Landlubber Mike

Thanks everyone for the kind words! I've made some progress over the last couple of weeks. The kit is fairly simple and my guess is one can put it together in about a week. The Aires set is probably going to double the time building this kit, at least for me. I'm still fairly new to plastic models, and this is my first super detail set that I've worked with. Engine Here's where I am with the engine. I calculated that there were 90 individual pieces when all was said and done, including the resin detail parts and the individual rods that you had to cut and add (I used thin plastic rod) Thankfully the Aires set includes a PE ring containing all the ignition wires that made things fairly easy. At this point, I painted with Vallejo Metal Color Duralinum, and added a black wash. Still need to paint the ignition wires, rods, and center cap, add a little grime and highlights, etc., but I think the engine is looking fairly nice. Cockpit The cockpit components from the Aires set are really nice when it comes to detail. Here are some of the pieces after painting and washes: Warning! The fit of the cockpit set is terrible! Apparently others have had similar complaints, so this is not my typical case of user error. The instructions essentially have you build the full cockpit, then insert the consolidated cockpit into the fuselage. The parts fit together cleanly outside the fuselage, but when you try to fit everything in, you run into bad fit problems. The tub fits perfectly fine, but the side panels and frame for the seat are off. Am definitely glad I test fitted things in advance or I would have been in for a nasty surprise. Instead of assembling the cockpit completely and popping it into the fuselage, I'm essentially modifying and gluing things like the side panels, seat frame, and instrument panel separately into the top half of the fuselage, then will pop the tub into the bottom half. A little frustrating in that this stage has taken hours but I think I have a plan forward. Bottom of fuselage/firewall/engine mount area Between the Aires set and the Wolfpack wing fold conversion, there won't be much left of the original kit. First, here is what the kit provides for the bottom of the fuselage and wings: This is what you end up with (with the Aires firewall and landing gear support included). The wings come off to add the Wolfpack wings, and the front of the fuselage where the engine mount comes off for the Aires details. The Aires instructions leave a lot to be desired. For example, they suggest that this section of the build comes after the cockpit, but for a variety of reasons, especially with the poor fit of the cockpit parts, I think it's better to nail this section down first before installing the cockpit. Speaking of fit, the firewall doesn't fit very well - it's got two winged tabs on either side that make it too wide to fit into the fuselage without surgery to the fuselage. Since those pieces aren't going to be seen, I just went ahead and removed them. I still have to include the framing and fuel tank pieces, but I think I've finally worked out a plan on how all these parts fit together and things are coming along. For colors, I understand that the interior fuselage was painted Interior Green from the firewall back, and "white" from the firewall forward. I'm using Vallejo US Light Green for the green sections. Rather than use "white" I'm using Vallejo gray primer which actually comes out like an off white with a grayish hue. I think that would be a better base than white, I can detail with washes and white highlights as need be. Landing Gear Tamiya has you essentially assemble the landing gear as one piece that is added later in the build. Aires does it a little differently, with the bottom frame already attached to the firewall, and the top halves of the landing gear legs assembled against the firewall early in the construction. So, I needed to cut off the top halves of the kit parts, and drill holes into the tops to accept the Aires parts. Wasn't too bad, but the Aires instructions don't make any mention of this. I should say that while I've been critical of the Aires detail set, it's quite nice aside from the fit issues and fairly rudimentary instructions. The parts are very crisp and the resin used is pretty robust. I read a build log where someone used the KMC resin cockpit set for this kit and the resin was so fragile, the parts were crumbling during assembly. Not the case here, though you certainly need to be careful. I'm not sure if Aires offers this set anymore, but it does pop up on eBay here and there.

