Arii F6F-3 Hellcat "Quickbuild" I did for an IPMS/USA reveiw....

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
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that I finished up today. The reveiw was for “Gator’s Masks”, which are a commercial masking set for National Insignia, etc. Pretty neat stuff, actually! The reveiw will be on IPMS/USA’s website in a week or two.Anyways, the kit is the old Arii Hellcat, with a True Details interior shaved down and stuffed in. Also has TD weighted wheels and AeroMaster decals (Hellcats Pt.II).I also replaced the .50 cals with hypodermic needle barrels.Painting the Nat. Insignias gave me the opportunity to play around with some heavy weathering/fading recipes,and this was a fun build to just do over a couple of days. And, you can never have enough Grummans, can you?



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Excellent build & photographs. You made the old kit look great. Thanks for posting.

Regards, Rick

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Very nice looking Hellcat, with some very convincing weathering. The prop hub really jumps out at me! It really looks like the real thing. Were the masks difficult to use? Obviously, the results are worth the effort. Simply stunning!

dragonfly

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Thanks guys! Like I said, the review will be up on www.ipmsusa.org in the near future…look for it, as I give the whole rundown on using these mask/stencils…! (They were easy! Shhhhhhh…)
Thanks Again fellas!

JK

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Great Hellcat, JK. The weathering is fantastic, especially the vertical sections along the fuselage. And the nat’l insignia turned out really well.

Take care,

Mark

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Great build on the Hellcat. The weathering looks very realistic.

Darwin, O.F. [alien]

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Very nice build mate. I always like a good hellcat model. Thanks for sharing.

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Mark,Daniel, Darwin…

Thanks for the encouragement!!

JK

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Great job on the quick build.

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Very nice!

I do wonder, how do you define “Quickbuild”?
With al the AM stuff in this build wouldn’t be quick if I did it.

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Not bad for a “quickbuild” lol. The weathering looks great

Thad

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Beautiful work on the Hellcat and her surroundings, JK! [:)] The pre-shading really looks nice, and fits in with the scene perfectly… thanks for showing it! [:)]

Take care,
Frank

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Nice Hellcat!

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Sweet looking Grumman…I have the Hasegawa kit on the shelf waiting for me to get to it [:)]

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Looks fantastic!

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Great looking build. What’s did you use for the deck?

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Where’d you get the needles and how did you cut them without closing them off? I used coaxial cable to replace .50 cals on my Jug, but the ends were closed[:slight_smile:]

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It’s a great looking Cat, thanks for the pics…

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Looks great! Nice pics too!

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Falcon, Remco, and King Thad;

Thanks for the kind words!

JK