FM-2 Wildcat of the VC-27 The Saints. This is personal mount of Ralph Elliott Jr., the most successful US Navy Wildcat ace. USS Savo Island, Philippines Sea, early 1945. Model by HobbyBoss 1/48.

Ralph Elliott Jr. and VC-27 The Saints

Ralph Elliott Jr. was the most successful US Navy Wildcat ace. He scored all of his 9.5 victories on FM-2s in late 1944. A story of Ralph Elliott Jr. and his unit can be found here

The model

I was very excited about a series of various Wildcat models announced by HobbyBoss. By then we did have an excellent rendition of F4F-4 by Tamiya, but other variants were sorely missed in quarter scale. I was particularly eager to build a model of FM-2 but that variant varied much from F4F-4 and there would be a lot of work needed to convert Tamiya Wildcat. Though there was a short run attempt of FM-2 model by Sword, I didn't like that model. If there was no Tamiya F4F-4 to compare, I would probably swallow its crudeness. Thus I preferred to wait for another try of another modeling enterprise. No wonder I bought the HobbyBoss FM-2 only a couple of second after I had dicovered it on a shelf of a model store. My first impressions were positive. The model appeared to be nicely detailed though it was heavily treated by an infamous "Mad Chinese Riveter". Of course original Wildcats had myriad of rivets, but they were raised and much smaller than those engraved wormholes in HobbyBoss release. So my impressions were similar to those found on the reviews of HobbyBoss Wildcat line found in model magazines and on the web. I wondered if HobbyBoss fixed the problem with too low sliding hood signalled by the community right after their first F4F-3 release. Unfortunately it didn't happen and a modeler has to replace the canopy with an aftermarket canopy or scratchbuild it on his own.

Serious problems surfaced when I began to study shapes of some parts more thoroughly. To make it short: the overall shape of the model is not bad in the areas common with earlier Wildcat variants, but when it came to distinctive FM-2 features HobbyBoss screwed them up dramatically. Here is a list of major flaws I have noticed:

• The cowling. Here we have the worst error and most difficult to fix. FM-2 had one row nine cylinder Wright Cyclone R-1820 engine instead of 14 cylinder twin row Pratt and Whitney R-1830 that powered most other Wildcat versions. R-1820 was more agile and lighter but was obviously shorter and had bigger diameter. For these reasons FM-2 cowlings were a way shorter, had little bigger diameter, and had much bigger cowling aperture. Also FM-2s had neither scoops nor other air inlets fitted. HobbyBoss provided a modeler with a cowling for twin row PW R-1830 with just a few panel lines changed. It has two unnecessary air inlets fitted to cowling aperture. The proper conversion should consist of removing air inlets, shortening the cowling, increasing its diameter and aperture size and changing its side profile. Say it straight: as at the moment of writing no proper aftermarket replacement is available and the Sword cowling is ugly and of wrong shape, the new cowling should be scratchbuild.
  
• Engine itself. As mentioned above Cyclone engines were of bigger diameter than PW engines. HobbyBoss provided single row nine cylinder engine in the box, but in order to fit it to the undersized cowling made it much smaller than it should be. If a modeler decides to replace the cowling, he/she should use an aftermarket engine as well. Also the engine mount protruding from front fuselage parts has be shortened as it is supposed to move engine forward enough to locate it into much too long cowling.
  
• The front fuselage length. In order to retain center of gravity in proper location the length of front fuselage was slightly increased just after the cowling ended. HobbyBoss omitted that difference between Wright and PW powered Wildcats. All had shorter fuselages. However the difference is very small and the fuselage has to be lenghtened by ca. 1mm in 1/48th scale.
• The area of the fuselage behind exhaust. In order to clear area for exhaust gases flow, FM-2 fuselage had four small streamlined depressions. On per side and two on the bottom. Side depressions of early FM-2s were rather angular while those of late series were teardrop-shaped. HobbyBoss omitted bottom depressions at all. On the other hand side depressions are much overdone and do not resemble neither early nor late ones. Their depth is quite correct but the area of depression much to large. As these areas were usually heavily stained, and the paint often washed out to bare metal on real aircraft, their improper appearance would stand up on weathered model. In order to fix the problem one should fill excess cavity. It is also important to note that late depressions were not symmetrical. Depression on the left side was pointed upward, while opposite one was pointed slighlty downward. This feature is often ignored on scale drawings, but clearly seen at photos.
  
