You have Louis, always nice to get some paint on, looking good.

That is unbelievable stuff. Brilliant Louis - you spoke about the size of your stash a little while back - you'll make a dent at this rate! What is really impressive is the consistency. I'm not sure I could spot a difference between one and the next - which is a huge credit to your skill!

Thanks for the words of encouragement Paul. I build some of the kits in my stash this way to save time. If I don't at least try then my stash of models will outlast me ! The stash probably will outlast me even with my efforts. But I'm trying... 🙂

Greg I would really give the assembly line method a go. It definitely saves time when that's what you're after. I know that this hobby is relaxing and many people take their time which is great. But I have 9 Hasegawa F6F's in the stash and this will thin the herd of Cats down to 5 left not counting the Eduard and the Hobby Boss dash 3's which will boost the grand total of Hellcats back up to seven. My goal is to build as many things as I can. Thanks for watching along.

Here are some pictures of todays work.

Four fuselages are now buttoned up.

If you look close, you will notice an extra engine and cowling that came from the spare parts bin. These items were left over from a previous build and these kit parts were replaced with resin upgrades. I decided to go ahead and get these parts ready for a future Hellcat build. By having these extra parts ready to go, the next Hellcat build following this set of four should go together really quickly.

This photo shows two of the five wing assemblies I build up and four elevator / stabilizer sets.

Here's the remaining three wings. I had to putty in several panel lines on the lower side of the wings on the "Dash - 5" versions, as those lines were not present. Then the Blue Angel, Target Tow and the Drones all had the armament removed. So the shell casing and link ejector ports and gun openings in the leading edge were also puttied over after I glued in some plastic card stock as a backing.

This shows a close up of the cowlings after another panel line was filled in and sanded. Here you can see the filler primer gray paint. It still needs to be wet sanded with 2000 grit paper...

Here are 5 propellers, ready for paint... The seams and sprue attachment points have been taken care of.

The engines are ready for installation now... A light wash was given to bring out the molded in details. These should be presentable once installed since most of the details are covered with the cowling.

Here are a few of the props after I sprayed the tips in white as a base for the following yellow. This makes a nice surface and helps the yellow to pop.

In this photo you can see the remaining 3 wings that have been filled in. The 5 props have also had the tips painted white. Now its a waiting game for the putty to dry before sanding on the wings...

Here are the remaining three elevator / stabilizer assemblies. One set has already been installed on a fuselage.

This last picture shows the fuselage with the tail feathers glued in place. All of the seams have been sanded and smoothed except for the ones ahead of the cockpit. That will get done next.

Overall it was a very productive day at the "Iron Works" or as Bernard called it, "The modelers Bethpage".

I'm calling it a day...

Comments encouraged.

Great amount of work on the go Louis. It is all looking fantastic and the cats are coming to live. Quite some work with all the filling and sanding and I'm sure it is worth the effort with the different types you're building. All the cockpits look great and it sure makes a nice historic production line.

I just realized that I didn't have the 45 degree side letters "DF" for the Daytona Beach NAS Hellcat. Judging from the several photos I have in books of Hellcats stationed in Florida during the War, it looks like they used a 24 inch tall letter and number combination on the fuselage sides of most planes.

So I found a set of properly sized letters and purchased them online a few minutes ago. They should arrive soon...

Glad the line didn't have to be shut down!