1/48 Tamiya Grumman F4F-4

 Wildcat

by Dirk Adel

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After doing the late Grumman Cat F7F this one got on my desk. More than ten years after it was first released this kit is still up to date, it comes with fine details like raised rivets and recessed panel lines.

Only an Aires cockpit set, Moskit exhausts and some antenna wiring was added. One big advantage of the cockpit set is that the floor really has holes to look down through the windows at the bottom of the fuselage. Of course you can cut out the kit floor, too.

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It was a quite easy built, the fit of the Aires parts is very good. There appeared just one problem: As the rear cockpit plate was too big I had to fill a little gap between the two fuselage halves. As a result the canopy does not fit any more and has to be replaced by a vacuformed one. Unfortunately they are hard to get at Germany, so this is still on my to-do-list.

Moskit exhausts look very realistic. Of course on this type of aircraft the exhaust are almost hidden down there at the bottom.

Airplanes used by the Navy at the beginning of WWII do not need as much weathering as those island-hoppers in 1944/45. So only some silver marks to represent flaked-off paint were added. Some of the blue panels were brightened a little by rubbing in some dry white paint using a Q-tip (some stick to clean your ears…)

As I do not like Tamiya decals these came from a Techmod sheet and went on quiet well with the help of Microsol an Microset. The model depicts a machine flown by VF-41 in early 1942. The color used on top must be blue-grey, but isnīt grey at all. I donīt care as it looks good to me.

Hope you like my Cat!

Dirk

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Photos and text Đ by Dirk Adel