E-2C Hawkeye by Andrew George | |
Brand: | Lee |
Scale: | 1/72 |
Modeler: | Andrew George |
AddOns: | - |
This is Lee's offering of the E-2C Hawkeye. The detail of the kit was quite good, with both raised and recessed panel lines. The landing gear also looked pretty good. Unfortunately the fit was a bit of a shocker in some places, particularly the nose. The decals weren't the best, all the red warning arrows were printed out of register and the prop tip markings were way too big, which caused a bit of a headache when applied to the prop tips. I didn't use the star and bars supplied, instead I used some supplied in Hasegawa's EKA-3B kit. Assembly was pretty straight forward, but as I found out later, model putty became a good friend of mine. I used a fair bit around the nose to build it up and blend it to the fuselage, as the nose cone was too small. Also, there were some fit issues around the wing leading edge and around where the engines attached to the wing. The fit of the canopy was also a little debateable, as well as around the tail hook, so more bog there too. The canopy was supplied in two halves, so I joined it with normal hobby glue applied with a toothpick.
Finally the kit was painted
in Humbrol 64 and coated in Longlife polish (the local version of
Future), then the decals were applied, then another coat of Longlife. HF
antennae were made from stretched sprue and little mounts were added
underneath the horizontal stabs. The panel lines and weathering was done
with pastel chalks, as described by Steve Bamford in the how-to section.
Photos and text © 2006 by Andrew George January 10, 2006 |