Thanks guys. Andy, I wrapped a piece of wire around another piece the same size, threaded onto 2lb. fishing wire and painted it with a heavy coat of Citadel Runefang Steel. Not sure what gauge it is or even where I got it from. In the photo a few failed pieces. Not shown, the half dozen or so the carpet monster got while trying to thread them onto the line.
Thanks guys. On finals now. The decal instructions shows a black stripe between the hand/foot holds but is not included. The pic on page 1 of this thread shows another aircraft without the stripe but I went to the website and lo and behold, there is a B&W photo of the aircraft I am modeling that I never noticed and it shows a black stripe...
Now I needed to find a black stripe. Most decal sheets with multiple options are divided by black lines and most of these are decals themselves as are the small letters and numbers. Problem solved, a wee bit wide but close enough....
Getting back to the B&W photo. I was mortified to see that the wheel hubs and struts were in a darker color, probably the original blue the Hellcats were painted in. The photo in Pg 1 of this thread shows yellow on the "D" aircraft but if you go to the website, a second photo shows the two aircraft from the other side and the "D" aircraft has a blue hub and yellow struts. and the "B" aircraft is yellow overall, probably taken a bit later than the B&W photo. Speaking of wheels, not happy with the kit rendition. They seem too tall and skinny but I'm going to leave as is, I might get some aftermarket ones later so these are just press fit on. The axles are also too long so they will need to be trimmed.
Thank you Dr. Gnomey and Wojtek. Final touchups(Ihope) are done and if nothing else needs fixed, I'll post the ****Done photos in a bit. Flaws? yep, there's more than a few but putting this dog's breakfast together was about challenging myself. Scratch built most of a cockpit, lots of practice needed. My first airbrushed paint job, looooooooooooooooots of practice needed.