Grumman Duck J2F-2A

by John C. Valo

Grumman Duck

Classic Airframes' Early Duck is available online from Squadron.com

Classic Airframes fills yet another hole in the US Navy biplane lineup with two releases of the Grumman J2F Duck.

Here are some shots of the 'early' version, built as a J2F-2A as shown on the box art.

The kit was built for the most part out of the box. As usual, CA provide a well-cast resin interior with convincing detail.

A word of caution - be sure to dry-fit the cockpit parts in place in the fuselage, then check the fit of the canopy. The pilot's rear bulkhead (part R3) will need to be trimmed to fit under the injection-molded canopy. I wound up finding this out at the very end of assembly, and making the correction was a bit difficult. In the end, I elected to replace it with an opened vacuformed copy, but haven't quite got around to it yet! (This, of course, also explains the mystery of the missing aerial wires - they'll come after the new canopy.)

I have noticed a series of threads in the HyperScale forum providing an accurate, ongoing review of assembly, so I won't belabor any other issues here. Suffice to say, I had no major problems with the balance of assembly.

The cabane and interplane struts are simple and robust, which made the final assembly a much less fiddly proposition than most other biplanes.

Once again, PollyScale paints and kit decals finished the job, and the final effect is most appealing. I digressed once from the kit painting instructions - it is my understanding the aircraft '-3' would have had only the lower half of the cowling painted Red, not the whole thing as shown on the cover. At least that's how I did it, so I hope it's right!

If you don't mind dry fitting parts and doing a bit of sanding, this kit comes highly recommended.

On to the Hudson!

Model, Images and Article Copyright © 2001 by John C. Valo
Page Created 25 July 2001
Last updated 04 June 2007

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