Today was a beautiful day here in SE Texas. Very pleasant weather for this time of year. I could have done a lot of different outdoor-related activities, but with the tax accountant wife working on this fine day, I opted for bench time while watching a couple of movies from the early 1970s - The Man With The Golden Gun, and The Day Of The Jackal, both of which I have seen multiple times but not at all in at least two decades.
Today I started to see an actual Hellcat on my bench. I managed to get the wings attached to the fuselage with little difficulty, although there is a slight gap along one wing root as well as the continuous piece that runs along the fuselage right above the wing that Airfix thought should have a cutout in it (as pointed out in the blog I’ve referenced).
I also attached the stabilizers and rudder, addressed ugly seams in the flap bays that will likely be visible since I will be building this with lowered flaps, and started work on the engine.
As with many other areas of this kit, the fit tolerances are really tight. I have used my Dremel more in the last month than I had in all the years I’ve owned it. Just to get the engine pistons (if that’s what those are called) onto the center shaft piece, I had to grind away a considerable amount of plastic from the inside of the circle that the pistons come out of. It’s almost as if Airfix didn’t even bother to do a test build of their Hellcat before releasing it to the modeling public.
I think I’ve weathered the difficulties reasonably well, but I’ve already made one mistake that hopefully won’t bite me in the butt when it comes time to mounting the engine. The rear set of pistons did not get properly aligned with the mounting tab that slides over the center shaft. It’ll probably end up being a nothing burger, and even if it is, I’m not displaying the engine on this build so whatever I have to do to get it into position won’t be visible anyway.
The last photo of the engine is not glued, other than the center shaft. And I clearly don’t have the piston pieces on correctly.
Finally, I started inspecting the windscreen and canopy. I sanded down the interior contact points on the windscreen (as I read about in the blog) to get a more flush fit. Both these parts are ridiculous, however. I"ll get pictures next time out to show this, but the windscreen is going to be a bit of fun to get attached correctly, even after that sanding. Both parts appear to be splayed out too far, especially the canopy. I believe I’ll be able to get them into proper position with the dry fitting that I’ve done on them, but this is just another example of the frustration I have had with this build.
