Total time building 281.75 hours.

Begin date May 11, 2024; end date February 24, 2025.

Vendors:

AMT/Ertl

F7F-3 Kit #8843 1/48 scale

Eduard

Photo Etch Set #48178

Quickboost

F7F Tigercat Engines #QB 48 142

FineMolds Nano Aviation 48

WWII US Aircraft Seatbelt Set #NC4

Scale Model Accessories

F7F-3/3N Tigercat Wheels #CAT4_R48018

Scale Aircraft Conversions

Metal landing gear #48008

EZ Line

Fine black

My Opinion

This kit was produced in 1995 and I had assumed that it was a rebox of something like Italeri but it’s not. According to Scalemates, this was a new-tool kit produced by AMT/Ertl. When I first opened the box I had high hopes for this until construction started. The build became more and more annoying as I progressed; so much so that I doubt I’d spend the money on another AMT/Ertl kit unless it’s in the category of this kit, which is “I really want to build one of these but it’s the only one in 1/48 scale”…which is what this one is. I’ve always liked this rare bird and when I saw this kit was available, I jumped at it. There were many opportunities for this to be an outstanding kit, even by 1995 standards, the company just took too many shortcuts for my liking. It’s a 3 of 5 star kit and good for someone who’s just getting into modeling and doesn’t want to invest a lot of money into it and won’t be showing it at contests. To build OOB will require a newcomer to stretch to produce a decent build, which is what newcomers need (in my less than humble opinion).

What I ended up with is not contest-worthy.

Too many parts broke off after construction. Granted…I have not been at my best this year and some of that could be my own inability to connect the dots of late. But engineering and fit needed attention and sometimes a lot of it. And each time something breaks off, it’s got to be reattached. Each time it’s glued back on, there’s the old glue and the new glue and it builds up when something breaks off a half-dozen times. Yes…I could have removed the old glue. I didn’t because experience has shown me that that often requires a repaint which, given the nature of rattlecans and the locations of where things had to be reattached, I wasn’t interested in doing. This is a three-foot model. It looks really good from 36″ away but loses its allure the closer the viewer gets. Speaking of paint…

I learned a lot from painting this one. Yeah, orange peel is a thing. Yeah, I figured out how to mitigate that effect by sanding and polishing (the other fix is to strip all the paint off and start over). My major mistake was thinking that Tamiya’s X-22 Clear would self-level, which it does do. It seems the line between orange peel and self-leveling is invisibly (at least to me) small. I also learned that if one is doing a dark and glossy finish, one canNOT over prepare the surface. Prepare the surface as if you’re going to do a natural metal finish because I was very surprised to discover that a line left behind from sanding with 600 grit will show up when the gloss arrives on the dark paint. Lesson learned.