Trumpeter 1/32 ABM Avenger Build Thread

Builder, I found a cutaway showing the linkage, and also a NACA report discussing wing failures on TBM's that mentioned the stiffness of the control linkage.  I also talked to an old friend who flew TBM's as fire tankers. Until the age of fly by wire a mechanical connection was always the case for primary flight controls.  Even with hydraulically boosted controls there is a physical linkage, though it will have what is called a sloppy link in it that is the pilot valve for the hydraulic boost.  That is most often found in helicopters, and training includes flying with the boost turned off.  It is also found in jet fighters, of course, many of which have irreversible controls to reduce flutter.  It would be fun to find a TBM rigging maual to see how the wing fold is accommodated in the aileron linkage.  It is logically going to be similar to an F4F or F6F.

Are you sure? One my readers in WorldAffairsBoard.com forum where I post simultaneously, owns an actual TBM and noted that the ailerons are hydraulic which is why there's no linkage in the joint area. The links you see in the photos are the ends of the matching hydraulic rams that extend to open the fold.

Speaking of the fold, I finished (as much as I'm going to) putting piping on the left wing joint. 

I decided to go with stripped wire insulation from the 24 AWG wiring since the tubes needed to look flexible like hoses and not pipes. I'm going to paint it all dark blue so, even though the color matches the museum version with the red piping.

It took two work sessions to do one joint. The right side should go faster now that I actually know what I'm doing.

Builder, the flaps are hydraulic on the TBM, but the ailerons are operated by a pushrod arrangement.  I'm enjoying your journey.

Thought about machining more bushings and decided to try again with tubing to modify the right wing's hinge. This time, instead of attempting to cut a tiny piece of tubing 0.047" long, I used the nylon hinge itself as a guide for the razor saw. I pushed the tube into opened up hole until it reached the other side and sliced it flush with the hinge. A light touch with a fine file squared it up.

That was for the outer hinge lugs. For the narrower space for the inner hinges, I just put the tube in to fill the entire space and again sawed it off at the hinge. The end result is a very clean installation and it was much, much quicker. The K-S tubing i.d. is sized for the 0.032" brass wire.

Next up was to build the wing machine guns. There's a little Eduard etched plate that replaces the dubious details on the receiver top. One of the easiest PE jobs on the plane.

I then assembled all the parts making up the two guns. Only challenging part is the three-piece barrel. There's a long extension, a transition piece and the gun that get glued together. Gun must have been pretty accurate with a barrel that long.

Now onto some more challenging PE. Eduard provides a whole suite of PE to simulate the real look of inner wing sheet metal. All of the exposed surfaces are covered with etched sheets and then all of the ribs and angles are replaced/added to really jazz this part up that will be seen when the wings are folded.

This is what it looks like with the wing skin in place (no yet glued). To me, doing this kind of detail work is what PE is all about. You simply can't replicate the delicacy of an aircraft structure with the thick plastic wedges in the kit. I really was surpised how well all of this metal fit and I made good use of my folding apparatus to make clean folds on all those pieces. There was another piece of folded PE on an inside wall of the wheel well in this same piece, but on the other (not shown) side.

Monday, I'll do the same magic on the right wing. It's nice to get one under my belt since I now know how it all goes together. You must make sure you align the tiny engraved grooves on the bottom and back plates. The angle PE sits in these grooves with helps align them and provides more surface for the CA to hold. When I first installed the back piece, it was off slightly and the grooves didn't align. I popped it off without wrecking it and got it aligned correctly.

After taking a bottle of Formula 560 back to the store where I bought it and getting another (it was solid as a rock), I got to work on the wing-fold mechanism. I had read in another build that the nylon hinges and the steel hinge pins did not fit well. Nope! They sure didn't. The pins are 1 mm. and the holes have to be at least 30% bigger than that. It makes the wing folding very sloppy. So I decided to make brass bushings and use brass pins. At first I tried using K-S tubing with a .062" i.d., but was have trouble cutting off a piece that was only .047" long (the thickness of the hinge plate). It meant having to machine them.

I first had to adjust the centering of the tailstock. In the little TAIG lathe, the tailstock is on lateral ways clamped by a set screw. It was a bit off center, just enough to cause my center drill and subsequent drills to wander off-center. I drilled the i.d. first with the .032" drill for the brass wire I was using for the hinge. Then I machined the i.d. back just far enough to part off the first one. I found that if I machined too much, it got a little fragile and didn't cut off so well. But using my parting tool wasn't working so I used the digital caliper to space of the .047" and used my newly acquired ultra-fine razor saw to part of the piece. To keep the little tiny bushing from going into the Rift, I placed a piece of brass rod into the hole so the part off bushing would stay put. This worked great! And I lost no parts for the first of the two assemblies.

Here was the first bushing pressed into the hinge.

Here was a bushing after separating it from the rest of the brass.

Here was one half of the hinge with both bushings in place.

And the assembled hinge with a temporary pin. The pin will need to be cut to length. The hinge moved smoothly with no play at all. It will make it so I can actually operate the wing folding without worry.

Tomorrow, I'll machine another four bushings and assemble the second hinge assembly.

Good day/bad day...

Started with finishing up that repair in the lower fuze front. I rebuilt that missing section using a piece of solid styrene shaped to the curve. This was a much better solution than the thin piece. It had much more surface area for gluing and after sanding, fits really nice and restores that lower curve. It does not interfere with the cowl attachment.

I then put some filler on the other bottom panel. It took two appications to get the contours right. I redrilled the rivets after I finished filing and sanding.

It doesn't look like much, but should be okay with paint.

I started completing the fuze details with the application of the glazing using Forumla 560. This PVA cement doesn't craze or fog clear parts. It's not as strong as solvent cement, but much more well behaved. 

