Monogram 1/72 Grumman F8F Bearcat

MONOGRAM 1:72 GRUMMAN F8F BEARCAT

Reviewer: Madoc Pope (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 2 April 2005

Kit Details:

Monogram #6789 Bearcat F8F (1979 issue)

Another kitted version of the Monogram F8F Bearcat

Aircraft History:

The Grumman F8F Bearcat was the ultimate expression of a piston engined carrier borne interceptor from the World War Two era. As of late 1943 - early '44, it was everything the US Navy could've wanted or needed in a fighter plane. It was faster and more manoeuvrable than either the Hellcat or the Corsair. Being a third lighter than the Hellcat, the smaller Bearcat could readily out climb - and that was just the thing for an inceptor. This new fighter plane possessed all the right qualities which the US Navy's aviators, now highly skilled combat pilots, wanted in a plane that had none of the Hellcat's limitations. Not that there was anything wrong with the Hellcat, it was just that it was designed for relatively unskilled pilots and intended to beat the Japanese through superior numbers and group tactics. With some years of experience now under their belts, the US Naval aviators wanted a real dogfighter of a fighter plane to finish the job and the Bearcat was it.

Unfortunately for the Bearcat, it arrived on the scene just a month or two late for it to see combat. The first squadron issued Bearcats, VF-19, was just completing its familiarization period with their new mounts when the war ended in August of 1945. The Bearcat did continue on into regular US Navy service with more than 1,200 being made and seeing service in twenty four Navy squadrons before the type was phased out in the late 40's in favour of newer jet aircraft. The Bearcat was too good a plane to simply junk though so it continued to render service in other air forces, most notably the French and Thai ones, through the 1950's. The plane was well liked for its speed and excellent handling qualities and it was those qualities which served to give it a new life in the air racing circuit from the 1960's into the present day.

The Kit:

Monogram originally released this kit in 1967 and then re-released it in 1979 and then again, as part of its "Mini Masterpieces" line, in 1989. Although this kit's design dates back almost forty years it still holds up well even by today's standards. This particular boxing of the kit in this review dates from its 1979 reissue. Monogram did the same with those other three 1/72nd scale kits as well as many of their other 72nd scale items. I well remember making several of the kits from that line back then. I still have a couple left, unmade, in my collection. This particular Bearcat kit is one I purchased on eBay a couple of years ago for about $3.50. You can still find this release of this kit on eBay for around that same price.

Here's what I found upon opening the kit box.

The surface detailing of this kit is of the raised variety but it is nicely done and effective. The design of the kit is simple and there isn't a whole lot to the kit, at least in terms of the number of parts. This is a 60's vintage kit though, so its features are pretty basic by today's standards.

Among the more basic things is the lack of interior detail. The wheel wells are simply one big open hole in the bottom half of the wing. The mounting sockets for the landing are the only things there. This leaves everything else open in that area and that includes the two wing root air scoops as well as the gap between the bottom of the wing and the inside of the fuselage. Fine for its day but most modern builders will need to close those gaps up. The interior detail of the fuselage is also non-existent. The cockpit assembly is designed to sit atop the top wing half and consists of no more than mounting pegs for the cockpit seat, a hole for the control stick, and some molded detail to represent the rudder pedals. As the cockpit opening is so narrow to begin with, this isn't all that bad. The kit does include a decal of the instrument panel but that decal, although correct in general shape and positioning of the instrument faces, is much too wide for this scale and doesn't fit the molded shape of the instrument panel (the Bearcat's main instrument panel is trapezoidal while the kit's is rounded on top.)

The kit's engine is done well enough to well represent the Pratt & Whitney R-2800-30W engine but its attachment to the fuselage consists on just two prongs molded into the left fuselage half. This results in a gap around it which allows light to shine through from both the cockpit opening and the opening from the wheel well. The kit's pilot figure is rather crisply molded and looks to be in the correct scale. The kit does allow for finishing with bombs and rockets mounted on its wing hardpoints. There's also the large centerline drop tank and the uniquely shaped display stand included in the kit. The decals have markings for only one aircraft in US Navy service. The kit's clear parts are crisply molded. The windscreen has an unfortunately placed molding gate which will take some care in separating so as not to crack the plastic. The canopy piece seems a tad small for displaying the model with it closed tightly against the windscreen. However, in the open position this is not as apparent.

