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Hasegawa 1/48 F6F-3

jeaton01

Well-known member
I'll park this one here, I think it fits since it's a plane and it had a pilot, Arthur “Payne” Whiteway, and here’s a photo of him sitting in the cockpit of an F6F Hellcat while he was flying with VF-16 from the USS Lexington:

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Here's the airplane, after a somewhat inglorious landing by another pilot, but to be fair he had a head wound and he did in fact land on the deck:


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I decided to tackle a simple project and keep it that way, and so far I am succeeding in not going astray from that goal. Secondarily, as I had just finished the 1/48 FM-2 I thought it needed a companion in 1/48. The only aftermarket is an Obscureco resin cowling which is finely cast and is a much better shape in the lower chin scoop area than the kit cowl. Highly recommended!
The Hasegawa kit has been real nice except for two bumps, the fit of the lower wing and the armor glass that fits behind the windscreen. Some material had to be removed at the aft end of the wing to get the wing to mate up correctly at the front. If this is not done well enough the upper wings will foul the fuselage at the front where they fit up inside the fuselage. I almost got it right but I should have taken some material off of the fuselage there at the back. I stopped taking off plastic on the lower wing when I got up to an access cover because I didn't want to lose that detail. In the end I removed enough plastic from the upper wings where the interference was and things worked out OK.
I couldn't figure out how to get the armor glass to fit the way Hasegawa intended, with a peg on the bottom fitting into a hole somewhere in front of the gunsight. Couldn't find the hole, and had to remove some glareshield plastic to get the windscreen to fit right after gluing the armor to the inside of the windscreen. The Hasegawa decals were of the old variety with ivory in place of insignia white, so I made new decals for the blue and red portions of the insignia, and stencils to paint the white portions, as well as the numbers on the airplane.
Enough whining, here's the pictures.


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The current state.

Position lights were made by filing in the lens shape, white background, red or blue dot, and a glop of gel CA, filed to shape when cured and polished a little. Both antenna posts are reinforced with fine wire. Flat coat and weathering still to go.

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I checked a couple of the black list services and you're not on there. I don't know why some people can't see your stuff. Who are you registered with? Maybe the DNS record isn't being propagated right.
 
Bob, my ISP is a local business I have been with forever. The have blocked some areas because the Chinese were routing spam through some areas. I just have to do it on a case by case basis.
 
Complete now. Uschi Van Der Rose .003 antenna, great stuff! But don’t drop your cut off piece, it’s so thin it disappears. The flat coat is Alclad Clear Flat, color coats are Model Master with some Tamiya for details. Antennas are reinforced with music wire. Stencils on the fuselage right side are arguing with me.

Photos at the end are showing the F6F-3, FM-2, and F4U-1 relative to the A6M2 Zero and each other. The Wildcat fuselage needed to go on a diet!

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I'm surprised to see you building warplanes. I am not surprised to see how pristine the build is. I was unaware other Hellcats sported Alex Vraciu's "Gadget" decal. NEET-O John!
:ro:
:notworthy
 
Thanks, everyone, the nice comments are much appreciated.

Rhino, I think that is a different emblem. Gadget was indeed a personal emblem, here it is on a 1/32 Hasegawa F6F-3 in Vraciu's markings I did some time ago. Gadget is of course the snorting bull, the other emblem is Felix the cat holding a bomb which was the squadron emblem for VF-3 and VF-6.

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