Been slowly making progress on the Wildcat. I'd probably be halfway done with the build by now with the time I've spent if I was building this out of the box, but the Aires resin set is adding a ton of time. A bunch of time was spent taking the parts off the plugs (and some of the plugs are fairly thick and hard) and repairing some of the parts that had cracked. I'm not exactly sure why, but sometimes the CA grabs immediately, and other times, it just doesn't want to bond resin together at all. Also, the instructions are pretty sparse, and being not all that familiar with things like the engine, engine mounts, firewalls, etc., I've been spending more time looking online to figure out how things are supposed to work. But, it's been a fun learning experience. Cockpit The cockpit is going together ok so far. I painted the interior using Vallejo US Light Green, which is supposed to match "Interior Green" (ANA611). I added some of the cockpit PE details from the Eduard set - the nice thing about the PE set is that it is colored. I need to touch up and add a little highlighting and shading, but so far is looking ok color wise. Where I'm having issues is with the fit, however. The tub fits nicely, but the rest of the cockpit definitely is not plug and play! The seat, for example, seems a little too big so I might try seeing if the Eduard PE seat is a better match. The bigger issue is getting the side panels to fit properly inside the interior. They keep pushing up above the canopy line, so I might need to do a little surgery. Others seem to have the same issue so it's good to know it's not user error. Firewall The firewall is a lot more detailed than the kit plastic, but is 2mm wider at the horizontal line where those tabs are sticking out along the sides (well, one of the tabs snapped off). Not exactly sure what was intended with them, but I'll probably have to cut them off to get the firewall to fit properly. Next to it you can see the kit part. I ended up assembling the framing to it because I couldn't for the life of me figure out from the instructions how the resin framing and other components were supposed to fit. I found a log from someone building the 1/32 Trumpeter kit that helped immensely, so I think I'm good to go now. Engine Been slowly working on the engine too. There's probably 50+ parts when all is said and done. I stopped here because I couldn't figure out from the kit instructions which way the cylinders (think that's what they are) are supposed to face. Life Raft The Aires detail set has a lot of open panels to show off things like the engine, interior framing, and the life raft. This went in fairly easily. Had to cut the section out of the fuselage, then it was a matter of cutting and sanding back the base of the resin part so that it could slide up into area. A bit of CA and filler, and everything is looking good.

Wow, very inspiring work! I like the idea of cutting the wings to have a more compact diorama. Was wondering how I would store some of the wider completed 1/32 kits I have on the shelf, and this gives me some ideas. Great work!

Thank you Rob, that's really helpful info. Appreciate it! The Iwata Eclipse in my limited experience is a great all-purpose airbrush, but I picked up a GSI-Creos PS-290 a couple of months ago (0.5mm needle) which is great for spraying larger areas. Looking at your excellent pre-shading efforts, as well as some of the more complicated camo schemes, I'm starting to think I might benefit from a smaller airbrush for more detailed work.

Thanks Jerry for the warm welcome and the kind words. Really appreciate it!

Rob, many thanks for those pictures. I should have posted photos, but here is what I'm talking about - the bottom halves of the fuselage form a sort of raised keel at the centerline. I can't figure out if that is accurate, or perhaps that's just how the seam came together when I glued them.

Such amazing work Rob, wow! Can I ask what airbrush/needle size you used to preshade the areas alongside those 0.5mm strips? I have an Iwata eclipse with a 0.35mm needle I think, and have been thinking about getting a smaller one for fine detail work.

Thanks Martin for the kind words. I feel I have a lot to learn still, and a long way to go to approach anywhere near the models I see here. But, I'm having fun in the meantime and it's great to share with others in the hobby.

Awesome, thanks guys! And no worries Ernie, no tomatoes yet

I haven't gotten too far yet as I'm trying to come up with a sensible build plan with the various aftermarket, but quick question. Is the underside belly of these planes completely rounded, or does it come to a slight ridge at the centerline? I glued the two fuselage halves together last night, and am not sure if I should sand off the very slight ridge or not. This is my first Tamiya kit, and I didn't know if the ridge is intentional, or if Tamiya gives a little extra material so that builders can sand things back. Thanks in advance!