Instructions:

The kit's instruction sheet consists of a single 8-1/2 x 11 inch double folded piece of paper. There's a brief writeup of the "Famous Navy Interceptor" on the first page followed by an exploded view assembly diagram on the reverse. Also on that side are the written portion of the assembly instructions, all four steps of them, which include recommendations that the builder use the "heated blade of an old knife" to flare the end of the propeller shaft and the landing gear hub pins in order to keep the parts on the model. Very much in keeping with 1960's model making standards. The final "page" of the instruction sheet covers the Painting phase and the Applying Decals phase. Painting recommendations only call out the general colors of things ("Black - Propeller blades - engine cylinders - tires...") and make no mention of the correct color to paint the surface of the model as its molded in color should suffice. At least back then. The instruction sheet finishes up with a nice Acknowledgment of appreciation "to Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation for their generous help in supplying technical data."

Construction:

I started my building of this kit by first giving it a bath. This, to remove any residual molding oils. Then I test fit the pieces to ensure there were no surprises in fit or shape. As nothing was warped out alignment or presented any difficulty in putting in place, I then moved on to actually building the model.

I decided to "open up" the kit by animating it's control surfaces. The kit was molded with the flaps, rudder, elevator and ailerons all in the neutral or closed position. That simplifies the molding process and does produce a very clean looking model. However, the real world aircraft was rarely in such a state. So, in short order I had carved through the plastic enough to separate the flaps from the wings and the rudder from the fuselage halves. I also wanted to open up the engine cowl flaps. That took a bit more work but I did that as well as separating the elevator from the horizontal stabilizer. I even carved the inside of the aileron's hinge points such that I could flex them out of their neutral position. All this was probably the single most time consuming part of this kit's assembly.

There's nothing terribly special in doing this, just taking care to not carve any other part of the kit that shouldn't be carved. I used a regular X-Acto knife for this but I worked it in reverse by pulling it through the part against its tip and not against its blade point. This meant the blade would tend to carve the plastic away more than just cut through it. I also used a panel scribing tool (both the Tamiya and versions) when I could. All three tools were effective.

Once I got through that I decided I needed to do something about the kit's lack of any interior detailing. This was most glaring in the kit's treatment of the wheel wells. Simply put, there was nothing there but the attachment points for the landing gear struts. Mind you, I was glad for such prominent and effective attachment points as that made the gear assembly and positioning much easier and effective then what I've found in other kits of similar vintage. Still though, the whole area looked naked as all get out. I especially didn't like how open the whole thing was. The wheel wells were devoid of detail and they also were not boxed in at all. So, you could see into the rest of the wing and also see right through the fuselage via the wheel well openings. That was hardly realistic.

To fix these gaps I opted to just use model putty instead of trying the plastic card box route. This worked only so well and in the future I'll most likely use the plastic card method instead. In this build I was hampered by not having any useful images or plans of what the Bearcat's wheel wells actually look like. I've found many an image of the plane online but none which showed useful details of the wheel wells. So, my efforts were constrained to just making the wells not so glaringly empty. In this, the putty job worked well enough. I did use some plastic strip to block the wing root air inlets so that there'd be no "see through" effect there.

With that resolved I turned to doing something about the kit's cockpit. As molded, the cockpit sits atop the upper wing half. This presented a bit of challenge to detail out as it would be quite easy to add details to this out in the open piece which would only reveal themselves as being too big once the fuselage halves were joined. The kit's cockpit area isn't terribly wide nor terribly visible once the fuselage halves are joined but I decided to do something to "busy it up" anyway. This took the simple form of making some side panels out of thick plastic sheet and then using small thin lengths of plastic strip placed atop them to then emulate the side consoles of the cockpit.

In this case I used a trick I'd read about online. The plastic sheet was white in color so to emulate the instrument faces I simply put a coat of flat black atop the consoles and then made a series of small scratches with the tip of my X-Acto blade upon them. This revealed the white plastic underneath and, in scale, does look a lot like an instrument panel would. Simple and quick, this did a lot to liven up the Bearcat's cockpit.

In this shot below you can see what the cockpit assembly looked like prior to its instrument panel paint job. You can also see the lengths of plastic strip I added to simulate the engine cowl flaps. I'd cut those open as well. I found that pulling the plastic strip across a hard straight edge imparted a curve to it and that helped make the pieces I then cut out of it more accurately match the curvature of the fuselage at the cowl flap location. I used more plastic strip to blank out the opening on the inside of the fuselage.

