The Atom Furnace: ARMA HOBBY 1/72 Wildcat FM-2

I have never started a post before without at least having the kit in hand. Well, there is a first time for everything. Amazon reports arrival today, 3-19-2022. The last 1/72 model I built was an Airfix Curtiss Warhawk, built as Ken Taylors Pearl Harbor P-40B - a Pandemic project in August 2020. Since then I have been rehabbing old models or building 1/48 scale aircraft and 1/56 scale Bolt Action armor.

Arma Hobby is a Polish manufacture that reviewers have highly rated for accuracy and quality. They produce kits in 1/72 and 1/48 scales in three categories, Model Kit; Expert Set and Deluxe Set, with price points accordingly. I chose the expert set that includes some photoetch detail parts, masks for clear parts and wheels and expanded decal set. So now I wait!

The wait is over and the kit is on the bench. Since this is my first experience with Arma Hobby this post will be about the kit particulars as well as my struggles with the level of detail in this 1/72 scale kit. As I proceeded I realized that I needed some guidance besides the kit instruction, so I had Scalemates at the ready on my phone that contained tips on building. It provided an order to assembling parts, painting and adding decals. The first order of business is to open the box and see what we have.

Extensive decals, PE parts and masking for the clear parts and wheels (nice).

The PE includes an instrument panel, seat belts, engine wiring, cockpit controls etc.

The sprues are super clean (new high tech molds), great panels lines and flat (not glossy) exterior surfaces.

This rather dark photo shows the first three parts assembled with the PE instrument panel attached and all painted interior green. The PE results in more of a 3D look and as you will see next allows for the cover decals to mold into the 3D relief.

This is why Micro Sol or Solvaset is so important - to melt those decals into place!

Next up is the addition of seat belts to the seat. The Scalemate tips provide the order of gluing seat belts to their attachment points on the rear and sides of the seat. The decals are then overlaid on the PE belts after which they can be bent into position and tacked down with cyano. gel. The tweezer gives good scale to how small this construction really is.

Here is an example of teeny-weeny decals that are placed on PE prior to installing onto cockpit components. Unfortunately I did not photograph each of the PE parts or decals being applied to the cockpit control pieces.

But here are all the components in place. I think it is real good detail at this scale and it was very fiddly to do (for me at least).

The positive for me is that a dry fit into the fuselage showed me that I put this stuff together correctly!

Next up is the forward bulkhead. The PE chain and sprockets were easy to place on the molded nubs and glue in place. The interior in front of the cockpit is to be painted the same as the "underside" which for my version (4) is Matt White. A word about that choice. There are 6 different versions based on exterior paint and decal choice. When I researched and found that Wildcats (FM-2) from CVE-60, USS Guadalcanal were involved in the capture of the U-505, the choice became easy for me. Those Wildcats are Dark Gray and White!

Well this almost elicited $#@&^ from me. The first two pieces of the complex landing gear have to go in before closing up the fuselage. The first triangle was easy as it fits into a notch at the base of the bulkhead. The second piece has a 5 point attachment; two points at the top ends of the first triangle and three points to the fuselage. This is where that third hand would be nice. The loctite Gel is needed so as to hold the second piece to the first at the end points while positioning the bottom of the second piece to the fuselage attachment points. Why, gosh, that sounds easy - until the second piece decided to attach itself to the end of my xacto! As I freed the piece loose from the tip it began it's long fall toward the gaping jaws of the carpet monster😱 NOOOOO, this is a component that CAN'T be lost. To my hands and knees I went - nothing. I took a break for the men's room. As I lowered the sweat pants I was wearing there the little guy was staring up at me (no, not that little guy) part number two was stuck to the right pant leg - Whew! As you can see. I was able to re-attach the part fully. Crisis averted.

Closure Happens!

The cockpit structure does keep the halves from seamlessly coming together, but it will not be much of a gap to fill.

The engine is next - that should be fun!

