My most favorite aircraft may be those of the Luftwaffe of the WW2 period, single-engine and twin-engine, but being a fan of aircraft with a propeller, do not leave me unmoved many of the aircraft of ... enemies!

Especially the American approach to the subject, that is, the bigger and stronger, the better, results in some of the most beautiful aircraft ever flown.

The legendary Grumman Cat family is a concrete example.

So one of the members of this family is the Tigercat, in my opinion one of the most beautiful twin engined airplanes of all time.

So how do I resist and not succumb to the temptation to get this kit?

It is really a very demanding kit, with "millions" of pieces, which has everything (resins, photo-etched, metal, fabric), which exhausts the modeling skills in the simplest tasks as it requires endless hours of cutting, sanding and matching parts, many times between pieces of different materials.

In many stages the modeler is called upon to improvise and construct something from scratch, while his attention must be absolute in handling some small and fragile pieces.

We will see all this along the way, fortunately we have time although something tells me that I will run out of time if I want to end up with something decent in my hands.

The aircraft I will build (I hope) is one F7F-3P of the U.S.M.C. ,MAG-33 , as is in Phoang , Korea 1953 .

2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Hi Michael!
This is a wonderful choice of a kit, but VERY demanding!
I agree about the looks of the Tigercat: it's an extremely elegant aircraft.
I will follow this super build very closely as well.

My dear friends, welcome! Sit back, serve and wait. For now, that's all I can offer you. I hope to have something more specific to your taste soon.

7 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Extra cheese on the Pizza!

OK guys , time to start building this demanding kit if I like to finished in time for the Group Build .

After alot of cutting , sanding , cutting , sanding , triming , sanding , searching , triming and sanding I have the first parts on the way to glued toghether .

I have already match the nose cannon tubes (made them from Evergreen styrene tubes) + some scratch details like piping and cables .

One point that bothered me a bit , was the lack of proper information about some parts .

As you may see in the first photo from building instructions booklet (cockpit parts) only seven (7) of 37 are numbered .

That means , the modeler must lockate and find all the parts alone , just using his observeness .

In second photo , finally I gather all the parts and at the same time I located and prepared each one to go in its place .

All except one : the small piece indicated in both photos with a red arrow .

This is part #77 and is mentioned in parts list in the instructions (photo 3) .

On the way of building the cockpit (nothing glued yet in this area) I see something strange : the gunsight is different than the provided #126 part just right of the "unknown" part . Look photo 4 .

Why ? Because part #77 must be glued on part #126 to have a complete gunsight !

A short view on the instructions , gives me the feeling that is not the only wrong here . So , I have to go very carefully , and count twice , then cutt once .

No more about this project , my session is divated in two models so I have to go there ( yes , the other one is the Me262 and is going fine , but I have not any photo for now . I promise you that next week I will have news from this as well .

Until then , have a nice weekend !

5 attached images. Click to enlarge.

The detail in this kit is impressive, Michael (@faraomike). Looking forward to following along on this build.

Hello my friends ! One more WE comes to a finish , so , time for a small update .

Having the most of the cockpit parts assembled and trimed waiting for some color , I start playing with the wings .

A small scratch radiator x2 on every wing instead of a hole with "something" inside .

Then a lot of sanding and triming , plus some drilling for ajusting tabs and finally some surgery for the opening on the back of every wing (I will build them in opening position) .

A last touch with filler on the 2 halves join and ready for the next step .

6 attached images. Click to enlarge.

That's amazing work on the radiator and especially at the nacelke inner walls, Michael @faraomike!
You' re doing a splendid job there!