With the wing and cockpit done as far as I could do them, I then turned to working up the fuselage. Here's where I found a problem with the design of the kit. Monogram made the wing one continuous piece that ran through the fuselage. That simplified the kit's design and manufacture. It also meant for a gap between the bottom of the wing and the inside bottom of the fuselage. So, not only did I have to blank off the inside of the wing, but now I had to blank off beneath the wing and bottom of the fuselage. To do this I did use plastic card that I trimmed and bent around. These pieces served as a backstop for the putty I later applied to fill the remaining gaps. I did have to trim the strips a bit in order to assure a smooth fit with the wing in place.

With that applied I then decided to blank out the gap around the engine. As it stood, there was a distinct gap between the engine piece and the fuselage sides. You can see that on the left fuselage half in the picture above. Monogram just saw fit to mold two prongs upon which you'd glue the engine in place. Without the wheel well blanking light would come through from there as well as through the cockpit opening. That's not cool so blank it out I must. I had thought to cut out more plastic card stock and I began using paper sheet to work out the right profile. As I did this I realized that all I really needed was something which blocked the light effectively. It didn't need to be a structural piece of plastic nor anything which fit perfectly. Just well enough to block the light. That being the case, a piece of darkened paper cut to shape would do. In this case I cut it out to a close enough - but just a bit too wide - a shape and used Elmer's Glue to hold it in place. Yeah, supergluing it in place would've probably worked just as well but, hell, I'm a traditionalist when it comes to paper. I used a black Sharpie pen to darken the paper and then slathered the thing in place. Realizing that all that glue I'd put in there would take forever and a day to dry (after using so much superglue I'm spoiled) I scooped some of it out so it would dry faster.

With all this done I was ready to join things up. It was a bit tricky getting everything slid inside properly - not only is the wing a single assembly but so to is the horizontal stabilizer. But I did it. After drying I then did some preliminary sanding and then it was time for the first coat of putty. To mask out the cockpit, engine and wheel wells I tried using some Silly Putty® as I'd heard that would work well. It worked well in keeping the sprayed paint out of the areas I didn't want it to get in to but the Silly Putty® was rather messy and sticky in its removal so I think I'll stick with the tried and true stuffing tissue paper into those areas from now on.

With the primer coat on I set to work knocking down the problems that became visible. One area in particular revealed itself and that was the slight gap around the wing at the fuselage. The opening molded into the fuselage halves was just slightly too big so I had to pay some attention there and to the gap around the horizontal stabilizer. Between the putty and the Mr. Surfacer though it was soon remedied.

Options:

The only options included in this kit are its armament. After the war, the Bearcat was relegated to the close air support role and thus it was fitted with underwing hardpoints. The kit includes a brace of zero length launch rockets as well as two 250lbs. bombs.

Color Schemes:

Only one was featured as it was the only scheme applied to the US Navy aircraft of that era - gloss sea blue. A single coat of Model Master "Flat Sea Blue" enamel coated the model's surface quite well. The sea blue color of the kit's styrene probably helped with this. After that dried I then sprayed on a coat of Future floor polish. This both gave me the gloss coat I was looking for as well as the smoother base for the decals.

Decals:

With the Future dry I then started work on applying the kit's decals. Looking over what was in the kit, I thought things would go pretty well here as the decal sheet looked in very good shape with no curling, cracking nor any yellowing. Well, I was wrong there!

I decided to start with the fuselage decals and then work my way out from there. That way I'd minimize the dangers of pulling anything out of place as I applied other decals. So, I precisely cut out the big "201" decals that take up so much of the aft fuselage sides. I plopped them in a dish of warm water and waited for the moisture to take effect. What resulted was a tightly curled out mess. These decals were intent on curling up as tightly as they could. They were also intent on not laying themselves down once applied either. It took a lot of futzing and patient uncurling to make much progress with these decals. During this phase I also relearned the basic decaling truth: "Micro Sol and Micro Set are our friends!"

It took a lot of both those products being brushed on the decals before I was even half way satisfied with the results. I definitely don't remember the decals being this difficult some thirty years ago when I first made this kit!

Once I'd gotten all the decals on - save but for a large red broken line circle decal which neither the instructions nor the pictures gave any indication of where it went - and they'd a day to dry, I then sprayed on another coat of Future to seal them in place. I'd hoped that this second coat would eliminate any of the silvering that came up from the application. No such luck. That second coat got most of it, but not all. As I said, I'm not entirely happy with the way the kit's decals worked out. Had I my druthers I would've simply scrapped the kit's decals and used some suitable aftermarket ones.

