Grumman’s F3F
was the last biplane fighter to enter service with the US Navy and Marine Corps.
With a top speed of 264 mph it was the fastest ship borne plane in the world.
The last of the F3F series, the –3 was the most powerful. It was virtually
identical to the F3F-2 but it had the more powerful Wright Cyclone engine. 23
F3F-3’s were delivered in 1938. Many remained in front line service until 1940
when the F4F Wildcat replaced them. Even thought they weren’t on the front
lines they still served at Naval Air Stations for many more years during the
war.
This is one of
Monogram’s classics. I think it was issued somewhere around 1965. When it was
introduced in the sixties it was considered state of the art. However, by
today’s standards the kit appears quite dated. One of the unique features of
this particular model was functional landing gear. It seems most kits of the
time had operating features in order to sell them and entice young modelers into
building them. Overall this is not a bad kit. Ejector pin marks abound,
especially on the landing gear parts. The fuse, however, nicely done with raised
lines and rivets. The wings have the simulated ribbing as well do the tail
control surfaces. The kit even
comes with a standing pilot figure. This is due to the fact that the Grumman F3F
was initially offered as the Gulfhawk; a civilian version of the F3F owned by
the Gulf oil company and piloted by Al Williams at airshows all across the
country.
One of the
things I did was add a bit of extra detail to the cockpit. I had very few photos
to go by. My only real source of reference was the Grumman Biplanes in-action
book by Squadron. I added some rivet detail to the seat using drops of CA and an
oxygen bottle made from bits of sprue and styrene rod. The instrument panel is a
decal. I thought about drilling holes for gauges and bezels and the works but
decided against it. Too much work for me. I did add a raised center section
where the primary gauges are like the real version. To me the decal panel looks
acceptable. I added some extra detail to the side walls and side consoles as
well using styrene. The inside was painted aluminum since most aircraft of this
era didn’t have primer applied.
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I wanted fully
functioning landing gear just as the kit intended so I took my time and cleaned
up all the gear parts and filled all the ejector pin marks. And let me tell you,
there were a lot of them. It takes a fine application of the solvent brush to
make sure no excess glue doesn’t get where it’s not supposed to in order for
the gear to operate. If you take your time and work through each step before
gluing you can have fully functional gear. The gear is operated by the
propeller. You pull on the prop to engage the gear then turn clockwise to
retract it. Turning the opposite way extends the gear. The prop only needs to
rotate a few revolutions to extend and lower the gear and when you reach the end
of travel just push the prop in to disengage the gear so the prop will spin
freely. You’ll notice a gear sector sticking out of the fuse side near the
cowl. This is really unavoidable when having operating gear due to the geometry
of the linkages. If you decided to build the model with the gear fixed you could
plug and putty the opening. The tail wheel is a one piece unit and is
retractable as well.
The rest of the
model builds up fairly conventionally. The control surfaces are designed to move
so I made mine moveable. There is lots of seam sanding to get things looking
good so be prepared. The molds for this kit are definitely showing their age.
The engine is molded onto the firewall. You can only see the front of it so a
complete engine isn’t really necessary. The detail on it is very basic. I
painted it and dry-brushed the highlights then gave a light wash to bring out
some other details. You could add more detailing if you prefer but once again I
wasn’t going that far. The propeller is rather nicely done with the
counterweights and all. There are a few sink marks on the backs of the blades to
contend with but nothing major.
The lower wing
to fuse joint is probably the worst fit of the whole kit and I spent a bit more
time here. I puttied a little bit at a time then sanded. I kept repeating until
it looked satisfactory. I left the
upper wing off after assembling it for painting reasons. This bipe has a lot of
colors plus it’s a bipe. Different painting techniques are called for. Once
the lower wings were on and the tail feathers in place it was time for paint. I
like to leave my props off for painting but in this case I could not. In order
for the gear to function the prop had to be glued to the prop/gear shaft. If it
wasn’t the prop shaft would fall inside the model and be irretrievable. This
added a measure of difficulty to paint operations.
Because of this the prop was painted first with MM aluminum. It was then
assembled to the shaft, the gear was tested then the prop was masked. I also
masked off the inside of the cowl to protect the painted engine.
Most between
the war bipes had silver dope applied to the wings. The F3F was no exception.
Once the model was primed the lower wings and bottom of the top wing were
painted with Krylon’s silver. This is an excellent silver metallic paint with
great coverage properties. The top of the top wing was then painted with white
primer. The white primer is necessary because Insignia Yellow (and most yellows
for that matter) is very transparent. If you tried to spray the yellow over grey
primer it would not look as bright and you’d need a thousand coats to get the
density right. The lower wings were masked off and the fuse was painted with MM
aircraft grey. This is a gloss coat so it took longer to dry. Then the tail
surfaces and cowl were masked for the insignia red.
And lastly the wing roots were masked for the black.
Whew! A lot of masking and painting. All the masking was removed and
everything was given a coat of clear lacquer in preparation for decals. But before the decals can go on we need to assemble the upper
wing and ‘N’ struts. The wing and ‘N’struts went together very nicely
and everything was in alignment. Monogram provides a unique way to do the flying
wire rigging. There are small molded tabs that fishing line is designed to loop
around for the threading portion. The instructions show the proper sequence to
do everything. When it comes to rigging biplanes I am a complete incompetent. I
tried the kits method and it didn’t work very well for me. Finally I got so
disgusted I cut off the nubs and used a combination of strip styrene and .020”
music wire. It went much better my way.
Now it was time
for markings. The kit decals were used. I don’t know of any aftermarket one
available. The kit decals were excellent and fit very well. They did need some
strong setting solution to get them to conform to the surface details on the
fuse. The color scheme and markings represent the squadron commander’s
aircraft from VF-5 assigned to the USS Yorktown, November 1939, San Diego,
California.
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There are a few
details left. The canopy side rails need a lot of work. If you use them straight
from the kit they look very ‘clunky and chunky’ and totally out of scale.
Once I glued them in place on the canopy I protected the clear parts and filed
them down to match the contour of the canopy. They look much more scale now.
The canopy was then masked and sprayed with aircraft grey.
Once dry it was de-masked and put in place. It’s designed to slide back
and forth so no glue was needed. The tubular gun sight was cleaned up and
painted black then glued in place. The wheels were last. In order to get them to
fit with them retracted I raised the gear then put them in place on the axle.
The kit has you heat a screwdriver and flatten the excess axle protruding so the
wheels can turn. That looks bad and never works very well. I marked the axle
instead and cut off the excess then glued the wheels in place.
The plane
itself was now done. Determined to use all the parts in the box all that was
left was the Al Williams figure. I cleaned up the seam lines on him and filled
the ejector pin marks. After more sanding and scraping he was glued to his base.
Now figure painting is not my forte but I gave it my best shot. Al’s wearing
basic Khakis and a leather jacket and flying helmet. Not to many colors. I used
a little bit darker than normal skin tone so my Al has a tan. I gave the figure
a thin wash with black paint to bring out some highlights. He may not win a
beauty contest but he looks O.K.
And there you
have it. A 35+ year old kit. While it’s not up to the standards of today’s
Hasegawa or Tamiya offerings it still proves you can build a nice model from
some of the old classics. A bit of patience and determination is all that’s
needed.
Jeff
Visit my web
site @ http://www.geocities.com/jbrundt
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