**** DONE: 1/48 Hellcat Mk. II - Aircraft in Foreign Service WWII
- Thread starter Crimea_River
- Start date
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- Thread starter
- #102
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks everyone.
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Nice !
Vic Balshaw
Major General
Top notch Andy, beaut mate.
Lovely work so far Andy!
Catch22
Major
Very nicely done Andy, this was probably my second favourite scheme in the set, nice to see it done up.
N4521U
Plastic Pirate
I saw the hint, in here I think, to mask over the white, spray a light coat of white along the edge BEFORE spraying the blue!
The White will then bleed under the tape preventing the blue doing the same!!!! Now how easy is this I ask??????
A DOH moment eh?
Angels one-five
Airman 1st Class
Looking great Andy
T Bolt
Colonel
Very nice Andy
dneid
Staff Sergeant
Sweet, Andy. Love the work.
- Thread starter
- #111
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks everyone.
- Thread starter
- #112
Crimea_River
Marshal
With the spurt to finish Cleo III and a recent head cold, I've not done much on this build. Gotta admit I'm finding myself not really "into" this particular build so am not giving it the attention it would normally get. The Hellcat was never one of my faves but it's an easy build, I had it in the stash, and it was a perfect fit for this GB so I decided to throw it in as a quick build.
Anyway, enough of the psychiatric session and on to a few shots of how it now sits:
All of the stencils have been applied. These turned out to be glossier than the semi-gloss dark blue so I had to go over each with a clear coat. I did not want to coat the whole model because I didn't want to ruin the current surface, which I rather like.
Although the gloss coat was slightly more matte than the surrounding paint, the difference was not noticeable enough for me to correct it. It's weird but you can really see it in the pictures but somehow the real thing does not look as bad.
Here's a close-up of the exhaust staining I applied using flat black in the airbrush. You can also see a few smoke stains behind the guns done the same way.
The Eduard masks that come with the kit do a stellar job:
Eduard's landing gear are models themselves. Each strut has 8 parts, including PE and excluding the brake lines, which I have yet to add. The covers were painted on the sprue so these need some touch up yet.
One thing I remembered from my earlier Hellcat build (the other half of this Dual Combo) was that the Eduard wheels are actually too thin if glued together OOB. I repeated the trick learned at that time and glued a doughnut-shaped plastic card spacer between the halves, seen here roughly trimmed and before sanding and finish painting. The thing to watch here is to make sure that the innards are painted black before mating the halves since you can see through the spokes.
That's it for now. Next shots should see a the finish of the landing gear and, not too long after, the whole model. I may yet add rockets to add some "nastiness" to the model as the two pics in post 1 show the mounting stubs for the HVARs.
Anyway, enough of the psychiatric session and on to a few shots of how it now sits:
All of the stencils have been applied. These turned out to be glossier than the semi-gloss dark blue so I had to go over each with a clear coat. I did not want to coat the whole model because I didn't want to ruin the current surface, which I rather like.
Although the gloss coat was slightly more matte than the surrounding paint, the difference was not noticeable enough for me to correct it. It's weird but you can really see it in the pictures but somehow the real thing does not look as bad.
Here's a close-up of the exhaust staining I applied using flat black in the airbrush. You can also see a few smoke stains behind the guns done the same way.
The Eduard masks that come with the kit do a stellar job:
Eduard's landing gear are models themselves. Each strut has 8 parts, including PE and excluding the brake lines, which I have yet to add. The covers were painted on the sprue so these need some touch up yet.
One thing I remembered from my earlier Hellcat build (the other half of this Dual Combo) was that the Eduard wheels are actually too thin if glued together OOB. I repeated the trick learned at that time and glued a doughnut-shaped plastic card spacer between the halves, seen here roughly trimmed and before sanding and finish painting. The thing to watch here is to make sure that the innards are painted black before mating the halves since you can see through the spokes.
That's it for now. Next shots should see a the finish of the landing gear and, not too long after, the whole model. I may yet add rockets to add some "nastiness" to the model as the two pics in post 1 show the mounting stubs for the HVARs.
Last edited:
Catch22
Major
Nicely done Andy.
vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
For something you are really not paying attention to, it certainly looks nice!
- Thread starter
- #116
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks guys.
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Nice work Andy.
Angels one-five
Airman 1st Class
Great tip with the wheels Andy - paying close attention before I start mine!
Great work so far Andy!
- Thread starter
- #120
Crimea_River
Marshal
Merci beaucoup.
Make sure you make the plastic card with a large hole in the middle as the hub half on the strut side will otherwise interfere with your spacer.
Make sure you make the plastic card with a large hole in the middle as the hub half on the strut side will otherwise interfere with your spacer.
