Hobby Boss F6F-3 Hellcat built as White 36 on USS Hornet in June 1944

The kit itself is very simple, light on details but the fit was much better than I was expecting. My biggest issue with it is the decals which were scaled oddly and looked toyish

As the interior and decals were not that great I decided on closed canopy which would end up being be one of the key lessons learned

I masked both sides of the canopy, prepped the inside then unmasked, cleaned and glued to the fuselage and continued with the rest of the build - at the very end when removing the outside masks discovered I managed to get overspray (which also highlighted some residue) on the inside of the canopy which you can see in some of the pics

This is my 12th build since starting the hobby a couple of years ago and 3rd time cutting and using my own masks, which I am happy I started down this path as the results look much better to me

I have Silhouette Portrait 4 and used Tamiya masking sheet for the Canopy and Wheel masks, and Oracal 810 for the Insignia and Numbers mask

Thank you to the folks contributing to the site library of Insignia's I was able to use

This is my first tri-color Hellcat and I had two goals for this build:

1) practice the tri-color (or more accurately 4 color) scheme using Vallejo USN Sea Blue for the top fuselage, Glossy Sea Blue for the wings and tail, Intermediate Blue and Insignia White

2) practice with the insignia and letters with masks

With the exception of the canopy, pretty happy with this build overall

Edited June 17Jun 17 by talbot
trying to embed images

It looks like Imgur doesn't want to give you access to the proper image link, which is a bit annoying. The easiest way to get at it is to right-click on the image (assuming you're using a desktop browser and not a mobile device), and choose your browser's version of "copy image link". Then paste that link into the post edit window here. This should give you something like so:

Very nice build, by the way!

Kev

Thanks Kev

that worked much better, thanks!