Hasegawa F9F-2 Panther
Another case of a photo etched set containing completely unneccesary pieces. I used the cockpit parts, nose gear doors and main wheel well insert from an Eduard etched set and that was it. The dive brakes and inner gear doors weren't used because neither of these were seen in the down position when the aircraft was on the ground and I didn't use the nose gear bay because I had serious doubts about attaching the gear to it. The cockpit parts are very nice though and include a complete ejection seat which is a vast improvement over the kit seat.
The Panther is one of Hasegawa's older kits but is still superb. Panel lines are a bit faint in places but the hard blue plastic put me off trying to rescribe them. I hate scribing at the best of times, but trying to scribe lines in brittle, hard plastic is about as much fun as ice skating on a sheet of glass.
Leading edges of wings and tail are finished with Testors Metalizer and as an experiment I used Metalizer Sealer as a final finish over the whole model. This turned out to be one of the best clear coats I've tried and produced a nice semi-gloss finish. Too bad Testors products are as scarce as fans of Maggie Thatcher here in the UK.....
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