10,000th Hellcat "Hirohito Special"

Master brass gun barrels mounted in the wing inserts. Fit was perfect.

PE ignition harness from the kit.

Completed engine, came out looking very nice, I must say!

Right fuselage sidewall.

Left fuselage sidewall, dressed up with a placard decal from Mike Grant.

Left cockpit console, detail is a combination of kit PE and decals.

Instrument panel, built up using kit PE. I filed down the plastic lump of the gunsight; will replace later with clear acetate film.

Instrument panel again, showing 3D PE detail, such as gun charging handles.

Cockpit. Went for hight contrast, Spanish style. Eduard fabric belts were badly printed, but easy to shape.

Test fitting cockpit.

Tail control surfaces were separated with a JLC razor saw.

Replacement control surfaces from Quickboost, which were installed with approx. 10 degree offset.

Another view of Quickboost tail feathers.

The Eduard kit is covered with gorgeous detail, but they completely omitted the formation lights on the belly. I scribed the locations, lights will be added later.

Acetate gunsight glass.

Another view of scratchmade gunsight.

Eduard molded the wingtip lights solid, but they should be clear. Removed kit lights with a razor saw. Drilled into squared off sections of clear sprue and filled with Tamiya clear Red/Green paint. CA glued to wing and sanded to shape.

After rough sanding new wingtip lights to shape.

Head-on view of wingtip lights. I also added the landing light in the leading edge of the left wing, but forgot to take pictures.

Ready to start painting - my favorite part!

Primed with Mr. Surfacer 1500 Black from a rattle can, then preshaded with Tamiya XF-66 and XF-9

Preshading on underside.

Basic Gloss Sea Blue in place. Used a mix of Tamiya X-8 and XF-17.

The shiny exposed oleo strut was "painted" with a Molotow marker, then masked and the strut sprayed GSB. Brake lines added from copper wire.

Decal madness beginning!

I used a sheet from Iliad Decals called Milestone Aircraft. It includes the 5000th P-38, 1000th B-17, etc.

Decals sealed with Tamiya clear, weathering started with Mig Ammo Medium gray panel line wash.

Going for minimal weathering, trying to depict the aircraft as it was delivered VBF-87. The medium gray came out nice, quite subtle.

I wanted to try emulating this photo, where oil and grease have leaked back into the exhaust stream.

Tamiya black and buff provided the starting point for the exhaust stains. You can also see that I tried airbrushing on some cordite streaks aft of the guns, but I didn't like how they turned out, so I went back and overpainted them with the base color.

A few of the bottom exhaust stains in progress.

Next, I used an Ammo of Mig black Oilbrusher and a Tamiya fine brush to paint in the oil patterns around the exhausts.

After letting the oil paint dry for a few hours, I blended them with a soft brush and a tiny bit of thinner. It didn't come out exactly how I wanted, but I am still fairly happy with the effect, for a first-time effort.

I may go back and tone down the contrast a bit with some extrememly thin paint - haven't decided yet.

I went back and reworked the exhaust stains a bit. I did a second round of oils, and knocked back the overall size of the stains a bit with the airbrush. I like it much better now.

I had a last-minute disaster involving spilling thinner on the right wing, because of course I did.

I wisely put the model down and walked away for a bit, reasoning that it would just be eaiser to repair once dry, but while it dried the thinner ran under the leading edge of the wing and along a panel on the underside, almost to the gear bays.

With the gear already attached, I was afraid sanding was too much of a knock-everything-off risk (remember, I’m the klutz who spilled thinner on this thing in the first place) so I used alcohol to strip and repaint the affected area.

Some sanding turned out to be necessary to feather everything together, but in the end, after a coat of Tamiya X-35 Semi-Gloss to match the rest of the airframe, the repair is hard to see.

I've posted photos of the process so you can see how much work my clumsiness cost me!

With that behind me, small exterior details are all that's left!

1.3mm MV lenses for the formation lights. I didn't realize it until I went to install them, but these lenses are rounded on the back, so they need to sit in a small recessed hole in order to mount properly.