Grumman F8F-1 Bearcat (Sword)
The Sword kit has a reasonably nice rendition of the engine in resin.
These big honking ejection towers need to go bye-bye before the engine can go in.
A little Alclad, some Gunze, and a Future wash (liquid skill) and the engine looks OK.
The cockpit was enhanced by instrument and control decals, and some photoetch rudder pedal and seat harnesses.
A better view of the harnesses.
I drilled out the lightening holes in the tailwheel as they are quite prominent.
Basic assembly complete. Not much filler was required, the fit was quite good.
When you drill out the axle holes and go too far (i.e. right on through) you need to fix your mistake. A couple of styrene discs made with a punch and die set came to the rescue.
Up on her legs. I added some additional actuator struts to the main gear.
I also added the small vanes in the intakes on the leading edge of the wings.
The Glossy Sea Blue is from MRP - very smooth and glossy finish.
Another view.
The stickers came from Starfighter decals. I'm not sure that the background to the Felix the Cat artwork is white - many sources show this as yellow.
The decals reacted beautifully to the decal solvents from Microscale.
Adding the gun sight, wheels, gear doors, wing pylons, drop tank, and the main gear strut torque links.
I used a semi-gloss clear to provide, in my view, a more realistic "scale gloss."
Finishing the prop.
The kit's rollover structure is pretty lame, and doesn't really look like the real thing.
So I built a new one from card stock and styrene rod.
Adding the rest of the bits including the canopy, rockets, prop, whip antenna, and aerial wire.
This was a quick build, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the photos. Cheers!
How do you see when you're driving this baby?
A couple of late war hot rods! The Sea Fury is the Aki Products resin kit that I built a while back.
Komentarzy
19 22 May 2023, 22:27
Bill GilmanHi mates, here's a quick build I did at the end of last year. It's the Sword 1:72 F8F-1 Bearcat. It's really a nice little kit and went together well. I didn't have to add too much extra detail but I couldn't resist tweaking a few things. Hope you enjoy the pictures. Cheers, Bill
22 May 2023, 22:48
Album info
1:72 Sword kit
