Scale aviation modeller international

starboard fuselage side and the halves

were joined with a combination of super

glue and liquid plastic cement. Make sure

you add lots of weight to avoid a tail sitter.

I filled the area in front of the cockpit with

copper shot and glued a large lead fishing

weight to the back of the seat bulkhead.

Turning to the wings, the trailing edges

are about a scale foot thick, and require

extensive thinning, a task with which I was,

admittedly, not entirely successful. All the

wheel wells and the tail bumper well were

painted interior green. I also went with interior

green inside the landing gear doors, although

red could be an option: my references state

that the only doors painted red at this time

were those that could be closed on the ground

(clearly not landing gear doors), so only the tail

bumper door was painted red on the inside.

The wings fit reasonably well to the fuselage,

but there was a slight gap on the port side that

I filled with plasticard. The horizontal tails

have very small pips that fit into a recess on

the fuselage. I sanded them off, then drilled

and glued metal pins to make a stronger joint.

The fit was good and needed no filler, but the

rudder is a separate part and fits poorly.

PAINTING

In the early 1950s, the USN was experimenting

with leaving aircraft in natural metal (NM)

finish, and the FJ-2 was one of the types

not painted. As most will know, the key to

NM finishes is a flawless surface, so after

sanding and priming the glued joints, I

broke out my stash of polishing pads and

spent several hours polishing, re-priming,

and re-polishing. I decanted Tamiya gloss

aluminium from a spray can, and then

airbrushed it as an overall base coat.

Various panels were then masked off and

painted with several shades of Alclad aluminium.

After painting, I applied a coat of Alclad clear

gloss, then masked off and painted the black

nose and the red panel around the fuel dump.

FINISHING

The decals, by Techmod, were undoubtedly

the highlight of the build. They were thin,

opaque, went down easily, and snuggled into

the recesses with no softener. There are two

colourful schemes, one with white stars, to be

applied over red or blue painted areas, and one

with black and white checkers. I opted for the

checkers, as the masking required for the other

schemes looked too tricky around the nose.

The NM FJ-2s were clean but not shiny, so

I sprayed a coat of Alclad Semi-Gloss to seal

in the decals. The finely inscribed panel lines

held up well to all the coats of paint and were

fairly visible, so I just used a light panel line

wash overall, with darker gray around a few of

the access panels and control surface gaps.

When I first opened the kit I thought

the landing gear would be the most

difficult part of the build, and it was.

Careful planning ahead made it doable,

but detailed references are a must!

The FJ-2 landing gear has several very

small overlapping doors, and the instructions

aren’t that clear. Note that the brake callipers

go on the bottom of the strut next to the wheel.

Also, be aware that on Parts 37 and 38, the flat

areas where the sprue attaches are also doors.

I drilled and pinned the landing gear struts for

added strength. I also replaced Part 47, the fuel

vent, with a tube flattened to an oval shape.

The canopy won’t slide into the closed

position with the shelf (Part 23) in place, so

I left it open. In hindsight, I think Parts 23

and 48 should be flat black, not gray, as the

prevailing USN instructions state that areas

above the bottom of the canopy should be black.

CONCLUSION

The kit is not quite up to the standards of some

other Sword kits, but with its unusual natural

metal finish, it builds into an attractive model.

Would I build another? Maybe, if someone

comes out with masks for the other marking

options, and one-piece inlet and exhaust ducts.

One’s energy would probably be better focused on

the Sword FJ-3, which was much more successful

in service and has an easier paint scheme.

My thanks to Sword for

supplying the review sample.

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KIT REVIEWS

070-75-Reviews-0318.indd 73 09/02/2018 14:31