My latest completed builds are a trio of U.S. biplanes from the 1930s - Boeing’s F4B-4 Navy fighter, Curtiss’ F11C-2 Goshawk Navy fighter, and Curtiss’ P-6E Hawk Army fighter. Monogram kitted these in 72nd scale in 1968, and sold them separately as well as a multi-kit set. When I set out to acquire all those old Monogram kits that came out in the '60s in the baby blue boxes, I set my sights on the multi-kit set.
I built each of these when I was a kid, and more recently had built Hasegawa’s 1/32 F4B-4. Over recent years, I’ve attempted a few biplane kits, and have always run into problems with upper wing alignment and getting the cabanes lined up properly. That experience makes me appreciate the manufacturers that mold their biplanes with the cabanes already in position rather than as separate parts. Each of these builds went together smoothly in terms of construction, and even the rigging proved to be easy to complete.
I painted mostly with Vallejo colors - chrome yellow, aluminum, olive drab, red, and light grey. I used fine EZ Line for the rigging. Decals - given the age of these kits, I presumed they would be bad so I acquired aftermarket sets from Starfighter Decals (only for the F4B-4 and P-6E). I sprayed decal setting solution on the kit sheets, and was surprised that the instrument panel decals (a Monogram staple when these were first manufactured) as well as the Top Hatters logo on the F11C-2 worked just fine; all the others either refused to detached from the sheet or crumbled after being in water for a bit. The Goshawk is complete fiction - the wing chevron and airplane code came from the F4B-4 sheet.
F4B-4 (VF-33 U.S.S. Langley, 1934)
F11C-2 (fictional markings)
P-6E (17th Pursuit Squadron, Selfridge Field, Michigan - Snow Owls)
Group Shots
The box these kits came in is bigger than some of Monogram’s 1/48 offerings, so I was a bit surprised at just how small these warbirds are given how much space is in that box. I took some photos with a rule showing wingspan.
For the most part, these were a lot of fun. The first part of that sentence refers to issues I had with the decals, particularly for the Goshawk, and to the upper wing on the P-6E paint job. I had used Stynylrez for a prime coat, then put down a coat of Vallejo white as one should do when painting yellows. When I got around to masking for the red stripes, large sections of the yellow paint lifted away. Grrrr. I stripped the wing and re-did, and after the red stripes were down, more yellow lifted away. I attempted to brush paint the impacted areas with Vallejo yellow, but that paint is a bit too liquidy to go on and fully cover. I ended up using some Model Master Enamel chrome yellow, but it is noticably darker than the Vallejo. Given all the issues I had with masking, I used a piece of cardboard held in place with clamps to re-paint most of the top wing - but this is easily the worst looking paint job of all these kits.