ok you propellor heads! you have a tread head looking at one of those winged thing-ga-ma-bobs and wondering if he is up to the challange. How are these acurate minature kits? Saw this subject in last months magazine and it has huanted me ever since. Now the trick will be the paint job. just can t call it weathering and throw some mud on it lol
Accurate Miniatures are some of the best kits produced in my opinion. The F3F-1 is an excellent kit. It even includes PE rigging that works quite nicely. As far as weathering, aircraft from that era were very well maintained and showed little or no signs of weathering other than moderate exhaust stains. Another kit you might be interested in is the Accurate Miniatures F3F-2. This is a bigger engined version of the F3F that actually equaled the P-51 in climb rate.
Accurate Miniatures make some of the best aircraft kits on the market. You won’t be disappointed.
The only caveat is that you want to follow the instructions step by step. The fit is excellent, but the parts sometimes fit together in non-intuitive ways and if you skip around you might find yourself with a cockpit that won’t go in without major surgery. If you follow the instructions, there will be no problems.
If you want to have a weathered and worn F3F, the only option is to make it as a South American export (I don’t think anybody but the Navy used the -1 though). The Navy F3Fs were all immaculately maintained, so weathering should be light on one of those birds.
I know the Planes of Fame in Chino, CA has an F3F flying that was one of the export versions sold to one of the South American countries. Theirs is done up in 1930s Navy colors though.
Bill
I agree. As with most AcMin kits, the F3F series are gems. It’s not one of the simplest, nor one of the toughest AM has produced. But it is one of the prettiest. And the PE bracing wires being flat, in this scale, is pretty close to accurate. Bracing wires in those late days of their existance (mid-late 1930’s) were indeed airfoil shaped, so a coat of bright metallic paint over the bracing wires (not really wires, since they are about a half-inch thick and an inch wide) they will look as though they have an airfoil. (I know you didn’t ask about the wires, but I keep seeing these models with the bracing replaced with round, fine wire, and it’s wrong).
Do your research. Each of the color combinations is assigned to a specific flight within a squadron, and the tail color indicates which ship it was on. Not all carriers had F3F-1’s assigned to them, so find a photo of a color combination you like, and follow it. The decal sheet has squadron insignia for lots of units, including squadrons that didn’t fly the plane, so be careful there too. But if you are going to dive into a/c, and have AFV experience, you should have no problem with this one. Just do as suggested above: Don’t deviate from AcMin’s instructions. Personally, I think they are the finest in the industry in many ways, though their marketing arrogance still leaves a bad taste with some people, like me, and has nearly put them out of business more than once.
TOM
I was just wondering what was meant by “marketing arrogance”. I hadn’t really heard too much about the inner workings of AM. All I know is that I’ve built about five of their kits and they are absolutely wonderful! I hope AM keeps putting out more kits which, in my opinion, are far better than anything Tamiya or Hasegawa every put out.
Eric
The AM F3F’s are great kits. As noted, follow the instructions & you can’t go wrong. The only tricky part of the kit is assembling the landing gear to the fuselage, but it can be done. I’m not sure what Tom means by marketing arrogance, but AM has a history of announcing new releases 2 or 3 years before the kit actually shows up. Some, like their Beaufighters have never been released. They also got in trouble with the major Distributors a few years back when they tried to promote direct on-line sales & by-pass the middle men. For a while, the Distributors & major Hobby Shops stopped carrying their line.
Regards, Rick
Amen to the previous comments.
Accurate Miniatures has had troubles, though I’m not sure it was through “marketing arrogance”. When a small company competes with the big boys every mistake they make is magnified by lack of resources. They seem to miss deadlines for the kits they have announced, but I can appreciate the difficulties for a company that lives of dies with each new kit they introduce. The up side is that the kits have almost always lived up to the expectations, if not exceeded them.
I have never regretted a single dollar I spent on their kits. Last night I unpacked a partly finished A-36 I started about a year ago. I noticed that even though I bought aftermarket sets, I ended up using the kit part instead as often as not.
By total random chance [:-^] I’m going right by Hobby Lobby today and since they just happen to be having a half off sale, and since I noticed an F3F on the shelf last time, I am considering picking up this kit. (Along with an AM B-25 and an Atomic City Mercury capsule. Hey, it’s Christmas.)