A Big Kitty

[Gary Brantley]

That's a great start Paul! Looking forward to seeing more!

[midnightprowler]

1/24? How big is it?

[speedgraflex]

Subscribed. I was thinking about what you meant earlier in the thread about spraying colors; I take that to heart. I find myself wanting to go in different directions when I paint, but it’s the simple decisions that serve me best. All the best, Paul.

[Paul]

I have been busy cobbling the left side panel and got that and the pit floor in the left fuse half. Ill have to do some touch up painting and a good flat coat after I get the IP and the right console installed. I am still fawning at the decision of using the Aeroscale set. I use one piece for the left side and the decals were then installed. here are the pics.


On the right is an 1/32 R2800 from an old P-47 kit next to the 24 scale R2800 for this kit.

[Medicman71]

Very nice! Hellcats are one of my favorites so I can't wait to see this build.

[Paul]

I decided to get back on this build. The pit is done and the fuse is closed up. There is a fit problem when closing up the fuse in that the aft pit bulkhead is a tad over size and if you don't trim it down you will wind up with an appreciable gap in the fuse halves. I did do a little light wash in the pit and some wear/weathering as well.




I then started on the wing assembly.




There are 11 parts just in the center wing box. Since I am going with a US bird the overall scheme will be deep sea blue and though I have about three different mfg. of paint they still seem way too dark for me so this payday I am doing some paint shopping at the Brothers of Sprue and see what I can come up with. I plan on chipping the gear wells and wing boxes a bit. I may put one wing deployed and one stowed but I haven't made a decision on that yet. Needless to say that this thing is pretty huge.
I also used some of the decals of the Aeroscale detail set but none of the pe from the set, however, most of them are obscured by the parts of the kit. No biggie as the kit decals were pretty fragile when it came to odd shapes.

[KSaarni]

Paul, this picture could be of a real cockpit, really looks perfect!



- Kari

[BlackSheep214]

That looks fantastic!

[LyleW]

Wow, perfect! And what he said!

[Paul]

Happy that your back and building here once again! I will be following this for sure. I recently discovered a Trumpeter 1/32 F6F5-5N kit I had forgotten about with a Big Ed set for it. This might be what gets on my bench soon. I will be interested in how you do your humongous bird as your work is always stellar

Thanks,for the kudos, everybody. That Trumpy kit is nice, Brent, but there are a few issues. You can build just about any F6 from that kit. From a 3 to a 5N. I cant wait for you to start that one.