wings were tricky. The mounting tabs are extremely shallow, and there's basically no way to "seat" the wings so that they stay up on their own. This made for an interesting process that involved bracing one side of the 'cat with a bottle of Windex, applying CA around the mounting tab, shoving the wing into place, then grabbing the Touch-n-Flow and doing the solvent thing while holding the wing in position with my left hand. Everything went together mostly well enough up top. There's a small step between one of the wings and the fuselage, but I figure the yellow wing/NMF fuselage will more than hide it, especially after sanding and filling.

The bottom is a bit nastier. Focusing on getting the topside alignment correct created a pretty massive misalignment between the bottom wing and fuselage that will have to be filled with probably two layers of putty.

Lastly, I got around to test fitting the canopies last night. I was going to go ahead and Future them, but after the Dauntless' stacking-averse canopies, I figured I'd be a bit extra diligent on this front. Good thing, too, since the windscreens on both kits sit noticeably higher than the canopies (and the canopies are too thick to be mounted open). I thought about trying to shim the bottom of the canopies to bring them level, but that would create an arguably more noticeable misalignment between the canopy and the fuselage immediately aft. And shimming at an angle would throw off the windscreen/canopy vertical alignment. So I spent an hour carefully sanding and filing the bottom of the windscreens. It helped somewhat, but the height difference is still noticeable, and I'm afraid any more filing will start to compromise lower framing and overall fit.

Here's after filing:

I keep telling myself "these are for the kids...they don't have to be perfect"...but the perfectionist in me hates that! So I did some digging on the interwebs, found a few others with the same issue, and one person who fixed it by replacing the windscreen with glass from another manufacturer's Wildcat kit. So at present, I'm planning to call Tamiya and order two replacement canopies. I figure at best, the windscreens work as a direct replacement (minus the telescopic sight, which, since I'm going for "accuratish" rather than accurate, who cares?). At worst, I'll have the bits to pose them open canopy.

Any thoughts on the plan? Ridiculous? Retarded?

Great looking 'cats, Eatthis and Richard! Loving the paint jobs!

Richard - the Hellcat doesn't look too dark to me. Remember the late war gloss sea blue scheme WAS really, really dark.

Also, something you may want to consider - decaling before you take on the weathering. It's a bit more hair-raising, I'll certainly admit, but the end result is that you get decals that are exactly as faded/weathered as the rest of the plane.

Great tomcat painting there Eatthis! I demand more!! Seriously, good work.

As for my progress sofar...

The Hellcat is painted after preshading and i attempted an oil wash over the panellines for the first time ever. Normally i use water colors exclusively. Also i have decided on fitting the wings with HVAR's after posting a question about it over at the aircraft section of this forum. Should be ok...

Still have to do some more weathering/ fading on the aircraft before i will commence the decalling. I feel it is too dark as it sits on my bench...Also can't fit the wings yet because of that but a dryfit or two looked just fine.  And also the canopy is not on yet because i intend to leave it opened so i will attach that in the very end.

Thanks for watching,

Richard