Elite Forces 1/18 F6F Hellcat Part 20 - Painting the Model

By Rodney Williams

Recently my computer crashed before I downloaded lots of "in-progress" painting photos onto my back-up CD disks, thus I am missing several photos showing how I air brushed on the white paint.

In other stories I showed you how I attached the center wing section to the fuselage and accomplished all of the necessary work. I had to re-paint that section of the model.

My next application was to apply my XF-17 Flat Sea Blue and my XF-18 Flat Medium Blue paints to the fuselage.

I printed out the enclosed color profile of #19 and used it as my painting guide. Even with these shaky hands of mine I was able to get the paints on the model successfully.

After the paints had dried for a few days I over-coated the entire model with my Future Floor Wax, (FFW) with Denatured Alcohol, (DA).

For a couple of decades or more I have mixed my FFW and Tamiya paints with DA. The mix ratio is at least 3-4 parts DA to one part FFW and/or paint. Recently I have been mixing FFW to my flat finish Tamiya paints with no ill effects. I have used my Badger 200 internal-mix air brush system since 1981. One 200 gun has the fine needle in it while the other two have the medium and heavy duty needles in them. I always take my air-brush apart and give it a good cleaning with DA after each spray application. This advice came from my friend the late "master" modeler George Lee.

My pre-made and pre-cut #19 Frisket-film paint mask for the fuselage and the tail plane was carefully applied to the model. I burnish the edges of the film down slightly with the ends of round pointed wooden tooth picks. I apply some liquid mask to the areas where my #11 cutting knife has cut past its mark.

Something looks funny with the panel lines and rivets on the fuselage tail plane section. I research the drawings and real photos and I discover that these panel lines and rivets are located at a 90 degree to the aft vertical section of the fin where the rudder fits in. When you look at the photos of the model, the tail #19 is not in alignment with the panel lines as they are not at a 90 degree angle. I surfed the web and looked at other F6F models as I wanted to be sure that I got it right for my client.

All four #19´s turned out ok so I let the paint dry for several days before I applied the fuselage insignia masking templates. In years gone by I have always applied the "insignia blue" color first then sprayed on the white later. This time around I did a reverse application by applying the white paint first and then let it dry for a few hours. Most times I use either cotton and/or a soft brush and rub down the paint to get rid of any overspray.

The orange tape was used for aligning the "white bar masks." Once the two bar masks were on I carefully "eye-balled" the star mask and got it on the fuselage. I applied the insignia blue paint which had some FFW mixed in with it.

The instructions say not to leave the Frisket-film on too long as it may pull off the paint and/or will not come off of your model. I left the blue paint dry for about an hour then I removed the Scotch 2080 low-tack smooth surface tape and carefully took off the Frisket masks.

A few days later I sprayed on a liberal amount of my FFW~DA mix.

My next story will show the DM brand of stencils being applied.

See "U" then.