Monogram's 1/32 scale Grumman F3F.

Monogram's 1/32 scale Grumman F3F-3

Several years ago I visited a local, (now long gone), hobby shop and spied this kit, the Monogram 1/32 scale F3F-3! As a kid I had built the Grumman Gulfhawk version of this model and always wanted to do the Navy version, so I uncharacteristically purchased it on the spot! The unbuilt model sat in my stash for several years until now. I suddenly had an urge to build it!

This kit's molds are over 50 years old and I've found some of re-popped Monogram kits (their P-40B for instance), have suffered from heavy use. This kit, however, seems to have weathered the years pretty well. It's molds probably have not had the heavy use as the very popular 1/48 scale kits.

Still, this kit does lack a lot of detail compared to recent models. The big Wright Cyclone engine is a prominent feature on the aircraft and definitely needs some attention.  I drilled out some of the leads for the ignition wires and various tubing and added a couple of lumps on the crankcase cover.

Working on the Wright Cycone.

Not a great picture, but you can see some of the added detail on the Cyclone!

One unique feature on this kit is a retracting landing gear operated by turning the propeller! Unfortunately, this feature results in a couple of problems if you're trying to produce a more accurate static model: two large gears stick out of the fuselage, and the landing gear legs have some very non-scale hinge points! I decided to forego the retracting mechanism and starting by filling in the holes on the fuselage halves. 

Some modification of the landing gear legs was necessary. At this point I was considering having the gear retract without the propeller linkage. Later on, I gave up on that idea.

Landing gear linkage modified.

The cockpit interior had some nice detailing for a kit of this age. I added some belts for the seat. The decal for the instrument panel fell apart in water so I made a more accurate panel from sheet styrene. Seeing the decal fall apart caused a little apprehension since i had planned on using the kits decals. Fortunately the is a company, Yellow Wings Decals, which offers a nice sheet for this kit! They are a good little company and I received a nice sheet from them within days of ordering one. 

New instrument panel and seat details.

To finish off the interior I added a few strips of  Evergreen plastic strips to give the cockpit a little more detail. Then I shot the interior with a coat of aluminum paint.

Interior ribbing.

Then it was time to button it up! I had to do a little trimming to get the fuselage halves to settle together well.

Here's a peek inside the cockpit:

Next it was time to attach the lower wings. These required a fair amount of filling. 

Prepared for the first primer coat.

Now it was time for some real painting! I first sprayed the wings with Tamiya Chrome Silver. Then came a coat of Flat Aluminum on the Fuselage. The black non skid panels at the wingroot were next. Then finally I applied a home brew mix of Tamiya Blues for the tail feathers.

The top wing, with it's brilliant yellow upper surfaces was a little more work. After the primer coat I shot the undersurface with Chrome Silver, as on the lower wings, masking the leading edge off. Next, the leading edge and the upper wing surface were painted a flat white. Finally, Gloss Yellow was sprayed on these surfaces. I was pretty happy, (and relieved), with the look of the yellow wing after this. I didn't even need a second coat!

It was time for the initial decaling. Using the Yellow Wings decals, I applied the national insignia to the upper and lower wings along with the "section" chevron and aircraft number. The decals went on without any drama and worked well with Micro-sol.

Wing decals applied.

Painting continued with the cowling. I was modeling the third aircraft in the section, so, following Navy instructions, the section color was applies to the lower half of the cowling. 

I applied the decals for the fuselage, which included the squadron code, (VF-6), and squadron logo.

Preparing for assembly.

Assembly of the major components could now begin! I started by cementing the upper wing to the  cabane struts. 

Upper wing installed!

After the cabane struts had set, I installed the interplane struts at the wings' ends. At this point I began the rigging, using dyed EZ line. The rigging scheme on the F3F is pretty simple and Monogram molded in points to attach the rigging to to make it easier! I deviated a bit from the Monogram instructions since I was using super glue, which sets fast enough that you needed tape the rigging down to set.

Rigging started.

Even with super glue and EZ Line, I find rigging a little scary1 however, in the end everything worked out okay,

Rigging installed.

At this point I could now clean up the landing gear. I gave up any thought of having a retracting gear and cemented all the components. This would allow me to clean up the struts. In the photo above, you'll notice a large hinge plate on the upper half of the strut. This is completely bogus so I decided to remove it. Carving it up went pretty well and I was able to fashion a landing gear leg the at least approximated the real thing! (See photo below). 

Landing gear cleaned up.

Final assembly now went pretty quickly. One tough job seems simple enough but I found it took a bit of work. The Yellow Wings decals include little tricolors for the propeller tips. I found these impossible to apply! I finally gave up and painted them on, but that was a chore too because I kept removing paint with my masks! (The silver blades had received a coat of future for the decals. The paint wasn't adhering super well to that!).

A few final details included painting the navigation lights using Tamiya Clear Green and Clear Red, (a first for me), over Chrome Silver. Radio aerials were made from EZ Line.

This was a fun build. Even for it's age the Monogram F3F builds into a nice, sturdy little model. While not currently available, I hope Revell of Germany will see fit to re-release it some day.

