Eduard

1/48 F6F-3 Hellcat Weekend Edition

Kit Number: 8433

Reviewed by  Perry Downen, IPMS# 44000

MSRP: $24.95 Website: Eduard Catalog I'd like to express my sincere thanks to Eduard for providing this kit to IPMS/USA and to them for allowing me to review it. The F6F Hellcat was built specifically to counter the Japanese Zero. It proved to be the most successful aircraft in naval history, destroying 5,271 enemy aircraft while in service with the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. U.S. Navy Squadron Nine (VF-9) took delivery of the first Hellcats in January 1943. The Hellcat's first combat mission occurred on August 31, 1943, in a strike against Marcus Island, the easternmost territory belonging to Japan lying between Tokyo and Wake Island. In 1954 the last Hellcats, night-fighters, were retired from the U.S. fleets. A total of 12,272 units were built. The subject of this review is the F6F-3 as flown by five-kill ace Lt. William C. Moseley in late June 1944. This machine still wears the crudely applied ferry code (last 3 numbers of its BuNo 40090) on its cowling. On July 4th, 1944 Lt. Moseley was shot down over the Bonin Islands and was listed as MIA. BEGINNING Eduard's F6F-3 comes in a cellophane wrapped box, 15"X9.25"X2.75". Inside the box is one cellophane bag containing four light khaki colored sprues and one clear sprue. There are approximately 125 parts in all, but approximately 25 are not used. The moldings have excellent detail with finely recessed panel lines and little or no flashing. The surfaces of the parts are blemish free. The decals are on two sheets. One sheet contains aircraft markings and the other contains all the stencils. The decals are for only one aircraft, Lt. Moseley's. There are no photoetch parts or masks in the kit.

The building, painting and decaling instructions are on 8 pages of an A5 size booklet. There is no narrative, but the exploded view drawings are clear and easy to follow. Painting instructions for the interior small parts and assemblies are included at each step. The exterior painting and decaling instructions are found on separate pages of the instruction booklet. This kit is called a Weekend Edition because it is a very simple model to build. However, the detail is quite good - typical of Eduard detail. To build this kit in a weekend would require total dedication for the entire weekend. THE BUILD As with most models the cockpit is built first. A total of 8 parts make up the cockpit. This is very straight forward and easily done. These parts contain some nice details, however, there are no seatbelts in this kit. I did not add any. Paint callouts are shown for each part and must be painted before installing in the fuselage. Be careful with the small clear gun sight, part H9. It's easily knocked off it's setting and lost. There are no decals for the faces on the instrument panel. Neither does the panel have any embossing to paint and highlight. If you want faces on the instruments you'll have to go to the spares box for some unused decals. I simply painted the instruments white and plan on having a closed canopy. The completed cockpit assembly is now placed between the two fuselage halves. If the drop tank is to be added, then the mounting slot must be carved out as indicated in the instructions. Before cementing the fuselage halves together, be sure to capture the tail wheel in its slot. Very little filling and sanding is needed to remove the slightest of seams. Next the five engine parts are assembled and the engine is mounted on the fuselage. The three cowling pieces are assembled and placed on the fuselage. All this goes together very easily with a tight fit. With the fuselage constructed, the wings, horizontal stabilizers and control surfaces are added. The wings are made up of two pieces, top and bottom, for each side. The gun barrels are added to the bottom half before the two are cemented together. The wings fit into large molded receptacles in the fuselage. This arrangement provides a very solid interface, perfect alignment with the correct dihedral and no seam lines to fill in and sand. The control surfaces come in two parts. These are cemented together and attached to the appropriate part of the airplane. I placed each surface with a slight amount of deflection to illustrate this feature.

Once the wings are attached, the landing gear doors, landing gear and wheels are added. These have nice detail. The LG fits into the wing snuggly, which results in a strong joint and proper angle. The retraction mechanism is made up of several small and delicate parts so be careful with these. The instructions show the cockpit canopy and all the light lenses being placed at this point. I elected to place these after all the painting was finished. FINISHING The painting instructions are clear and easily followed. Paint callouts refer to Mr. Color and the colors' generic name. The decals are excellent quality and released from the backing very quickly. They settled down nicely with a little Solvaset. There are a number of stencil markings on the second decal sheet. This is where I had the only problem with this kit. The lettered call outs on the instructions do not match the call outs on the decal sheet. To compound the problem, many of the stencils are white lettering on the light background and are impossible to read until after they come off the sheet. To place the stencils correctly is "pick and shovel" work so be patient. ASSESSMENT Regardless of the stencil decal issue, I highly recommend this kit to modelers of any skill level. This is an easy kit to build. It reminds me of the simple kits I built as a kid, but with wonderful detail, excellent fit and first-rate decals. While it can be built quicker than most high quality kits, it may take most modelers more than one weekend to complete. If you can do without the cockpit details or you can manufacture your own, this kit is a must buy. Thanks again to Eduard for making this kit available for review.