Pro Resin 1/72 Curtiss F6C-4
|
 |
Introduction
The US Navy had decided, by 1927, to standardize on air-cooled radial
engines, which were more easily maintained at sea than liquid-cooled inline
engines. Accordingly, after trials with a Pratt & Whitney R-1340-
engined F6C-3, a production contract was placed for 31 fighters powered
by this 410hp radial as F6C-4s. The first of these aircraft, which was
retained for test purposes, was assigned the designation XF6C-4 and deliveries
commenced in February 1927. Possessing the same twin-gun armament as its
predecessors, the F6C-4 proved more maneuverable than the V-1150- powered
models, but was becoming obsolescent by the time that it was delivered.
It remained first-line equipment only until the beginning of 1930.
The Build
When Matt sent this model to me I was excited to start my “thirties”
collection of aircraft, so I also brought out my ancient Monogram set
of thirties fighters (now re-released by Accurate Miniatures) and decided
to build them at the same time. That was the plan. As they say in the
military, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. The model did
not come with the photo-etch that was advertised nor did it come with
the clear plastic for the windshield. This was not a show stopper, but
the build itself pretty much slowed me down to a crawl.
Cockpit Construction
 As
in most builds aeronautical I started with the cockpit. The seat had broken
in the shipping but not too much that I couldn’t put the thing back
together with superglue. As I neared the end of cutting the fragile seat
from the stub it shattered into billion pieces. Augghh. There was no way
I was going to find all the tiny shards and assemble them back together.
I decided to use an Aeroclub photo-etch seat designed for Japanese aircraft
and filed it to shape. Since I did not have the photo-etch designed for
the kit I copied the instructions and cut out the straps as replacements.
Paper folds nicer than photo-etch anyway. I also cutout the instrument
faces from the instructions, painted them and mounted them in the cockpit.
Not bad but I would have preferred the photo-etch instead. Cockpit sides
were painted Tamiya silver, washed down with a bit of blackish sludge
to bring out the excellent detail and ouila! The easy part of the build
was completed and the fuselage sides were then glued together.
Fuselage
 Once
the fuselage was put together the grinding, sanding and filing commenced.
I found that my fuselage halves were not exactly identical. I had to add
superglue enhancements so that I could get a symmetrical look to the headrest,
and so that the undersides of the fuselage no longer had any unexplainable
holes. But I think this is typical of most aircraft builds and chalked
it up to mass production difficulties. The horizontal and vertical stabilizers
went on without too much trouble and the lower wings were installed, the
whole thing started to look like an airplane. I painted the engine area
Tamiya silver, the fuselage and the wings a lightened gray and the nose
red to match the box top illustration.
Landing Gear
 It
was at this time that nightmare number one came into full view, the landing
gear. I already understand that finely molded resin parts are fragile.
Despite that I slowly and carefully sanded the inner struts to shape (flash
was bad as well as molding lines were heavy) they still tended to break.
My struts are mostly superglue with an inner resin core. That wasn’t
bad but when I attempted to place them correctly; there were no guides
or holes to where this scissor strut should fit. Guide holes do two things
at the same time; provide positive placement for the part and strength
for superglue bond. Unfortunately, without the guides my scissor struts
continually broke the bonds as I worked the other problem, the main landing
gear legs.
 The
main gear legs are supposed to fit onto a bump molded right on the wheels.
My wheels were molded with strange lumps and bumps that did not look at
all like it’s supposed to be. Carve, carve, carve, sand, file, sand,
file again, bag it, slap those puppies together. As you can tell I was
not too happy with the fit or look once I was finished. Putting the scissor
struts and landing gear struts together as one unit is another story of
frustration but they are on.
Wings
For those of you who do not build biplanes, here is the reason why you
don’t: Struts. This is also the reason why it took so long for me
to finish this particular build, I was scared just to try! The struts
I received in the box were deformed, bent, skewed, flashy (as in too much
flash) and fragile. The wings, of course, needed a lot of cleanup, but
that was expected. I decided to place the large N struts on first as a
guide for the smaller fuselage N struts that would follow on later. This
time the wings did have alignment holes for you to follow, but they were
too small to use. Some of you may want to add pins to the bottoms and
tops of your struts as this would add to strength and positive location,
I, of course, went for brute superglue force.
 I
found that the superglue way actually helped me in getting a good angle
for the top wing. I would glue the struts on the bottom wing, glue the
top wing on and then make changes to the bent struts by popping them off
and heating them up to a better angle. Once the top wing was on I did
the same to my inner struts. There is another strut that is connected
to the ailerons once all of this is completed, they were too short!!!!
At least by 2mm!! I made superglue extensions to the struts, you can’t
tell by looking at them and if you can I will poke out your eye!
Final Assembly
With all the wackiness of putting the wings together I was finally in
a position to finish this build. The engine cylinders were glued on and
the engine struts were glued to the fuselage. I was pretty happy with
myself that my build was almost finished until I realized that those aren’t
engine struts but rather exhaust pipes! I looked at the instructions,
yep, they don’t connect to the fuselage, I looked at pictures, hard
to see but they are definitely not struts but individual exhaust stacks
that do not connect to the fuselage. Egads! I tried superglue dissolver
to gently pry the exhaust stacks from the fuselage, of course the one
time I want the superglue to pop off it doesn’t! Eventually, with
a sharp knife, I pried those things off and positioned them according
to the reference pictures (which weren’t that clear in the instructions,
the cause of this untimely mistake).
Painting and Decaling
 Finally,
to finish this thing and make Matt Bittner happy that another build review
is done. I painted the upper wing a nice yellow (mixed Tamiya paints)
and the rest a lightened aircraft gray to better match the box top and
other resource pictures. I then proceeded to add decals. For some of you
who have worked with Olimp’s decals before, you know what is coming
up; they do not react with decal softeners. Ok, they do, but not in the
manner you want them to. The decals that are on flat or almost flat surfaces
stick well with decal softeners. Those decals that need to work around
bumps or projections do not conform at all. I had to rip the decals in
places to get around minor things. Unfortunately, when it came to the
tail decals, any cajoling ended in disaster. The decal actually started
to flake off, nothing could be done to save it, which is the good part.
Why? It’s totally wrong!! The decal shows horizontal red and white
stripes, in reality, there are only three stripes, all vertical, even
the box art shows the correct tail markings. My pictures show the decals
as provided, but, as soon as I get back from my overseas deployment, the
tail will be fixed and painted correctly.
Conclusion
With all the problems inherent to resin models this was a good build.
The aircraft looks like a Curtiss F6C-4 once completed, although only
of one particular aircraft. There should be an optional cowling provided
to model other aircraft. Decal options would also be welcomed as well
as fixing the incorrect tail decal. OK, getting a better decal manufacturer
would also be welcome so that the decals will conform to an otherwise
excellent model. (Note Pro Resin now uses Begemot as their decal provider
and those are far better than the decals in the first of the Pro Resin
kits. Ed.) I would also recommend better illustrations so that I could
avoid some of the mistakes during the build process (some mistakes are
unavoidable due to my inherent flaws). Another flaw which could be corrected
are those large, out of proportion stitched panels on the side of the
fuselage. They really stick out and should be reduced in detail. What
happened to my Monogram set of aircraft that I was building along side
this one? Well, they never got beyond the single wing stage because of
the frustration of the Curtiss F6C-4 build.
For those that excel in biplane building, this kit should be an excellent
start in creating a worthwhile addition to your collection of thirties
aircraft. For the rest of us, stick to the Monogram collection, you’ll
keep your hair and your sanity.
Thanks to Matt Bittner and Pro Resin
for the chance to build this kit. |
|