• Canopy sliding part. As mentioned before all HobbyBoss Wildcats have too low sliding hood. It should be taller by ca. 0.8mm. Little can be done to correct existing part. A replacement with any aftermarket canopy is recommended.
  
• The vertical stabilizer. Most noticeable feature of FM-2, which distinguished that version from any earlier Wildcats is a high tail which had to compensate increased torque of the powerful R-1820 engine. HobbyBoss didn't dare to omit that feature, but modeled it poorly. In reality vertical stabilizer was higher than in previous variants, but it was overlapping upper balance horn of the rudder what gave it much higher appearance. In HobbyBoss the stabilizer is too high, with the rudder balance horn much too small. In other words the horizontal division between the top of the stabilizer and the rudder overlap placed too high, though the overall height of the tail is quite good. Correction of the stabilizer is an easy deal. It has to be cut down by ca. 1mm and the excess of plastic has to be glued to the rudder.
• The rudder. FM-2's rudder was higher than in earlier Wildcats. HobbyBoss made it higher but the its shape is not correct. As mentioned above the height of the balance horn is way to small. Also the upper contour of the rudder is too curved. The trapezoidal cutout for elevator connecting tube is too large and slightly off shape. The rudder lacks some other cutouts and details. The remedy is to rebuild upper part of the rudder and fill elevator cutout a little bit.
  
• Areas of absent oil radiators under non-foldable parts of wings. FM-2s wings lacked barrel-shaped oil radiators, but had distinctive flat elliptical plates covering the places where the radiators used to be in earlier Wildcats. HobbyBoss properly deleted radiators, but didn't mark the oval plates at all. The plates should be added, or at least scribed in the plastic.
• The fabric surface of the ailerons. Wildcats had fabric covered ailerons. HobbyBoss overdone the effect in such spectacular way, that managed to win my personal award for most dramatic starved cow effect achieved. The valleys between aileron ribs should be filled up. This correction applies to all HobbyBoss Wildcat models.
• The panels covering ammo compartment on the bottom wing surfaces. I have contradictory references and no photo showing the shape of the panels. One sources claim that every gun had its own narrow panel (i.e. there were two panels on every wing), while other insist that both guns in the wing had one bigger common panel (i.e. there was one panel per wing). May be this feature changed thorough FM-2 production? HobbyBoss opted for two panels per wing. Regardless the fact if the number of the panels is correct, their representation in the model is much overdone. The panels stand up like wooden planks fitted to wings, and should be sanded down.
• Fuel tank pylons. FM-2s had very small trapezoidal pylons for fuel tanks or bombs fitted to non-foldable wing parts. The model lacks them. The solution is to fit the drop tanks in place, or to scratchbuild the pylons.
• HVAR stubs. Most FM-2s had small stubs for carrying six HVAR rockets. There were three pairs of stubs on every wing. HobbyBoss model lacks them as well. In case of most color options a modeler should scratchbuild the stubs.
• Most piano hinges on the model are heavily overdone. If upscaled to natural size, their thickness would ashame a solid crowbar.
• The main wheels. HobbyBoss wheels are not entirely wrong, but are molded with full hub covers. Such wheel were commonly seen on earlier Wildcats. Most FM-2 lacked the covers and had spoked hubs exposed.
• The tail wheel. Again, HobbyBoss tail wheel is well molded, but there is only one type of wheel provided - the bigger one used on land based aircraft. Carrier based Wildcats (not only FM-2s) used commonly much smaller solid wheels.
• Supercharger. FM-2 had one-stage supercharger instead of two stage. Thus there should be no air duct ring in front of the wheel bay. Sadly I have overlooked this error, and fitted the supercharger ducts into fuselage.

Construction

Frankly at the beginning of the construction I was not aware of the amount of corrections that I would finally make. Originally I hoped to confine myself with cowling, rudder and sliding hood upgrades. As Polish proverb goes - deeper into a forrest you go, more trees you spot. Thus during construction progress I found more and more areas to be corrected. Sometimes I had to return to a part already upgraded and to modify it otherwise. Reporting my advances and withdrawals step by steb would be too chaotic for a reader, and in order to maintain some clarity I described only final actions and sorted them in a more logic schedule. Unfortunately some photos still witness my ommissions and apparently inconsistent approach.

