Here’s an AM 1/48 F3F-2 I completed a month or two ago, but didn’t photograph until now.
Straight forward build, nothing special. Just used Yellow Wings “Dive Bomber” decals. I chose the VF-6 Shooting Stars markings from the Enterprise. Painted with MM Acryl for details. Tamiya Gloss Aluminum from the can for the fuselage and wings. I dullcoated the fuselage and added more gloss to the wings to vary the look.
I did have some trouble with some of the decal stripes moving slightly out of position as they dried.
One thing I did do was to use a silver paint pen for the canopy frame. I used it for touch-up on the silver foil on my Lunar Modules and thought I’d try it here. It is freehand, I didn’t mask it.
The build was a joy. Only sticky part was fitting the lower parts on the landing gear and the doors. Its a slip the part between two others, then twist it until it snaps into place. The wings line-up by themselves as you assemble them, and the flat rigging wires come with the kit as photo etch.
According to the AM site, the kit is no longer produced. They still offer the F3F-1 kit, but not this one.
That’s a beauty Mike! Nicely done. I just finished one last month and really liked the kit. The landing gear was a little fiddly like you said. My wings were warped and had distorted detail but over all was impressed with the kit.
Again that’s a very nice looking model Mike. Thanks for the look!
I really enjoy yellow-wing biplanes in general and “Dive Bomber” in particular. Your F3F looks great in the movie aircraft’s colors - don’t see these done too often. This is the one that Fred MacMurray crashes as the end of the film, isn’t it?
Great work, I’m going to have to break down and get one of these kits.
Very nice F3F! The rigging and finish are very nice as well. I do like those yellow wing Navy planes (but oddly have never built one) and that Barrel does not dissappoint. Thanks for sharing. [tup]
The base is a Trumpeter 09808 display case with a modified Flattops and More deck print. They offer several of their prints as a free download .pdf file, but they don’t offer a mahogany stained pre-war deck. I took the file into Photoshop and changed the white stripes to yellow and changed the blue deck basic color. I’ve not tried to use these before, so I didn’t know how they’d work. I didn’t want to go with a complete flight deck base kit, since I wasn’t planning any kind of diorama.
Now with photo etch for antennas, masts, etc., I’ve started using cases for my models. Normally, I just use the black base and maybe clear coat it. We had a little discussion about this on a recent ship model post of mine, over in the Ships forum. I use the simple black base for my waterline ships. I don’t do any acrylic water for them. Again since I’m not really doing a diorama of the ship, I’m just displaying a model, the water could distract from, or ruin a good model, if not done well. Several of us kicked the merits of that around.
So, I would have used a black base here, except since I was using the black section markings, I thought I needed more color, so the deck print. (I did a similar thing with the Hellcat I just posted. I used another print, but added the Yorktown black stripe to it, again in Photoshop. I thought the sea blue surfaces of the tri-color Hellcat would need something besides a black base too.) I’m not sure I used the right paper. The glossy surface reflects the silver, which I don’t think looks bad, but a matte surface might have been better. Once the clear case lid goes on the gloss paper doesn’t seem quite as reflective. With the current dry humidity, I’m watching to see how well the adhesive holds the edges from curling.
I thought a fully built, weathered flight deck base might have been too much just to display the plane. I suppose I’ll have to try one and see how that goes.
As far as the Dive Bomber movie goes, it was the white section leader a/c that Fred Mac flew when he killed himself. If I remember right.
Excellent job! the NMF looks good as well as the rigging. I’ve actually used paint pens on a couple of my models for pin striping as well as canopies. I recently tried Eduards pre-cut masks and was very happy with the results. Give them a try I think you’ll like the results.
