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F8F-1B Bearcat Indochina


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Good day to ARC members -

I'd like to share my next project. It's the Sword 1/72 Bearcat. I got this back in 2004? I've been struggled with this for a few years, as this is an early multi media kits. It's fairly tough to put together. It does have very nice surface details however. 

 

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Edited by trietmcam
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The kit has very nice fine panel lines. To the best of my knowledge, the panel lines are correctly depicted. Being inflicted by AMS, I added rivets. The kit included a very nice sets of resins. Wheels, HVAR rockets, cockpit, and main gear wells. As for assembling it together, that's another story.

 

I added details to the main landing gears, such as brake lines and the oleo scissors.

 

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You are left to figure out how to locate where each parts go correctly, as there were no location holes or tabs in the kits. I relied a lot of walk around photos for visual aids.

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The cockpit was another problem. I think the instrument panel is sitting too deep forward. It might be too long in length. I dont think it mattered much. Once the fuselage is put together, nothing is visible, other the seat.

I can't verify if interior green is the right color inside the cockpit. References for the French Bearcat in Indochina are rather hard to find.

 

I replaced the windscreen with the Squadron vac-form part. Once it was dipped in Future, I used Gorilla glue to attach, and used a lot Mr. Surfacer to blend in the windscreen surrounding area. Not only did it looked more in scale than the kit's screen, but I think it has the right slope. The kit's screen seemed too slanted compare to the reference pictures - at least to me.

 

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Edited by trietmcam
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/5/2016 at 6:41 PM, viking73 said:

Looking good!  I have this kit also and want to build it at some point.  I'll be sure to bookmark this thread.

 

-Derek

thanks Derek. One thing for sure, this requires a lot of patience to build up, as is most of the early short run kits. I almost gave it up. The hardest part is you have to know exactly where to place each parts since the kits provide no clues. The engine is the most tricky to do. You want to make sure the prop shaft is centered with the cowl opening diameter. I used a block of styrene behind the engine to support it once I found the fore/aft location  . Cheers.

 

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Tackling the windscreen joint, I added more Mr. Surfacer to blend in the joints. The vac form parts did not have a very nice fit. So I kept building up layers until and then sanded the area smooth.

It's now ready to be masked off and spay  with a final Mr. Surfacer 1200 to check for any flaws.

 

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The macro closeup revealed all the flaws, but the result wasn't actually too bad in real life.

 

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The Bearcat had color light bulbs and clear lens on the wing ends. To replicate that, I file a square corner of a clear sprue, drilled a small hole and add a drop of red paint.

 

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Filed and reshaped into the wing.

 

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Edited by trietmcam
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Just out of the paint shop. I used Testors enamel glossy sea blue mixed with flat black to give it a semi gloss finish. It was diluted about 40% thinner. I always had problem with orange peel effect and overbuild ups in dealing with glossy paint. I found this ratio of thinning worked well for me, minus the rough finish.

 

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Edited by trietmcam
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On 12/3/2016 at 3:41 PM, trietmcam said:

I replaced the windscreen with the Squadron vac-form part. Once it was dipped in Future, I used Gorilla glue to attach, and used a lot Mr. Surfacer to blend in the windscreen surrounding area. Not only did it looked more in scale than the kit's screen, but I think it has the right slope. The kit's screen seemed too slanted compare to the reference pictures - at least to me.

Re the windscreen angle: see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/07/grumman-f8f-bearcat-windscreen.html

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1 hour ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

 

Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen this before. Just for curiosity, I copied and paste the -1B picture with the Squadron windscreen side by side. The screen angle doesn't seems too bad, but at the base is way off. I had to sand the vacform down to conform with the kit's fit. In this case, the kit's molding in this area is straight rather than curve like the real thing. 

 

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It looks like the model is ready for decals. I didn't use the kit's insignia as I found them to be grossly undersized. I was able to find some that seems right. These came from a very old Carpena sheet, maybe 17 years now. They still works, but they were kind of thick and very hard to conform over curve surfaces. After battling them with Solvaset, they finally stuck. Once the Sovaset sucked them down, the decal thickness doesn't seem noticeable.

 

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Edited by trietmcam
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Front view with bombs fitted in with brass wires. The pylons holes were drilled out with a #80 bits. The pylons are thin, so careful when drilling and keep it parallel to the pylon. Otherwise, the drill can go through the side walls. 

 

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Stretch sprue were used for the antenna

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I ran into some snafu recently. Something didn't looked right with the headrest. It sat too low. So I ripped the whole thing off with the roll over bars and rebuilt it again. Here is the rebuild assembly again.

 

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The small square block next to the headrest base is there so the canopy base can rest on. I planned to pose with open canopy. This way, the canopy can be glued on so it won't tail sit 

 

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Edited by trietmcam
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I had to order a new decal sheet because the old kit decal disintegrated in water. Should've coat it with a coat of liquid decal before went ahead, I wasn't thinking. Anyhow, the Print Scale F8F Bearcat saved the day. The decal was rather difficult to work with, mainly because it was so thin, it's easy to roll up on itself. I had to work real slowly for each decal, especially the long ones. 

 

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The Print Scale decal is so thin the dark blue background passed through the white color, as you can see in the squadron logo. I opted to use dry transfer for the letter F to avoid the same problem. 

 

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That's it for now. Looks like I'm in the 9th inning stretch. The rest of the way should be smooth sailing. I'm going to do some study some more on the weather effect of the Bearcats in Indochina. The dusty and humid condition in Vietnam, plus operaying on dirt runways probably took it tolls on these aircraft. 

Edited by trietmcam
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The aerial antenna was added next. I drilled the holes with #80 drill. I use fishing line (0.005 inch). The dia. is a little large for this scale. The other option is to use stretch sprue where I could stretch it very thin, but it's a little flimsy. I broke so many in the past, so it wasn't worth it.

 

I dipped the end of the line with CA glue. Once it's in, I used a piece of stretch sprue to plug in the hole real tight and hit it with Tamiya cement. 

 

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The fuselage end attachment is real tricky. I had to use a tweezer to hold it taunt before the glue dried. Obviously, I would had to hold it until the glue dried. There's no way that would work,  so what I did was grind down a pin, and also make it tapered. 

I used the pin to push into the hole. The line is also get pushed in along with the pin , making the line more taunt. It took quite a few tries to make it work. Once dried, I plugged in the hole with stretched sprue

 

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Edited by trietmcam
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