Engine cowling

This time I started construction from the cowling as it had been supposed to be a decisive battle in my FM-2 campaign. If I failed with cowling, I would give up the rest until any aftermarket cowling will have surfaced. For some time I could't decide what to do with that part. Finally I decided that to shorten it, to increase diameter of the front aperture, to remove false air inlets but not to attempt to increase overall diameter of the cowling. I came to a conclusion, that the diameter is only 0.5mm too small and the amount of work needed to correct it is too much for such a difference. I also decided that I can live with slightly incorrect side profile of the cowling (it is still too tappered).

In order to maintain the rear diameter of the cowling (though it has to be even bigger) I had to shorten the cowling from the front. In order to do it I inserted a rolled strip of self-adhesive vinyl foil inside the cowling aperture, attached a slightly oversized circle cut from the foil to the rear edge of the foil tube and filled the space near cowling walls with resin. Then, after resin had cured, I cut the front of the cowling with a Czech modeling saw placed on some jig done from low Lego bricks and thin plastic sheets. The jig secured positioning of the saw on fixed level while cutting the outer cowling rim. Then I sanded gently the shape of the front cockpit and increased the diameter of the cowling with sanding inner rim with a piece of sandpaper. In order to regain cowling thinness I thinned it from inside with ball mill inserted into Dremel tool. Unfortunately this time resin insert cured into very brittle consistency (too much hardening compound) and the cowling began to crack during thinning. I had to fill cracks out and to cease further cowling treating before it was smooth enough from inside.

Finally the rear of the cowling was retrofitted with two thinned Contrail tubes tubes simulating ends of exhaust manifolds, and a cowling suspension made of plastic stripes. The reason of the latter is explained in the sub-chapter devoted to front fuselage modification.

As regards color of the cowling interior the best guess is light gray. According to William Reece, who is acclaimed and often quoted connoisseur of interior colors of US Navy aircraft, at least for some time General Motors Company used to paint FM-1/2's cowling interiors with light gray. In spite of the fact that Ralph Elliott Jr's Wildcat was an exponent of late production series, the photo shows very light cowling interior. Thus I decided to stick with Tamiya light gray primer in this role.

Engine

Initially I planned to replace the poor R-1820 engine provided by HobbyBoss with a resin engine made by Vector that I had bought some months before. Unfortunately after building the latter it turned to be much too big. Not only my cowling was still little too narrow, but Vector made its engine with intentions to leave it exposed and didn't take 1/48 cowling thickness into account. So I duly returned to HobbyBoss part, which suffered from opposite syndrome, being much too small for the 1/48th scale. Fortunately the gear housing was of the proper size and the only problem was with too short cylinders. Luckily the outer details of the engine are hardly visible as the cylinder tops are hidden behind the cowling rim. I only added:

• ignition ring made of bent styrene rod,
• ignition wiring made of thin solder wire,
• four air scoops between cylinders made of Evergreen strip base, CA laminated paper strip wrapped around, and small pieces of paper glued inside (in fact I scratchbuilt only one inlet and casted four resin copies of it),
• additional details on the crank case made of Evergreen stripes and fine solder wire.

It was also necessary to shorten the rear tunnel which was supposed to fit into engine mount protruding from the front fuselage. At the same time I scratchbuilt HVAR stubs and drop tank brackets and added their masters to engine air inlet master to vulcanize one common rubber mold.

Propeller

The propeller provided by Hobby Boss has quite good blades, but totally incorrect hub. It is almost impossible to carve the proper hub out of the kit part. Instead of it I decided to make a new hub from scratch, correct the blades and use front stepped part of the kit hub. I started with scratchbuilding new propeller hub. The main part of the hub was formed by tubes forming three arm star. I chose Contrail tubes to replicate the hub. The key issue to be addressed is how to cut tubes' endings in order to receive symmetrical 120° wedge at their ends. I opted to print a template on a thick card and glue some Lego bricks atop as guides for modeling saw. The pieces of tubes were glued with CA glue to small Lego bricks as well. That was for fixing round tube's "top" and "bottom" sides while cutting and fitting wedged ending. Having three identical wedged tubes I fitted them onto another copy of card template glueing their Lego bricked endings to the card. Then I "welded" joints between tubes using Tamiya Extra Thin Cement and left the contruction overnight. Next day I ensured the joint was "welded" hard and drilled a hole for a prop shaft using Proxxon MF70 drill press, and cut excess tube endings with modeling saw using again Lego bricks glued temporary onto card template. Finally I put smaller perpendicular Contrail tube inside the hole in the hub and simulated flanges at the ends of the tubes with 1mm wide Tamiya masking tape stripes. Everything was sprayed then with Tamiya Fine Surface primer.

