"A proud sailor". Fisher's F7U-3M Cutlass. VA-83. NAS Oceana. 1956

[HubertB]

Here is my finished Fisher 1/32 F7u-3 M Cutlass. 

This one has a looong protracted story, having been started on LSP in 2015, and then shelved for almost a decade, as life took precedence. Now, a change of country, four houses and five moves later, I completed it at last.

This is a great (and weighty, but no fear, Fisher got the LG legs cast in brass by G-Factor) kit, with its difficulties, but not any more than an IM kit. A lot of modellers are afraid of resin-cast (or nowadays 3D-printed) kits, but apart from the different glues, nothing really difficult when the kit has been well engineered, and with Fisher, you are in the top-league of resin kit manufacturers ! Talking of gluing, I used epoxy for the strong joints, or CA-glue (and we're not really friends with CA) and also UV-resin, which is great, as long as you can find a way to have the UV reach where the glue is. It has the strength of epoxy, and cures after a few seconds in the UV torch-light (mine is the great DSPIAE one).

The only area of difficulties was the leading-edge slats, where Fisher's choice has made the fitting and seam-cleaning difficult. In the end, I decided to do without the Fisher slats, and designed and printed my own. With hindsight, I'd probably still do things slightly diffrently, by also designing the wing part of the slats integrally with the slats, and graft the whole assembly to the wings, duly butchered, at the end.

I decided to finish the Cutlass as a NMF bird, because I believe this was representative of the iconic nature of the revolutionary (for its time) Cutlass. To add difficulties, I chose a scheme worn in 1956 by VA-83's F7U-3 M, i.e. with blue trims with white cheat lines. I chose "301", which was the squadron leader's bird, and differed from the rest fo the squadron by the diagonal white stripes on the wing tips. The NMF is a mixture of Alclad, MRP metallics, and foil for the areas which were "metallite" - a composite panel made of balsa sandwiched between aluminium sheets - and displayed a very high sheen on the 1:1 Cutlass. I tried to replicate the variations you can find in NMF, and hopefully did not do too bad a job of it, although it certainly could have been better.

The blue-and-white trims were masked and painted, and operator's error caused some aggravation and swearing in applying it  ... The Squadron and aircraft specific markings  like the number, Buaer, squadron number, and the "E" worn by VA-83 in 1956 were custom-designed and printed at home.

I chose to represent a saynette inspired by this photograph, probably taken during the Mediterranean cruise of USS Intrepid in 1956 :

Only, as Fisher's Cutlass does not have folding wings (which I do not like any way), I transferred the idea to the ground, i.e. NAS Oceana, where VA-83 was based on-shore. I decided to show the "other end" of this photograph, by adding the photographer on the scene, in this case a lady, which one can suppose is the girl-firned of our sailor. By the way, I checked, and NAS Oceana did not have "open-days" in 1956, but one can always imagine the lady had special permission to enter.

The sailor figure is a custom-pose sailor I ordered from Aladdin Models, but subsequently "frankensteinised" by changing the pose (my mistake in confirming to Aladdin the initial pose), and grafting a new head from a 3d-rpinted sailor, itself modified and resculpted, as were the hands. The lady comes from a 1/35 "women of the 40s" by Miniart. In 1/32, this make her even slimmer and petite, but this is ok. I added to her outfit a typical 'reflex" Kodak camera of the 50s; designed and printed in 3d, and a scratchbuilt handbag. I am not too happy with my figure painting-skills. i may revisit those, but not now. After 10 years, I am a bit "burned" with the Cutlass  

The access ladder, wheel-chocks and tow-bar were designed and 3d-printed as well.

The base is a cheap 40x60 frame bought in the local Chinese shop - a standard local feature in Portugal and Spain -, and customised with a concrete base done with AK "concrete" acrylic paste.

Ok. Enough for the prose; on to the (many) pics !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you like them.

A final huge shout-out of thanks to Paul Fisher. His choice of subjects, and the way he kitted, them is simply oustanding. His kits are fantastic and deserve to be built. I just hope I did justice to the - and his - fantastic Cutlass.

Hubert

[DocRob]

And proud you should be Hubert. Your Cutlass is a beauty. I love the NMF finish and the setting with the girl taking a snap, snapped by you for an eternal shot in your display shelf.
It must feel very satisfying to finish this build after such a long time. Some kits are like that, they are addictive and not finishing them is like an open wound.

Cheers Rob