To complete a Monogram 1/32 F3F-3, I need a set of wings. From any release of the F3F-3 or Gulfhawk kits would do nicely. I can trade, buy, whatever. I will of course pay postege and expenses.
Contact me at guitar-dot-guitar-at-earthlink-dot-net, a reply to this message will not get to me.
Thank you, Mike the modelhound in Bellingham, WA 98226 USofA
Aaahhh, another Gent who has figured out that he will have to piece two sets of wings together to get a correct span wing for an F3F. Are you going to get one of Lonestar Models resin cockpit sets to go with it?
Can anyone enlighten my on the wing deal here, I have two of these kits, and now it seems that I'll only be able to build one with correct wings. What seems to be the problem with them?
Basically, when the Monogram folks designed the kit, they used Al Williams' old Gulfhawk aircraft in the National Air and Space Museum as a reference. After all, it was a Grumman F3F, wasn't it? Short answer is no! The Gulfhawk was built as a flight demonstration aircraft for Williams, basically using an F3F-2 fuselage mated to a pair of wings from the earlier Grumman F2F fighter and a tightly cowled Wright R1820 engine. Williams wanted the shorter span wing for some reason. Going this route, Monogram was able to make two kits from essentially one set of molds, they did the F3F-3 kit and a separate kit for the Gulfhawk flight demonstration aircraft by changing the cowling and decals. They missed the fact (or ignored it) that the F3F had a span of
32 feet and the Gulfhawk/F2F a span of 28 feet 6 inches.
Bill is correct on this but forgot to add that the F3F kit is relatively easy to correct, given two sets of wings, because wing ribs were spaced the same on F2Fs and F3Fs, and each F2F (i.e., F3F kit) wing needs to be extended by exactly the distance between one pair of ribs. Hence, the modeler needs merely to cut the two parts for each wing at positions that differ by an inter-rib distance, mate the longer examples of each resulting part, and -- voila: accurate F3F wings. I don't recall off the top of my head whether the extension needs to be inboard or outboard of the interplane struts, but that's easy to determine from photographs or drawings.
If it is outboard of the interplane struts there arises the possibility that the ailerons also might need to be longer. Many years ago I built an F3F and made a complete new set of wings from 1/4" balsa sheet. Looked great. Then I went off to the army and Mother was dusting my room one afternoon and .... Oh well, you guys know how that ends.
Whooh, I have the it and haven't started it yet. Glad I found out now. Can one use basswood or styrene to make two panels and insert them, then sand to airfoil and spanwise "covering sag"?
I was avare that a "Gulfhawk" had been issued, but was not avare of the differences. That means one less kit to build, and one more to provide spares.....
"Thanks for spilling the beans on my quest for some wings", Mike says, tongue firmly planted in cheek. ;^p Now everybody knows they need two sets of wings so finding a spare set is going to be that much more difficult, perhaps even impossible.
The wing extension is exactly three rib spaces longer on each side. This is for both the top and bottom wings. Each bottom wing is three spaces longer in span, and the top wing is six spaces longer in span, three spaces on each side of the center line of the fuselage. The extension is inboard of both the struts and the ailerons. Because the spaces are slightly different for the top and bottom wings, a new fastening point for the wing struts on the bottom wing will have to be fashioned, slightly more outboard than where the dimples fall on the stock pieces. This is to keep the same wing gap.
There are some other accuracy issues with this kit, but none quite so pronounced as the wing span problem. A careful comparisson with the Accurate Miniatures kit will show all.
Thanks for correcting my advice. Apparently I was remembering "one inter-rib distance" when I should have been remembering "an integral number of inter-rib distances."
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.