Finito!

A peak at the cockpit.

Modeling Hobbycraft's 1/32nd scale Sopwith F.1, the Camel!

The Hobbycraft Camel completed!

My next build is the Hobbycraft Sopwith F.1, the famous Camel! This kit is an old issue and is generally not viewed with a lot of respect anymore. Even Hobbycraft saw fit to retool the Camel and the result is a very nice kit indeed, (I lucked into one of those kits, too and will build that one someday!).

However, since this would be the first biplane model I have attempted in over 40 years, I wanted to work on something I wouldn't mind trashing if need be. As it is, this kit does make up into an attractive "Camel shaped object", so I didn't mind fiddling with it's less stellar qualities.

One of the main criticisms of this kit is the heavy handed ribbing effects on the wings and tail surfaces. This necessitated a little sanding on my part. With the sanding I lost the control horns for all the control surfaces, so that created a little extra work down the road.

The fun begins, HC's old tool Sopwith Camel!

The HC Camel's interior is a bit sparse, so I devoted some time to adding some detail to that area. I carved up the seat and built up the cockpit walls. I also drilled out the barrels of the twin Vickers.

A little detail work.

While I was at it, I worked on the Clerget rotary engine, too. I added spark plugs and connecting rods to the cylinders.

Work on interior details.

Here's a look at the interior after the fuselage alves have been cemented together. Note the seatbelts. British aircraft lacked shoulder straps at this stage, using only broad seatbelts and installing heavy padding on the butts of the machine guns!

I should mention that the Hobbycraft instructions are quite vague about the installation of some of the items in the interior, so I took some liberties with them!

Next up, it was time for exterior paint! I wanted to try to capture some of the translucence of the Clear Doped Linen (CDL) finish on the undersides of the wings and tail planes. Here's the method I tried:

Working on the shading effect. First I sprayed the wing a dark brown then masked the rib pattern. I then shot the wing with Tamiya "Deck Tan"

Here's the initial result. Next is an overspray of the Deck Tan.

Here's a shot of the completed lower wing undersurface. The shaded effect is quite faint. 

After the PC10 finish was applied to the fuselage, I attempted to create a wood grain effect on the plywood surfaces found around the cockpit. I started with a coat of Model Masters "Wood". After that was well cured, I gave it a wash of Tamiya's acrylic Flat Brown thinned with IPA. I played around with the brown until I found a result that looked decent. Later, I would give it a coat or two of Future to give it a sheen. I think it came out pretty well!

I captured the wood grain effect be using washes of Tamiya Flat Brown applied over model Master "Wood".

I did a similar technique for creating a wood effect on the propeller, too. Next time, I will try to give the prop more lamination layers.

The Clerget rotary engine and prop.

The decals were now applied. Fortunately the old HC decals have held up and I was able to use them. I'm doing the kit's representation of Barker's B6313 at a early stage.

Now the principal components of the aircraft were ready for assembly.

Paint done. Now the work begins.

My biggest concern was getting the wing alignment straight while ensuring that the whole wing assembly became a reasonably strong unit. Initially, I installed the cabane struts and then held the wings in place with jigs made from my grandkid's endless supply of Lego's!!

Improvised Lego jigs for aligning the wings!

Well, it did take some work and sweat, but eventually I got to the point where I could add the interplane struts. To ensure that these were held in place securely, I taped the top wing down, (while the lower wings were supported by a couple of Lego bricks.

Incidentally, all these struts were also painted to resemble wood grain using MM Wood followed by a wash of Tamiya Brown.

Holding down the top wing for cementing.

Things seem to be well secured now, (although I did find one loose interplane strut end later on). I then installed the landing gear struts. These looked very flimsy to me but in the end they seemed up to the job. The wheels were then glued and finished. I dirtied them up a little to better highlight the very nice detail molded on them.

Time for the rigging! HC actually makes rigging this bird pretty simple, with holes at various points on the fuselage and wings and on the ends of the struts. Some of this leads to points that are not strictly accurate, but I wasn't going to be quite that dogmatic about it. HC instructions have you installing some of the rigging thread before assembly but I decided not to do that. I used heavy white "EZ Line", stained with a silver Sharpie marker and secured with CA glue. For the most part, this worked out pretty well.

Rigging almost finished! You can see the control horns added to the elevator and ailerons.

With the rigging installed the kit was almost complete! I had to finish the two fuel hatches on the cockpit decking. Strictly speaking, the lower offset cap is on the wrong side! It should be on the right side of the decking. I wasn't going to try to fix that particular problem since this wasn't going to be a show model anyway. I'm pretty sure that most folks will not even notice!

Complete! With the fuel caps detailed and painted.

A look at the Clerget rotary engine and prop.

I tried to capture the cockpit detail with this shot, but it's still covered up!

Well, this was a fun build after all. I realize however, that I'll have to step up my game when I attempt the Roden kits in my stash. Still for anyone who wants to take a stab at these striking WWI birds, you can't go very wrong with either this kit of the HC Nieuport 17, both can be had fairly cheaply and they are pretty forgiving.

