1/48 Eduard F6F-5 Hellcat VF-12 "Hamilton McWhorter III" (FINISHED)

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
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I’m out of Battle of Britain mode (for now) and I’m heading back to the Pacific. I figured I’d share the Hellcat I’ve been plugging away at for the last week or so. I’m building the Eduard F6F-5 Hellcat in the markings of the first Hellcat ace, Hamilton McWhorter III. He flew “White 9” with VF-12 off the USS Randolph in 1945. McWorther was the first Hellcat ace and would finish the war with twelve enemy aircraft destroyed. McWhorter helped form VF-12 and took part in the first raid of Tokyo in February of 1945, where he downed a Zero (possibly in White 9). Here’s my homage to this brave hero.

McWhorter’s “White 9”…

As I said, I’ll be using the Eduard kit. I have built it before, when it first came out, but unfortunately I don’t recall much about it. That’s not a good sign yeah?

I started with the cockpit. I have to admit I’m not particularly impressed. It’s pretty weak. Fortunately the Profipack comes with color PE which I suppose saves it. I put it to good use. Perhaps I’m just spoiled by the Tamiya cockpits…lol. I went with my mix of interior green, XF-4 Yellow Green, XF-5-Green, and a touch of XF-49 Khaki. I did order a few AK Real Colors US Cockpit colors which I look forward to trying, but they have not arrived yet.

The engine it quite weak too (Ahhhh…t’s all coming back now!). I wasn’t impressed in the least. I used the included PE wires, but they were so thin you could barely see them. I tried painting them to add bulk. I did add an ignition ring which was missing. Certainly not Eduard’s best work. Interestingly there is an advertisment in the instructions for a resin Brassin replacement R-2800. Now I see why.

I suppose it looks decent once inside the cowl…

The airframe goes together very well. No issues. I have to give Eduard points for surface detail, it’s outstanding. I don’t think they missed a rivet. The wings tuck nicely into the fuselage so there are no wing root issues. Be careful with the dihedral though.

I replaced the exhausts with brass tube. The kits were too small to drill out (or I didn’t have the patience to try to hold them and drill out).

Now I have to figure out how to make ANA 623 Dark Sea Blue look like a real plane and not a toy. I would imagine dark blue will be just as tough as black to do convincingly. I started by preshading the panel lines and paint all areas that would be white. I used Maktar masks for the stars and bars

I then taped off the distinctive USS Randolph tail markings. I used the kit decals as reference.

For this project I procured the AK real colors Dark Sea Blue. I’m not expert but the color look ok to me. I left a hint of the panel lines showing through. It’s not as dark as I thought it would be. Or AK got it wrong…lol. I’ll live with it…

It’s definitely weird having a plane all one color. Fortunately this one will get a white drop tank.

Now I had to make it look somewhat real. I added some XF-2 White and faded the panels a bit. I then went back with straight DSB and went for a mottled effect. I stopped about here.

After I was reasonably happy with it, I spent about an hour trying to make the Hellcat’s prominent exhaust staining look “right”. I started with diluted XF-19 Sky Grey to fade the paint then dirtied it up with diluted XF-57 Buff. The key word here is diluted. Next I went in with heavily diluted XF-69 NATO Black to made the actual exhaust staining. I slowly built these up and stopped here with the risk of overdoing it. I’m fairly happy with it.

That all for now. Time for some clear coat.

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Nice - I’m in the middle of the Squadron kit (apparently Eduard). Looking forward to how you weather these un-weatherable birds. Every pic I’ve looked at shows them relatively clean and varying degrees of gloss to semi-gloss sheen. I too am planning on the exhaust stains. Looking forward to what you come up with.

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I have the Eduard F6F-5N Weekend kit in my stash. I’ve already done a couple of F6F-3K drones. I’m still trying to decide what to do with the Eduard kit. Maybe French Indochina 1950. lawdog, your Hellcat is looking good. I have picked a couple of ideas from your build too.

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Thanks for the WIP, I’m recently interested in the Eduard Hellcat kit(s), great timing for me.

Yes. Enthusiastic to see what you do about it.

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Thanks for sharing Joe. Really like the exhaust streaks I’ve always had problems with them on darker finishes thanks for the tips

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Glad to hear it’s a good build. I’ve got the FAA set in the stash and hope to build it this year. Looking great as always!

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Thanks. I was unaware that Squadron has dipped into kits too. Indeed, I’m not sure how to pull the weathering off. Most I’ve seen are varying shades of dark blue too. I’m having trouble finding period color pics as most I’ve seen are restored birds and quite glossy. I’ll probably go on the dull side as I presume the pacific air was not kind to the sheen.

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Thanks Frank. That Indocat sounds interesting…

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Glad to have you Greg…

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Thanks Robert and your welcome…

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Thanks Chad.

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Looks great so far, Lawdog. Thanks for sharing the exhaust staining technique. This Hellcat is on my list so I’m following along.

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Thanks Hoss and your welcom.

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You’re off to another great start on your Hellcat.

Regarding weathering, I’ve found that is the most difficult thing about building a late-war US Navy bird. I’ve done an old Monogram Hellcat and a Tamiya F4U-1D Corsair in the overall Dark Sea Blue, as well as the Academy F8F Bearcat, Italeri F7F-3N Tigercat and even the early jet, Monogram’s F9F-5P Panther (I think that was its designation) all in DSB. The Tigercat is the only one I attempted to make look beaten down a bit. It’s been more than a decade since I built it, but what I recall doing was putting down a coat of DSB, then splotching flat black across the build, and followed that up with a splotchy layer of DSB. Looking at the photos, it’s hard to pick out the very subtle undertoning of the black mixed with the DSB, but in person it looks pretty convincing. But, admittedly, this does nothing toward fading the paint job. I did the engine exhaust in much the same way as you did, but I think I used a dark gray color as the primary color for that.

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Man that looks awesome! You achieved the realism goal. Thanks for sharing.

…and thanks for stopping by…

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I should get you to build all my kits Joe, in 1 year youd have em all done.

Great work as usual.

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Looks awesome. I want you to know I’ve studied real hard and I’ll pass the quiz and the end of the year on the exhaust staining

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Thanks Damian. Ha!..I’ll try, send them on over.

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Thanks Johnny. Remind me to administer the quiz in December. Lol.

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I can call this bad boy done. To recap, it’s in the markings of Hamilton McWhorter VF-12 off the USS Randolph in early 1945. McWhorter was the first Hellcat ace and flamed 12 enemy aircraft total. To me the Eduard kit is a mixed bag. It’s good but not great. The cockpit, prop, wheels and engine are quite mediocre, perhaps intentionally to support their aftermarket line. That said, the exterior surface detail is outstanding and it’s very easy to build. I did add an Ultracast prop and replaced the fifties with Quickboost barrels. The kit actually came with nice resin wheels which surprised me. Another thing, perhaps it’s my imagination, but the Eduard kit doesn’t capture the classic Hellcat “Squat”, as if the landing gears are a tad too long.

Main markings were painted on with the assistance of Maketar masks. I like these much better than Montex, as they are essentially Tamiya tape, but they are usually only in 1/32 scale. I had a spare P-51 set and the stars and bars where the correct size I needed.

Like my P-61 last year, the challenge was trying to make this turkey look real, especially since pics I’ve seen show these were in really good condition. I used AK Real Colors Dark Sea Blue then did some minor fading and exhaust staining. I initially tried a grey panel line wash which looked absolutely awful, so I switched to an AK Paneliner designed for blue green camo, whch was a dark brown. I’m much happier. I did grime up the drop tank and painted it white for added interest. Overall, I’m happy with it.