A master of new propeller blades was carved out of an original kit part, or more precisely, out of a blade cut from original propeller. Then the master was glued onto a small Lego brick, fitted with paper fairings and used for casting rubber mold.

The front hub part was also cut from the original prop. It was retrofitted with triangular back plate cut with cutting plotter out of very thin styrene sheet.

Front fuselage

There was at least one area of the model, where correction was in fact much easier than I had feared. In order to maintain the location od center of gravity the shorter R-1820 engine had to be moved forward. It caused necessity of lenghtening front fuselage by a couple of inches. In 1/48th scale the fusleage should be lenghtened by some 1.5mm. After rethinking the problem I came to a conclusion, that as long as the HobbyBoss fuselage has 2.5mm long insert supposed to plug into the cowling, it would be sufficient to move the engine and the cowling forward and fill the stepped depression with a rolled Evergreen strip. One should remember however to attach some support structures inside the cowling.

Reduction overscaled depressions in front fuselage behind exhaust manifolds wasn't too difficult too. I attempted to ease furter sanding by glueing slightly bend plastic sheets into depressions and filling gaps with Gunze Sangyo Liquid Putty mixed with CA glue. It wasn't the best solution. In consequence there were three material phases instead of two (model plastic - putty - plastic sheet), and every joint face between phases was a trouble spot generating cracks during sanding. If I had to do it again I would fill the depressions in a couple of layers of liquid putty and CA glue mixture without any plastic inserts. Then I cut excess of plastic with Xacto knife and sanded surface smooth. Note that wing root fairings were protected with Oramask self-adhesive foil, which is a great abrasion resistant interface. Further treatment of the depressions was done with use of sandpaper attached to rounded tool, flat wooden box and rolled sandpaper. It is extremely important do sand such areas gently, smoothly and keeping the sandpaper and the sanded part wet all the time. I used to airbrush the area often with Tamya Fine Primer in order to control visually the shape of the depression (plain gray overspray revealed any imperfection).
At this stage I have to remind everyone, that those depressions were not symmetrical.

Vertical tail surfaces

As noted above I had to shorten vertical stabilizer by ca. 1mm. Then I added the removed plastic bits to the bottom of the rudder balance horn. In order to straighen upper contour of the rudder I made a skeleton out of bent pieces of stretched sprue and filled the area blow with a mixture of Gunze Sangyo Liquid Putty and CA glue. Then I filled some corners of the cutout for elevator rod with bits of Evergreen styrene and cut some additional details in the rudder.

Horizontal tail surfaces

Horizontal stabilizers and elevators are quite acceptable as provided in the box. I only removed too thick and too crude hinge rings from their surface cut the crevices in the plastic and inserted photoethed rings grabbed from leftover PE sets. Also I couldn't resist and deepened recessed line between stabilizers and elevators.

Cockpit

The HobbyBoss cockpit is quite good as for a plastic kit. Initially I considered replacing the dashboard with a PE item, but as no FM-2 set was available at that time, I used kit part with instrument lenses painted clear gloss. However I had to apply some corrections of the rear cockpit wall. First, I had to replace headrest. Ralph Elliott Jr's FM-2 had non standard small rectangular headrest instead of common big round one. I filled the back hole in the headrest with a mixture of Gunze Sangyo Liquid Putty and CA Glue, removed existing headrest, and sanded the armor plate smooth. I also removed ridiculously oversized rivets from the rear wall and crude seat mount. Then I added new seat mount made of fine brass rods and rectangular headrest made of a short slice of an Evergreen strip. The only cockpit part I decided to replace entirely was the seat, which was the worst detail of the HobbyBoss cockpit, and was to be most prominent detail visible inside the ready model. I had no Wildcat seat in my aftermarket portfolio, and didn't want to wait for superior Ultracast replacement. Instead I copied beatiful resin seat from Classic Airframes Grumman Duck, and modified it to resemble FM-2 seat. This time I stood away from photoetched seatbelts. After a period of enthusiasm toward PE seatbelts I am now embarassed more and more by their unnatural stiffness. So I asked Wojtek Fajga - a PE magician - for help. Wojtek made an amazing set of the PE buckles which I used with conjunction of painted strips of Tamiya masking tape.
By the time of F4F production Grumman used Dark Dull Green in cokpits of its aircraft. However FM-2s were GMC products and the latter company used Interior Green instead (initially black tinted Zinc Chromate primer, and later ANA Interior Green). Thus I painted the cokpit with my own beloved Interior Green mixture (Tamiya Flat Yellow Green + Tamiya Gloss Black).

