biggtim

A quick run-down on the particulars: Hasegawa F6F-5E Night Fighter kit # St-101 (built as F6F-3 standard fighter) Eduard's old, small PE set for a few cockpit details and a couple of tail wheel parts Master gun barrels from Victory Models a mix of Montex paint masks and Techmod Decals Mr Surfacer 1500 gray primer Alclad II Duraluminum basecoat (for chipping) Model Masters enamels (airbrushed) Model Masters clearcoats (rattle can gloss base for decals, flat with airbrush) RB seatbelts Scratchbuilt: most of the pit, except for a few PE parts and a few kit parts spruced up tail wheel, except for PE arms with holes, doors were my first try at using brass sheet gear bays - didn't go too crazy here, just some ribs and stuff, wiring and tubing, drilled out the kit wheels to make them look better added a bunch of wiring and some aluminum tubing exhaust pipes to the engine Weathering: really wanted to see if the chipping technique I learned on Doogs website would work with enamels instead of acrylics, so after priming (with gray, not black) I put down a coat of Alclad and then hairspray, then color. I chose not to paint the yellow primer. I found that window cleaner and a toothbrush did a pretty fair job of chipping the blue off, so I went with that. learned a really cool thing about rivets - if you scribe, then prime, then sand smooth, then poke your rivet lines with a compass needle in a pin vise, then paint over them, you can lightly wet sand the whole plane with 1200 grit after the glosscoat, and the rivets will show up very slightly. Maybe you all knew that, but I didn't! Worked out great, very subtle. all of the shading was done with pastel chalk and a stiff paint brush after painting, before final matte coat.

Scratch built conversion to the Russian version with the Klimov M-105 (aka VK-105PF) engine. Required new props, new spinner, new front cowl, new upper cowl. Painted as if delivered via lend-lease in USAAF markings and overpainted with Russian markings, then painted again in winter scheme. Conversion is available as a kit from B&B Resin Design.

Converted this a few years ago using the Jerry Rutman conversion that used to be carried by Grey Matter Figures, and the decal set by Eagle Editions by Jerry Crandall.