1/32 Trumpeter F4F-4 Wildcat Part II  

by Edward A. Fuquay

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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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Photos and text © by Ed Fuquay