I cannot be happier
building this model. It is a good kit. I only had difficulties with the upper
fuselage joint in front of the cockpit. It is my guess that when Trumpeter re-engineered
the fuselage to correct its shape, they did not correct internal parts. The
landing gear bulkhead falls short in height, nevertheless it fits and so does
the cockpit....tightly I may say. Caution: this assembly might force some
modelers to use intelligible expletives to non modelers.
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Once you get past the fuselage
assembly, the engine needs to go on it. The engine by itself has more parts than
most 1/72 scale fighter model kits. 40 parts make up the engine. I put together
the cylinder halves on both cylinder banks and the respective valve rocker
covers. These are two separate parts per cylinder. One of the rocker cover has
an extension on it that represents an oil line that connects to the nearest
cylinder. This oil line is a bit long and requires a bit of trimming, but
not all of them, dry fit each and trim accordingly. To paint I started
with a dark silver I mixed: 50% Testors Gloss Black and 50% Floquil's Old
Silver. I sprayed the mixture on the cylinders and rocker covers. Then I
highlighted the rocker covers with straight Old Silver, kind of creating a shadow
around bolts. I drybrushed the cylinders with silver and painted the crankcase
and the front gear housing in neutral gray.
The Pushrods were painted in
semi-gloss black. The engine accessories at the rear were painted in the
"Dark Metallic Gray" I mixed. I added shadows and grime to the whole
engine. I also applied a wash of a very dark brown mixture to the whole
engine to give it an "oily" look. To finish of the engine I added the
ignition harness.
Note: the cylinders do not have a
detailed spark plug location. I placed them after carefully making an educated
guess. I drilled all holes before assembly.
To finish off the engine I diluted a
"Grime" color (black + brown + a itsy bitsy bit of yellow and white)
in dullcote and applied it sparingly over the whole engine. I sprayed more in
the corners and crevasses to give more depth to the parts. Finally I painted all
bolt heads on the gear box cover with a diluted white to bring out the detail.
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The use of a spray
booth is highly recommended. I want to build models until they put me under at
age 120! I enjoy model building! If you don't have a spray booth make sure you
have plenty of ventilation before spraying paints. I do not do a lot of
pre-shading on my models, but after all of the work I have done to this kit I
really want to finish it off the best I can. Some pre-shading and some weathering
are on order for this Wildcat. I generally use a single action airbrush, but a
dual action airbrush is best suited for the task. I am "test driving"
a Badger 150 and it is a sweet airbrush! It takes longer to paint a model, but
the end result is...oh! well! I will let you be the judge. Once again happy
modeling!
Ed
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