Very interesting! There were a few markers that made me think it was one if the very early ones, notably that very small fuselage star. As a side, I was very tempted to do the very early prototype style Hellcat with the early markings and two tone scheme.

Beginning Weathering

Here's a technique I haven't used in a long while, salt chipping.

The thing with pacific aircraft particularly the Corsairs is that using chipping fluid is extremely tempting to provide interesting weathering, salt chipping on the other hand is a bit awkward to use with that type of weathering as there's a good chance that you'll accidently cause more chipping when removing the salt even if you put a clear coat between them.

On the Hellcats though I didn't use chipping fluid, so I thought I'd dust off this technique I haven't used in a good while.

Unfortunately I definitely overdid it in some areas, perhaps I put too much white in the airbrush but some areas are quite overdone particularly on the left side of the aircraft. I tried to sand and polish some of the paint off and tone it down, but for now I'll leave it as is and see how a clear coat and oils effect it.

Furthermore I did also did a dirt wash on the model, this strangely got very stuck to the underside of the aircraft (perhaps the salt chipping on the underside, done in a very thinned black, wasn't dry enough yet) but to fix this I just sprayed over it with white. In the end if the blue does look too dramatic this will be the final option to fix it.

Overall though it doesn't look too bad, maybe a bit overdone but it's right on the verge between too much and just right. Either way though I do like the potential salt chipping has in breaking up colours like blues and blacks which overwise can come across very monotone, and it does seem fitting for an aircraft living in the salty seas. For the downed Hellcat I'll make sure to be a bit more careful with the white/thinner mix! Instead of doing a small poor from the bottle a drop or two from a cocktail stick in a half filled airbrush cup works better.

E: Of course I forgot to mention the stencils, they were actually a bit of a pain and kept folding up on me. I forgot how delicate Cartograf decals could be as it's been a while. Either way, both Hellcats got them though naturally I got lazy with the grounded Hellcat and didn't bother with the underside.

Great weathering effects, Harvey @scalerambush
Results are beautiful.

Chipping looks great, Harvey @scalerambush. As far as the problem with the bottom of the plane, perhaps the salt process created "tooth" that allowed the black to stick more to it. In any case, looks great. When I was in Somalia with the Air Force, I got a chance to visit one of the assault ships in the harbor, and I saw what Tom (@tcinla) was talking about. Chipped paint on the helos seemed to be dealt with fairly quickly. So, instead of chipping, there were a lot of patches of fresh paint over the older paint. I always worry when I get to the weathering part of a build. The kit is 99% done and then I start the weathering process which is sometimes not as controllable as I wish it was.

@scalerambush Harvey Alexander’s Hellcat really looking great my friend . Loving that paint job . How hard was it to close he main gear on the Eduard kit ?

Thank you all! Regarding the undercarriage it wasn't too bad, I've had worse. It is missing a panel that had to be scratchbuilt as there's a small panel that is hidden away when the wheels are down, but fills a gap when it is up. I found it best to glue it all in place but very lightly glue the large main panel that covers the majority of the leg + wheel, and then slide the wheel in afterwards. I did have to remove all the detail in the bay to get some space for the wheel, and the wheel is cut in half (which is no issue as the wheel is meant to be 2 halves glued together).

Working on Exhausts

The Hellcat exhaust stains are interesting as quite a lot seem to go to a grey/white, the issue with this is that Sea Blue + thinned white or grey = basically intermediate blue, so it kinda ends up looking a bit like I botched the camo scheme. As such I went for a more traditional exhaust stain colour with a tiny amount of grey round the side leading onto the wings.

To make this first I sprayed black into the shape I wanted, then I did the grey, I added a tiny bit of white over the grey towards the exhaust, and then went back and used a dark brown on the black staining from the exhaust side out. I also tried to hold the airbrush over panel lines to make those areas look darker like there's a bit of stain build up.

All work was done with Tamiya paints here, I put 1/3 cup of thinner in my airbrush (which doesn't have a big cup) and added a drop or two of paint, so it's pretty much 95~% thinner. It took a lot of thin coats but being so much thinner it dried/evaporated quickly.

Unfortunately I was quite happy with the underside but then accidently scraped some off, trying to patch it up didn't work due to the thin paint so I ended up respraying some panels white and going again.

With that though the majority of weathering is done. I'll give the model some semi-matt paints and then work on the fiddly bits like lights and antennas.

Indeed great looking stains, Harvey @scalerambush
Great recovery done as well.
The retracted wheels look perfect like this.

The Finishing Touches On #19

One thing I forgot to add was the anti-slip walkways, so I added those on quickly. With that the only thing left was to add the fiddly bits!

Antennas were added, wire was also added. The pesky inboard gun barrel that kept coming off was also repainted and added, and finally the lights went on. None of the lights really fitted in this kit, the formation lights were painted and added but had to be sanded down to fit flush with the wing. The rest of the lights were made up using Krystal Klear and later tamiya clear paints added if needed.

I also found, for some reason, that a lot of paint got inside the cockpit. I ended up breaking off the canopy (not too difficult since it was glued with Krystal Klear) and rubbing the inside with a cotton bud dipped in tamiya X-20A, which cleaned it up. It was then reglued and that was it.

With that, Vraciu's bird is done. It's currently sitting where it should be which is next to my Tomcat.

Now to continue work on the other kit, or more accurately trying to get a diorama base sorted so I have somewhere to put the wreck.