1/32 Hasegawa Hellcat F6F5

by Alex Campbell

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Hi all
Here is my latest model, a big Hellcat, a biiiggg one! This is the first time I have worked in this scale for a long time, I am used to working in 1/72, and this was a pleasant change. It was a Christmas present from my daughter Fiona, and I couldn't wait to get it started. The general fit and finish of the model was good, but not exceptional, and to be honest I was a little disappointed in the level of detail, I would have thought they could have crammed in a bit more especially in the cockpit area, which was very spartan. The fit of the wings to the lower fuselage was terrible and needed a lot of filler, similarly the fit of the windshield was not great. It took me a long time till I got a blue I was happy with, but finally settled on Tamiya X4 after trying XF8 and Humbrol 25, these were too purply for my liking. Painting was no problem and was finished with several coats of Tamiya Clear AS12.
 

Click on images below to see larger images

One thing I discovered was using electrical insulating tape for the "metalwork" in the canopy. I just happened to have some in blue, which looked quite convincing when painted with acrylics. I sliced it up using a scalpel and placed it on a carefully cleaned canopy. I have included a close up of the canopy, hope you can see what I am talking about. I think it works well at this scale but may well look a bit thick on smaller scale canopies, but I am going to give it a try anyway.  The decals from the box were superb, silky smooth and wafer thin, lovely stuff!! All in all I'm very pleased with it and was a very pleasant foray from the normal 1/72.

Alex

Photos and text © by Alex Campbell