AMT ME 109G-6 in Finnish colors.

AMT ME109-G6 in Finnish colors.

Due to a hangup with the decals on my Nieuport build, I've decided to jump over to a different kit.  I've had this ME 109 laying in the stash for many years, so now it's time has come!

Nice, original color shot of a Finnish Me109G-2

Finland resumed it's conflict with the USSR in 1941, unfortunately allied with Nazi Germany when the Germans attacked the Soviets. As an ally, Finland was able to procure a lot of war material from Germany, including ex-French Curtiss Hawk 75's, Dornier DO-17's and Junkers JU-88s. One of their most important, and (long lasting), acquisitions was the Messerschmidt 109.

Initially, Finland received a shipment of ME-109G-2 fighters. These were a welcome upgrade from their motley collection of international fights. In early 1944, the G-2's were supplanted with over 100 G-6 models. My model will represent one of these later G-6 "Gustafs". The G-6 featured a more powerful engine and heavier armament compared to the G-2, although handling and maneuverability suffered. In the airwar against the West, these were considered acceptable trade-offs. A total of 162 ME 109G's of various marks were acquired by Finland.

Nice example of the Finnish color scheme. This particular a/c is a G-8 reconnaissance fighter, one of two such marks purchased by Finland.

ME-109G-6 MT-408.

MT-416, a G-6 with short tail.

Assembly:

The kit I'm working with is the old AMT/ERTL ME-109G-6 in 1/48th scale. It is a rebox of the ARII kit. For it's age, it seems to be a pretty nice model with decent detail and engraved panel lining. Since I'm going with aftermarket decals, (an SBS Finnish set), I'm not worried about the kit's decals, although I may try to use a few of the generic data pieces.

Caption

I'm kind of excited about this build because I get to play with my airbrush quite a bit in producing the mottled German camouflage used on the wartime Finnish fighters.

Although a pretty old kit now, the AMT Messy looks pretty nice compared to the old Revell and Airfix kits of the late 60s and early 70s. It's got nice engraved panel lines and a pretty nice, albeit simple cockpit. That's where I started, I tried to spruce up the instrument panel by drilling out the bezels and backing it, using a piece of plastic stock. I also covered the molded seat harness belts with strips of masking tape with wire buckles. While I'm not entirely satisfied with the results, once the whole unit was assembled, I thought it looked okay.

A little work on the cockpit assembly.

Cockpit assembly installed.

After assembling the fuselage and wings, I attempted to mask the canopy, using strips of Tamiya tape. It looked okay, but in the event there turned out to be several flaws in my taping!

Canopy masked.

I glued the masked canopy to the fuselage and then shot the whole thing with Tamiya primer. This is really stinky stuff but it works very well indeed! The priming revealed a couple of flaws in the finish which I was able to correct, then a second coat was applied. Now it was time for the color coats. I first applied the yellow theater markings on the nose and fuselage sides and the lower wingtips. I masked these areas in order to create a barrier to prevent the other colors from bleeding into the yellow. Yellow is a tricky color to apply, it took three coats of Testor's flat yellow to get a good coverage.

Primed and first color coat, the yellow theater markings.

Next was a coat of the underside camo, RLM 76, which I created from a mix of Tamiya acrylic paints. Then came the camouflage of RLM 74 and 75 on the upper surfaces, again this was a mix of Tamiya paints. The upper colors were applied freehand with my Master G33 airbrush and I was happy with the results; this was the first time I've tried freehand painting with the brush!

I must say that Tamiya acrylic is a joy to work with. Thinned with 91% IPA, it flows beautifully through an airbrush.

Freehand mottling with the airbrush.

Next up was a real test of my airbrushing skills, the mottled effect of the fuselage side! Again using the G33 and with my compressor's regulator turned down to 15 pounds of pressure, the mottling went very well. It really was a lot of fun!

Now it was the moment of truth, time to remove the masking tape! Much to my relief, the camo colors did not bleed into the yellow! Everything looked good until I removed the canopy masks.

Masking tape off. all good except the fuselage band is too narrow! 

Now it was time for the decals. First, I brushed on two coats of Future, to give the decals a smooth surface to settle on. Then I applied the SBS decals and just a couple of the data decals from the original kit.

Decals applied.

With decals applied, a coat of dullcoat was then sprayed onto the kit. I then removed the canopy masks and found that the primer had seeped through gaps in my taping. I had to spend some time scraping and polishing the clear plastic to remove the traces of the primer, then I had to hand paint the canopy frames. Fortunately the ME109 has pretty straightforward canopy framing!

Now it was time for final detail painting and assembly.

MT-408 completed!

The result is an attractive model, but one not without a few hiccups; The fuselage band is too narrow, and I believe the aircraft numbers are a tad oversized. Also, the white section of the prop spinner is oriented a little off, the demarcation should be between the prop blades not at them! All of these I discovered a little too far along to really want to try to correct on this model. I'll just have to do better next time!

Incidentally, while researching this build, I discovered this little treasure:

Available for $20, I snapped one up!