The best way to show the engine build is above. It consists of four plastic parts and PE. The rear bulkhead and cylinders are painted gun metal, the hub is engine gray and the rods are black

You can see the prop shaft sticking out of the housing - it does turn. I was concerned when applying adhesive to the housing since the shaft is fitted in between the cylinders and the housing.

Now comes the PE wiring harness. The harness is in two PE pieces. The ring tabs get glued to the housing after which the individual wire strands can be bent to their position on the cylinders. It was not as fiddly as I thought it would be. It is supposed to end up looking like the following:

Not too bad IMHO.

The tail is two pieces. The plane fits snuggly and really does not even need glue.
The elevator tabs are perfect and easy to glue to the plane. The rudder is similarly attached. The assembly results in nice detail.

Since this is version 4 I am going to employ the rockets that are included. The inside of the wing has wonderful molded rings to hold the pin vise bit to drill the necessary holes for attaching the hard points later. Also note that the three piece cowl has been installed.

Starting to look like a Wildcat now with the wing halves glued together and then attached to the fuselage. Very little seam work will be needed.

I was a bit nervous about the landing gear as it is a rather complex tangle of struts and shocks and reading reviews said the Jig included in the subsequent F4F version helps with the assembly. This is 4 separate pieces carefully snipped from the sprue and bent (as the instructions indicate to fit into the notches of the gear legs. Attaching the struts to the sturdy center yoke was not an issue and the struts were flexible so as to position the ends into the receiving notches in the gear legs as can be seen below....

Now wait a minute, that gear looks familiar, like on the Lunar Lander. My brother reminded me, "well. Grumman was the prime contractor for the lander", something I forgot!

I was also painting and decaling the prop. The decal sheet had yellow half moons for the prop tips, but that is a bit much I thought and, for me, much easier to paint. Let's get back to the Wildcat itself!

I thinned out some Navy acrylic and used my fine tip to try some pre-shading of the very fine panel lines. Now to mask the cockpit and engine go the spray booth.

The gray is on the light side and I need additional masking of the gray to spray more white and define the boundary, but the pre-shading worked fairly well.

Again - pre-shading looks ok.

Armaments for the North Atlantic FM-2 was 4 machine guns (reduced from 6) and rockets with explosive warheads that were able to penetrate a surfaced U-Boat hull. These are are a 2 part construct with the fins being separate. It was easy due to the arrangement on the sprue which allowed the attachment to the rocket body and then snipping off the sprue attachment after the glue was set! Paint was applied while on the sprue and touched up after. There are two decals per rocket. The ones on the olive color portion are difficult to see at this scale, but they are there.

Masks are always fiddly to place at any scale, but at least these are included I you don't have to make your own.

I'd give the result an 8 out of 10 - nothing is perfect. I won't show what the wheel masks were like. It was a disaster on the front side. I have to redo by hand. I think the version 3 wheels are better suited to the mask.

Inserting the landing gear assembly was not hard, but I did have to do a bit of trimming and when I pushed the yoke home into the fuselage a couple of the strut attachment points popped loose and have to be re-glued. But I got it in and the wheels attached.

The rockets were easily attached in the holes I drilled, plus I had applied the Bars and Stars. The kit decals release easily and quickly from the backing so be ready with the Micro Sol.

The prop was glued to the shaft🙏

👍

A word about decals. Everything has been included on the decal sheet. At this scale it is fiddly at best to apply the tiny ones much lass the extremely tiny ones. This close up shows that the decals can be read - some even with the naked eye! This macro photo also exaggerates the white overspray - oh well, it's not too bad considering.

Almost complete. The canopy has been set in place and the antenna. Monofilament will be used for the version 4 radio wire.

Holes drilled for the up wire and the extra antenna forward of the vertical stabilizer. Monofilament is glued to the tail and tied and glued to the antenna. The up wire is glued to the fuselage and then tied and glued to the horizontal to pull it taut.