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Meteor Products Replacement Cowling for Hasegawa 1/48 F6F-5 Hellcat kit number CEC 48475 |
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Reviewed By Charles Landrum, #26328 |
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MSRP: $13.99 USD Review copy provided by Meteor Productions P.O. Box 3956 Merrifield, VA
22116 www.meteorprod.com The 1/48 Hasegawa F6F kits fit well, are fun to build and a beautiful representation of the aircraft, but like an encounter with Cyrano de Bergerac, the nose might distract you. The lower cowling is misshapen and doesn’t capture the complexity of this area. There is not much you can do to correct the problem short of creating a new cowling. The plastic surgeons of Meteor Productions come to the rescue in their line of Cutting Edge Resin by providing a replacement cowling for both the –3 and –5 (the difference being two additional cowl flaps on the underside of the –3 cowling). |
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The Cutting Edge cowling is finely molded in their durable
light gray resin. Not only does it provide a more accurate shape, but
also open cowling flaps. The detail is superb. To achieve this level of
detail, the cowling is molded in two pieces. Which means some assembly
is required before mounting it on the plane. Assembly and installation
is pretty intuitive, but the set does not come with any instructions. I removed the cowling pieces from their mold blocks, being careful to cut into the block and not cut away some of the cowling. For much of the removal I was able to accomplish by scoring with a sharp modeling knife. Although the resin is very durable, I was still careful around the cowling flap. With the pieces off the blocks and sanded clean I fit the inner cowl to the main cowling – the fit was very good and required little effort to snap it in place. Using CA as filler, I eliminated the seams between the two parts. |
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Now I must digress here to point out that I was wrong to
fill the seam between these two parts. By pure happenstance I ran into
Dave Klaus, owner of Meteor Productions, at a Commemorative Air Force
Fly-in. I related my review of the cowling and how filling the seam had
required little effort. It was then that he told me that the F6F has a
prominent seam in each junction and that the inner cowl was slightly
rounded to replicate this detail. Now he tells me! I told him that
instructions pointing this fact out for those of us who are not F6F
experts would be helpful. Dave assumed that anyone who wanted that level
of detail would know of the seams. I think what he forgot is that often
aftermarket products have their own siren song and are bought by those
of us often caught up in the thrill of the hunt! Well my cowling is nice
and smooth up front. With the assembly completed, I then dry fitted cowl to the model. I was surprised that it was not a drop in fit. This may be attributed to the curing process, but I don’t think so. The cowling does not seat properly at the top and the alignment strip that is supposed to fit into the groove of in the front of the fuselage is slightly off. The result is that the cowling sits slightly off center and forms a 1/16inch gap at the top and a step at the bottom, throwing off the profile as well. The other fit that I tested was insertion of the engine firewall (with the molded on second row of cylinders) into cowling. This piece slides all the way forward the Hasegawa cowling. However, I was unable to move it past the cowl flaps on the Cutting Edge cowling as the following pictures demonstrates. |
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| These problems are minor and easily corrected. With respect to the overall fit of the cowling, I removed the alignment up on the upper inner cowling and scraped the mating surface to deepen it. This worked and the fit of the cowling was much better and the side profile of the aircraft correct. You will have to sand down the diameter of the firewall to get it to slide further into the cowling. | |
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| The Cutting Edge Cowling is a nicely patterned component that is far superior in detail to the Hasegawa part it replaces. Can you build the kit without it? Sure, but it will enhance the appearance of the aircraft giving it the more rugged look made famous by the Grumman “Iron Works”. It is not a drop-in replacement, but only simple modeling skills are required to achieve a good fit. Highly recommended. | |
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