Canopy

As mentioned before sliding hood part is too shallow and almost impossible to correct. Initially I assumed that I would replace kit part with Sword's vacuform canopy. Finally I decided to prepare drawing of hood framing and to ask Wojtek Fajga for help. I must admit that my final decision was wise. Wojtek's PE framing coupled with thin acetate film provided far better result than slighlty turbid vacuform part with crude embossed frames.

Wheel wells

The wheel bay was built out of the box and painted with a mixture of Sangyo Gunze Dark Blues. I must admit, that the fit of complicated Grumman chasis is excellent. It is one of the shining areas of the HobbyBoss model. If only I remembered to remove those supercharger air ducts...

Main wheels

Unfortunately for me Ralph Elliott Jr's FM-2 had spoked wheels which were much more common on FM-2s. After a long combing in spare wheels I found that the easiest way to make spoked FM-2 wheel is to start with... a resin nose wheel for P-38 made by True Details. I filled inner side of the hub, reduced overdone thread and flattening effect, sanded the wheel here and there and copied the master in resin.

Tail wheel

Unluckily Elliott's FM-2 not only had small solid wheel instead of the larger land-based type provided by HobbyBoss, but also appeared to have the tail leg stripped of the common fairing. I carefully removed old wheel from the part, replaced it with a whell made of Contrail tubes and simply carved tail leg fairing out. The remaining details of the tail wheel chasis was made of brass rods. I also fitted two Evergreen stripes inside the fuselage to provide the tail wheel a solid mount.

Wings

As mentioned the HobbyBoss wings are acceptable except of ridiculously overdone aileron surface. The funny thing is, that bottom surfaces of the ailerons are done much better than their upper sides. Thus I selected to correct them from above only. I simply filled them with Gunze Sangyo Liquid Putty and sanded down with a sandpaper and 3M sanding mat. Dealing with the lack of some panels was described in the sub chapter devoded to panel lines.

Panel lines

HobbyBoss FM-2 lacks some panel lines on one hand and has superfluous panel lines elsewhere. Some of the inspection scoops and panels are off shape. Most of the errors were inherrited from Trumpeter 1/32nd F4F-4, while other ensued from ignoring differences between FM-2 and earlier Wildcats. HobbyBoss decided to model some hatches as raised plates with prominent piano hinge representation. Unfortunately they were so heavily overdone, that it is better to sand them off and recreate from scratch.

I filled unnecessary lines with CA glue, and rescribed omitted lines with a slice of Czech modeling saw. However I wanted to have some hatches protruding slightly above the airframe. In order to replicate this I cut appropriate vinyl masks, fitted them to the model and airbrushed several coats of Tamiya superfine primer onto them. After gentle removal of the mask, the primer buildup simulated raised panels.

Painting and weathering

In case of "my" FM-2 one can't distinguish painting phase and weathering phase. As most other war weary FM-2s, Ralph Elliott's Baldy had prominent areas behind cowling, where paint finish was burned and washed out by hot exhaust gases. It resulted with exposed bare metal regions behind exhaust outlets, and streaks of burned paint behind them. The areas of natural metal are too big to simulate them with silver pencils, and I decided to paint a portion of the airframe with Gunze Super Metallic Silver paint (over Tamiya Fine Primer) and mask areas where NMF supposes to show thru. Then I painted entire model with blue finish using mixture of Mr Color paints (see table for recipe). Then national insgnia and individual numbers were sprayed using vinyl masks. One shoud remember, that FM-2s weren't Grumman-built aircraft and they had full insignia blue/white stars and bars instead of simplified white only marks of Grumman style. Also, national insignia on top surface of left wing had white areas replaced with light gray mixture (I used Gunze Sangyo Hobby Color FS36622 for this purpose).

Conclusion

HobbyBoss release of the FM-2 is really a mixed bag of surprising shines and amazing faults. Almost everything what is compatible with earlier Wildcats is done well or very well. Almost every area distinct for FM-2 has been done poorly or just screwed up horribly. I have an impression, that HobbyBoss scaled down brilliant Trumpeter Wildcat with very good result, but everything that added or changed on its own was done hastily without any serious reference studies. So the modeler has two options. To build quickly a nice looking FM-2 replica out of the box regardless its inaccuracies, or to dig into the long process of making numerous corrections and scratchbuilds. If the second option is selected, it is almost the same amount of work as with HobbyBoss or Tamiya F4F-4 to FM-2 conversion.

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