Italeri

1/48 F7F-3N Tigercat

Kit Number: 2660

Reviewed by  Donald Garside, IPMS# 30235

MSRP: $36.95 Review kit provided by Model Rectifier Corporation (MRC) www.modelrectifier.com OK, first the obligatory stuff. Italeri's1/48th scale F-7F 3N comes in a sturdy box with nice box art (suitable for framing, as they used to say). Three bags hold seven sprue trees in light gray plastic, one clear. The clear parts are clear as can be, but just a little too thick to be placed in the open position….more on that later. Panel lines are recessed. They are fine and even. Oddly, there was one raised panel line on both sides of the vertical fin, I just sanded 'em down and rescribed them. There were some ejector pin marks on the cockpit sides and some on the inside of the wheel well doors, an easy fix. Some flash here and there but nothing that became annoying. Well that's all for the in box "stats," let me tell you just a little about building this kit. All the parts that go inside the fuselage like the nose wheel stuff and both cockpits (pilot and radar operator) parts fit pretty good. The bulkheads were a tad small, but that sure beats the heck out of being too big. As viewed through a closed canopy it is absolutely unnoticeable. Some builders may think the cockpit detail is a little Spartan, but I didn't. The essentials are there - instrument panel, stick, seats, radar screen hood, side consoles, and some stringers and ribs. As I said before, as viewed through the clear canopies, both cockpits look good. Fit of the clear parts was good. By the way don't forget to put plenty of weight in that nose or else you're gonna have a tail dragger. If you prefer to skip the extra step of the whole nose weight thing, Italeri provides a fifty-gallon drum with an ammo crate on top to prop up the tail. My meager references on the F-7F 3N show that when the big ol' Tigercat was empty and unloaded, she was in fact tail heavy. The tail was often held up by all manner of stuff. Some photos show ground crew Marines sitting on the nose while the Tigercat was being towed around the field. The fit of the wing to fuselage was EXCELLENT! Just a small amount of sanding made this step of the build a pleasure. No putty whatsoever! Same goes for the horizontal stabilizers. Just a word of advice here: although the seam was flawless, it did seem to me to be a tad weak. I used old fashioned tube glue here and actually held the seam together by hand for about ten minutes just to be safe…….I really trust good 'ol Testors tube glue for the big stuff. Now that you know the good news about this kit, let me tell you about the "challenges", of which there are only a few. The landing gear look excellent. Brake lines are included right in the mold and with a wash and a little weathering they really stand out. Including the tires and wheels, each gear consists of seven parts. Until they are all assembled, they're kind of weak. Be careful while installing. There's a bit of noodling and fidgeting to get them in correctly. Once they're in, they are strong enough to hold the weight of this kit. Before I built my sub-assemblies for the landing gear, I foolishly took all parts concerned off the trees. So although I can't swear to it, I think Italeri may have mislabeled the sprue tree letters in the instructions. All parts can only fit one way so proceed with caution. In fact the sprue tree "map" bears me out on this point. The props look good, although for some weird reason the leading edge of each blade is facing backward. It doesn't ruin the appearance of the kit ……but I think it makes the plane fly to the rear, which Marines don't ordinarily do. The cowl flaps fit well all the way around the nacelle until they get to the leading edge of the wing. At this point a 1/16th inch gap develops between the flaps and the wing. I'm not sure whether this is correct for the Tigercat or not, but it didn't look right to me. I filled it in with a little putty. The engines look good. A wash really makes their detail jump out. The nacelle to wing fit while not perfect, was not the worst I've ever seen. Again just a little putty did the trick. For the "things under wings" department you get eight rockets, two bombs and a centerline drop tank. The racks for the bombs and drop tank come with separate anti-sway braces, and they look pretty good. They are however extremely fragile so be careful there. The rockets are a little oversized, their fins needed some sanding to enable them to line up correctly. As viewed from the underside with all that ordnance and the nice landing gear, the model looks really sharp. However by the time you get all the stuff underneath the wing in place the model gets harder and harder to handle without breaking something off. As far as the decals go, you get four choices: a blue Marine Tigercat based at Miramar Naval Air Station in 1946 and three Marine night fighter Tigercats based in Korea during the Korean War. Two of the Korean birds are flat black and the other blue. All decals went down without a hitch. I did one of the black "cats" and the white star and bar covered the black just fine. Same goes for the red I.D. letters and numbers. All decals were in perfect register. As far as painting goes the instruction sheet says Blue Angel Blue (F.S.15050) is to be used if you choose to model one of the blue ships. Check your references on that one; I would have thought Gloss Sea Blue the correct choice. This was a fun kit to build, and I gotta tell you it's a sharp looking airplane. In my opinion the perfect wing to fuselage joint alone is worth the $36.95 MSRP. I would recommend this kit to any builder looking for an interesting twin engine plane to build. Thanks to Bob and Akiko at MRC for supplying this kit to IPMS/USA for review.

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