Accuracy:

I found a usable profile plan view of the Bearcat and used my computer graphics program to print it off in the correct scale length. Placing a fuselage half against it revealed that the Monogram designers did a pretty good job of making a correctly shaped and sized rendition of the Bearcat. It's not perfect, but it's really close looking to be just a few scale inches too long overall and with the cockpit's back half set too low while the tail assembly is a bit too far back. Just a few scant scale inches off. From the windscreen forward though, the kit's profile matches the plan's square on. More importantly though, the folks at Monogram well captured the shape and look of the Bearcat in this kit.

Addendum supplied by Tommy Thomason: The tail height is different between an F8F-1 and F8F-2 of around half a centimetre and Monogram's kit seems to be right in the middle between the two. The tail is also raised from the bottom as opposed to being extended from the top and has a slightly wider cord on the -2. The -1B 20mm cannon installation was standard on the F8F-2 but the kit markings are for an F8F-1.

Overall Recommendation:

Well, looking back on the review thus far it would seem I've done nothing but catalog the kit's faults and problems. That being the case, I'd still highly recommend this kit. It's a small kit, a simple one, is pretty accurate, is a pretty basic build, it well captures the "look" of the Bearcat, and also lends itself to accurizing. It's also an inexpensive kit of the Bearcat and that counts for a lot. Sword produces the only 1/72nd scale kit of the Bearcat that's still in production. That rendering is more accurate and detailed but that kit is also more expensive and complex. I went through this kit in about thirty hours or so and that mostly reflects my relative inexperience as a model maker. I tried out a number of new (for me) things in the building of this kit and that certainly slowed me down in its finishing. Despite all the faults I noted, this still works up into a fine little kit that captures the brutish look of the Bearcat. In its gloss sea blue finish it's also a rather handsome machine to park on my shelf.

References:

For references about this aircraft I used several sources. Via eBay I was able to snag one handy book on the Bearcat and all the rest came from various Bearcat sites on the Web. I would've liked to have access to the Squadron "Bearcat In Action" booklet but those are very hard (and pricey) to come by these days.

"Famous Airplanes of the World #78" F8F Bearcat
Ace Pilot website: http://www.acepilots.com/planes/f8f_bearcat.html
The Fighter Collection website: http://www.fighter-collection.com/bearcat/
Fly Vintage website: http://www.flyvintage.com/aircraft/2/2/Google Images

Images:

There she is! In all her Sea Blue glory! There's something very attractive about blue on an aircraft and the Navy benefited from this handsome finish handsomely. I also like the effect of the big white markings. Aside from being bold and eye catching they're also somewhat arrogant. Their high visibility seems to be a deliberate challenge to any opponent. Much like the bare metal finish on the Air Force birds of that era. Kind of like a "Yeah, you can see me - you wanna try an' do somethin' about it? Well, punk, do ya?" Of course, today's military is far too professional for such an attitude and the camouflage reflects that with its subdued tones and well neigh invisible markings. Still though, that Sea Blue looks sharp!

Here the cowl flaps show up nicely. As does the dropped wing flaps and elevators. You can, however, see some of the silvering of the wing's star and bars and the numbering on the right wing tip.

I decided to build my Bearcat clean, i.e. no stores on the wings. The kit had the option of building it with bombs and missiles but I thought that'd detract from the 'Cat's smooth and sleek lines so I left them off. You'll notice the landing gear is not all silver, as specified in the kit's instructions. From the images I found of Bearcats in service it seems that the Navy would paint the larger portion of their plane's landing gear the same as the fuselage color. They'd also do this with the insides of the landing gear doors. Thus, no zinc chromate yellow here either.

More silvering on the decals. You can also make out, barely, the "ducting" I worked up for the wing root air scoops. It ain't to scale or anything like that but it sure beats the see through nakedness that was there originally.

And here's the top view of the bird as well.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out. True, the decals kind of marred things and I sure would've like to have been able to do an accurate job boxing in the wheel wells. I also see that I've some work to do in smoothly applying a smooth airbrush finish. But those things'll come with time and practice. For now though, I've a nice shiny beautiful blue bird to park on my shelf. This was a good way to spend some quality detail oriented time and I'm glad for that. Making a model like this sure beats spending the same amount of hours just sitting in front of a screen - be that either a television one or a computer monitor one!

Footnote: A copy of this review with more images can also be found on Madoc's site:
- http://www.madoc.us/f8fbearcat.shtml

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