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Greetings all. Now that the Eastern Front GB is done, I will dig in to my Nightfighter before I get going on my Med/NA builds. I will be building an F6F-3N Hellcat from VMF(N)-534. This bird is in the tricolor scheme with a little bit of art on the cowl. The kit is Hasegawa's 1/48 F6F-5N kit, but it has all the parts to do a -3N in it, except for the cowl. That is no problem though because Hasegawa's cowl is not quite right, so I have the Obscureco cowl on the way. Other aftermarket goodies for this one include a vac canopy, Obscureco prop, and true details wheels. Also, upon opening the box, I discovered that I had purchased the excellent Jaguar resin cockpit for this kit and had completely forgotten about it. It is a really nice cockpit, but it doesn't come with a gunsight or control stick. I will post some pics once I get a little paint on the pit to show the really nice detail it has. I think this will be a fun build, and I don't anticipate any problems with this kit. Thanks for following along!

f6f-3n.jpg

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Here is the Jaguar cockpit set. I have some of the painting done, but I still have some wires to do, the seat belts, clear for the instruments, the control stick and the gunsight, before I give a thin wash. I think this cockpit set has really nice detail to it, is very cleanly cast, very thin sidewalls, and fits in the kit fuse very well too. I know some of the paint and colors are a bit over done and not quite accurate, but in such a closed in space, I think it will add the right amount of business once the fuse is all closed up.

cockpithalfdone.jpg

panelshalfdone.jpg

Edited by jrallman
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Thanks, once I finish painting all the detail bits I plan on giving it a bit of a wash and dry brush and maybe a little paint scuffs on the floor for some weathering. As for the colors, I want so much referring to the green being off, since it looks like a decent match to me, but the colors I used for alot of the knobs and switches. Usually they aren't as colorful as I made them, just wanted to add a little busy interest to it. Thanks for lookin.

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Thanks. Update time. The cockpit is almost finished. The IP had the gauges cast very deep, and they didn't look right so I filled them in partially and put some Mike Grant gauge decals on them. I still have to put some dabs of future on each for the glass. I also need to attach the gunsight, but other than that, the cockpit is done and I am just about set to close up the fuse.

cockpitleftpanel.jpg

cockpitrightpanel.jpg

cockpitIP.jpg

cockpitseat.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got the pit all finished up except for the gunsight, which I have on the way from Quickboost. Also on the way from Quickboost is a replacement engine. In the mean time, I have also buttoned up the fuse and sanded the seam, minimal filler required there. The wings and stabs are on too, little bit of filler to smooth the wing fuse joint just in front of and behind the wing. I still have a wee bit more filling and sanding of that joint and then I can rescribe the panel lines that were lost to sanding. hopefully by then the engine and gunsight will be here so I can get it ready for paint. The cowl in the third pic is from Obscureco, but isnt attached, since there is no engine yet. Thanks for looking.

airframetop.jpg

airframebottom.jpg

airframecowl.jpg

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Great work so far! I'll be really interested to see how well the Obscureco cowling works out as I've heard lots of good things about it. It looks like it fits real well. Is it designed for both the -3 and the -5, or are there separate cowls for each?

Edited by David Walker
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the Obscureco cowl is a drop fit replacement for the Hasegawa part, even including the internal structure to align it properly on the fuselage. Unlike the Cutting Edge cowl, Obscureco makes one cowl for the -3 and the -5. The panel lines as the cowl comes are appropriate for an early -3. I will be filling the half round panel line you can see just in front of the exhaust in front of the wing. That line is for the bulge found on early -3s. To make the cowl a -5, they tell you to just fill and sand the panel lines for the bottom cowl flaps. I believe the Cutting Edge cowl has the cowl flaps open, which makes it impossible to do a simple fill and sand to go from a -3 to a -5. I actually like the looks of the closed flaps a bit more, nice a tight looking. Plus, the Obscureco cowl is $10 while the Cutting Edge one is $20. I ordered two from Obscureco and got free shipping too! Can't beat that!

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Thanks guys. I did the wing tip lights the last couple nights. The kit just has a panel line molded where the wing tip lights are and the instructions call for clear red and green paint (actually clear blue, since a green light when turned off is bluish, but I think it is more of a green blue than straight blue). Anyways, normally this would be ok, put a nice chrome undercoat and the clear color on top, but only if the lens is colored. On the F6F, the lens is clear but the bulb is colored, so I cut out the tips at the panel line. Then I took some clear resin and drilled a small hole in the back corner. I filled the hole with clear red and clear blue/green. Then I painted the rest of the back with chrome and CA'd it into the cut out on the wing. I then sanded it flush with the wing on all sides, polished it, and put a coat of future on it. I think it turned out pretty convincing. I will post pics of how it turned out tonight.

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Here are the pics of the wing tip lights. They are a little difficult to see in pics, but in person they look pretty good. I also got another nice surprise today. When I got home, I had a package from the Czech Republic with my Quickboost engine and gunsights in it. Woo hoo!

starboardlight.jpg

portlight.jpg

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Little update tonight. I have been working on the engine now, which is a really nice piece from Quickboost. I have assembled all the resin, painted everything and have been meticulously cutting and attaching the pushrods from steel wire. The engines are almost done, I just want to make ignition wiring and it will be complete. Thanks for looking.

pushrodsfront.jpg

pushrodsside.jpg

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Little update tonight. I have been working on the engine now, which is a really nice piece from Quickboost. I have assembled all the resin, painted everything and have been meticulously cutting and attaching the pushrods from steel wire. The engines are almost done, I just want to make ignition wiring and it will be complete. Thanks for looking.

pushrodsfront.jpg

pushrodsside.jpg

From Honolulu, aloha. :) Very nice work on the Hellcat. I have a "dumb" question and hope someone might help. I'm new both to the ARC forum and somewhat new (returning actually) to the hobby. I'm about to start a 1/48 F4U Birdcage Corsair, and already got the Quickboost engine for that. Problem is, I'm at a bit of a loss how the thing is supposed to fit with the kit fusilage, and since it looks like it's a similar kinda deal for the Hellcat, I thought I'd ask. Are you supposed to sand down or cut off the whole flat back thing and drill out something to make the QB part fit to the fusilage, or does it just pop in and sit flush with the lip on the back of the cowling? The QB engine looks great, but there weren't any instructions on this at all, so hoping you might help -- and mahalo (thanks) for that in advance!

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aloha to you as well. I am not sure how the engine attaches to the fuselage on the corsair. on the hellcat, as you can see from some of my earlier pics, there is a stub on the front of the fuse. this stub has a little pin on one side that keys into a notch on the kit engine so that everything is aligned properly. the quickboost engine had a separate thin backing plate that attached to the back of the engine plate that had that same keyed slot. The way I did it was to check the engine depth inside the cowl compared to the kit engine. I determined that putting the backing plate directly on to the engine plate would give me the proper engine height with just a little bit of sanding to the engine plate, so i sanded the engine plate back until I had the correct height, then routed out a crater on the engine plate where the stub from the fuse would go so that it didnt interfere with the fit of the backing plate since the fuse stub would have otherwise hit the engine plate instead of just the backing plate. Once that was done I attached the backing plate to the engine plate. the backing plate attached right to the engine plate provided the keyed alignment just like the kit engine and the engine height was correct from dry fitting, sanding the engine plate, and routing it out. the other way i could have gone was to sand the stub on the fuse down so it did not protrude any further than the backing plate's thickness, but i figured my method would provide a bit more of a solid attachment point. I hope that made sense, if not drop me a PM and I can take a few pics of the back to show you what I mean.

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