Here is what I'm currently working on. From everything I've read the kit goes together very well and easily: Of course I've decided to complicate things considerably by adding a bunch of aftermarket, including a wing fold set from Wolfpack that allows you to build the kit as the FM-1. I happened to get very lucky and find this kit on eBay with all the aftermarket shown below, aside from the Wolfpack set, for under $50 with shipping from Greece of all places. The Aires set alone, which has a ton of resin and PE components, retails for $55 or over, so I figured why not? The Aires set is a bit overwhelming, with lots of detail pieces, but a decent upgrade over the already nicely detailed Tamiya kit: The Wolfpack wing fold seems to be nicely done. It might be tricky trying to add the Aires gun bays to the wings, however, given that the Wolfpack wings are resin and a solid piece. Also, the FM-1 (built by Eastern) only had two guns per wing rather than three as with the F3F-4 Grumman version, so I'll need to modify the gun bays a bit which shouldn't be too difficult. Couple of more pictures of the Atlantic paint scheme, including a picture of a FM-1 that is part of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum collection. I'm in the DC area, unfortunately it looks like it's not on display at the moment (and I believe the museum is closed due to Covid). Oh well.

Nice work Kevin! Good to see you here too

Good luck Harv!

Thanks guys, really appreciate it. I do enjoy posting my WIP builds not just to get all the much needed assistance and feedback as I slowly make my way up the learning curve, but also I enjoy the camaraderie and not building in a vacuum. I've certainly gotten a lot of help from folks on the other forum (which is dedicated to model ships), but I think I would likewise benefit from folks here who are so well versed in the plastic medium and flying things rather than swimming things. Rob, you aren't kidding when you said I haven't chosen the easiest path. I did the same thing with some ship kits, deciding to start with a 1/700 kit with full aftermarket instead of a 1/350 one. I think I've gone half blind trying to get it together with the microscopic PE add-ons! I thought the 1/72 kits would be inexpensive, easy kits to learn on but they were tough! Putting aside the size, the fact that they were biplanes, the relatively complicated color schemes, some warped parts (I needed to build a cowl for the F4B-4), and it being my first foray into plastic models in probably three and a half decades, made for a rough road -- learned a lot, and came up with a lot of new colorful language. Oh, and I mistakenly bought Tamiya PS line paint for the yellow wings not realizing I should have gotten the TS line, and the paint runs really hot! Needed to weather the planes more heavily than I originally intended to blend in the mess. They came out ok I suppose for my first time.

Here's a question for everyone - I just started building an F4F-4 Wildcat (to be built as the FM-1 using the Wolfpack wing fold conversion set and Aires super detail set). Is it worth me starting a log here? Or should I just post final pictures when I'm done? I know this is a 1/32 and up site, so don't want to muck things up with my punier builds.

Enough about me, here are some pictures of my second pair of models using the excellent Accurate Miniatures F3F-1 and F3F-2 kits. These were built using the Eduard F3F PE set, Yellow Wings Decals (not sure I actually used any now that I think of it), and Montex masks/stencils. For paints, I mostly used Vallejo (including Vallejo Metal Color for the aluminum and other metal finishes), but did use Mr. Surfacer and Tamiya rattle can primers, and decanted Tamiya "Camel Yellow" for the yellow top wing. For the US insignia on the wings, I painted those using the Montex stencils rather than using the kit decals. I went with very light shading/weathering, using Vallejo washes, and used EZ-line "Fine" for the rigging. Sorry for the poor quality of pictures, but here goes: F3F-1: F3F-2:

Hi everyone, I've been sorta hiding in the bushes the past year seeing all the great work on here. I know @Clunkmeister from another forum, and he encouraged me to set up an account and post my work here. So, here goes! I just started plastic modeling in the past year, before that working on wooden ship models and ship in bottle models, and having other hobbies like pen turning. The plastic world is a lot different from when I was a kid with all the amazing aftermarket, higher quality kits, airbrushes, acrylic paints, and of course, internet forums where folks kindly share their builds, tips and experiences. When I got back into plastic last summer, I started with the Accurate Miniatures F4B-4 and P-6E double box set in 1/72 scale (along with Starfighter resin aftermarket and decals). I figured I'd start small to get my feet wet, but man, that scale is a bit too small for me. I did learn a lot though, and was bit by the plastic bug. So now I have a good sized stash. I have a bunch of kits in the 1/48 scale, which I'm planning to work on to get my skills up before tackling the 1/32 kits I have from Zoukei Mura, Trumpeter, Wingnut Wings, etc. Hope you don't mind me posting here!