- Member since
December 2005
- From: Germany
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Another F2A-2 Buffalo
Posted by jeff
on Saturday, September 27, 2008 5:12 AM
Seems like these pop up fairly regularly here. I have to admit, it is one of my favorite subjects, though I'm not really sure why given its mediocre combat record (exc for Finland!). This is Tamiya's F2A-2 Yellow Wings boxing from a while back, basically built straight out of the box with the exception of Eduard color photoetch additions to the cockpit. This is one of Tamiya's older 1/48th kits, but is still pretty decent, with a strange mix of recessed and raised panel lines. Overall detail is pretty good for the standards of the day when first molded, but has been way surpassed by the newer Classic Airframes kit, especially in the wheel well, an area that Tamiya totally ignored. I picked this one up on Ebay for $10, which is a fine value in my opinion, thought I don't think its worth the current retail being asked. Overall fit was pretty good, though the horizontal stabilizers and the wing/fuselage joint under the fuselage required some filler to smooth things out. Canopy fit was pretty poor, too, thought I don't remember this on the British B.339 version I built earlier so this may be my fault. The kit original decals shattered when I first tried to use them, so they were almost all replaced with Yellow Wings decals from their F2A sheets. These didn't go down as well as expected, even with setting solution, and silvered some even thought they were laid down over Future. I did use the original squadron badges and prop emblems after applying liquid decal film to strengthen them. Tamiya provided blue stripes for the fuselage band and wing chevrons, but they were way off in color. I ended up painting them on with Xtracolour True Blue which I think looks much better. Besides, I never have any luck laying down large decal stripes. Overall , I'm quite pleased with the end result even with my mistakes, and will probably score another off Ebay to build a Dutch version someday. Sorry for the extended post, just thought I'd pass on a few lessons-learned for those looking to build the same kit. Cheers! 
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