I have Eduard's masks which will be applied shortly to protect the glazing during the rest of the assembly and painting.

Next up anti-glare top of the instrument panel with some clear gun sight parts. The little tiny round lens dropped into the hole without problem, but the slanted beam splitter didn't like my tweezers. It launched once, but didn't make it to the quantum rift and I found it. 2 seconds later it launched again, and this time it was vaporized and gone from this universe. I made another one out of some clear sytrene. These were both attached with 560.

Onward to the wings. The kit includes some PE strips that provide an edge extensions on where the folding wings will overlap for aerodynamics. The usual PE problems were there but I prevailed. Clamping and pre-bending helped along with accelerator.

Lastly, I started working on the control surfaces with the ailerons. Again, the darned rift got a part. There are little nylon pieces that provide the axle for the PE hinge parts so these surfaces can move. The first aileron went together well and made me a little over-confident, the next one had a nylon piece that hated the tweezers. Again, it flipped out and I found it. It must have been unhappy and again, in a very short time it flew out again and man... it was really gone. I searched for 15 minutes and got nowhere. It's a part I can't scratchbuild so I just left that hinge (middle) off, and that will be that. Bummer! Since the parts go in from the inside, even if I ever find it, I no longer can get it in place. Again, sometimes the engineering on this kit is just a bit too tricky. Tamiya doesn't do it this way.

I'll keep going on the wings tomorrow.

Haircut day and other errands so not much time in shop. I did paint the new exhaust extension and touched up the remaining pipes. I added some mounting flanges for the cowl.

The fellow who's interacting with this theme on another Forum (Worldaffairsboard.com - Modeler's Forum) is the owner of a real Avenger which he is restoring. He says all the cowl parts are held on with Dzus fasteners and they are not hinged but come off entirely for service.

Lastly, I wrestled a small piece in place that joins the fuze halves at the front edge of the bomb bay. This is a good example of adding to parts count where it adds no value. Instead in made joining the fuze much more problematic. I had to squeeze the fuze together with lots of rubber band tension and then use lots of CA to get the joint to hold the fuze together. It should have been cast as part of the fuze. Furthermore it would have strengthened that very narrow part at the cowl which, as you can see broke again. I repair it again after I do some filling on the new part. In front of this part goes a bottom cooling flap that I'm gluing in the closed position. That too could have been made part of the fuze casting. Extra parts count is only a benefit when it adds detail WHILE NOT DETRACTING FROM BUILD CAPABILITY.

The brass exhaust pipe looks as good (if not better) than the plastic one (on the right).

I may have made the mounting flanges just a bit wide, but if they're too close to scale size, they almost disappear. Sometimes details need to be exaggerated a bit to be seen. The TBM owner said that he was surprised that Trumpeter added raised rivets on the cowl flaps. On the 1:1 TBM they're flush rivets. Speaking of exaggeration. Those rivets would be close to a half in high. Fastener holes are 0.021" = .67" in full size, which isn't too big.

And here's that pain-in-the-butt part that should have been molded in. I had to pull at least a 1/16" to close it up enough to get it stay in the opening.

Photobucket is running awfully tonight, so I'm going to post this and see if I can correct the problem. I edit when I get the rest of the pics.

Thanks Toshi! It was a lot of work and a bit scary too. I did check some good drawings and the thrust line is, indeed, directly down the center line of the fuze AND the prop shaft is centered in the cowl opening. Making the fix was definitely warranted and worth the effort.

Wow, that's a lot of extra work.  Well worth the effort, it looks fantastic!

Toshi

Thanks!

Today is a two post day since I posted earlier about Sunday's work. So... I tried (successfully) to sever the engine from the shield using a fine toothed Xacto razor saw. I had enough room between the exhaust ring and the shield. It came off without screwing anything up too badly. Once off, I had the chance to really see what was going on with the fit.

Using the Dremel with a sanding disc at low speed I ground off the old glue surface and then removed some stock from the upper side so the engine would tip upward starting the thrust line adjustment.

During all this handling, I dropped the engine and broke off the exhaust pipe extension and OF COURSE I couldn't find it. Another part into the rift... So I measured the other one and machined one out of brass. Again, having a small lathe is a real savior. I've lost count of the small model parts that I've created with this machine.

I drilled a -.032" hole in the back end and soldered a rod of the same side into it as a mounting stud. I then dipped the brass into a blackening solution to help it hold paint better.

After drilling a simiar hole in the plastic exhaust ring, I CA'd the new pipe extenison in. This enabled me to fit the engine back onto the shield. I had to relieve the cutouts for the exhaust outlet so it would snuggle down a little better.

That intake trunk was still interfering with the top cylinders so I ripped it all out. The trial fit showed a nicely centered engine.

And here's the cowl in place showing the cowl actually fitting squared up as it should.

To get the angles right I added 0.040" of styrene shim which I've cemented in place. I'm not going to mount the engine now. I'm going to finish the rest of the model and mount the engine as one of the last steps. If you're planning on tackling this model, I would leave the engine off until near the end. There's nothing in the way forcing you to mount it when the instructions say, and if you're super-detailing the engine, most of those parts are very fragile and having that engine hanging out there during all the subsequent assembly just invites damage.

The shim really puts the thrust line down the middle. I have to check some construction drawings to see what that thrust line actually is. I'm sure it wasn't pointing upwards. You may also be able to adjust the thrust line early in construction by breaking an refitting the plate that the engine mounts glue to. It was right there that all this misalignment occurs.

Once again, waking up thinking about the problem found a workable solution. I have to admit, this one really had me stumped and annoyed since the cowl and the engine inside is a main focal point for a radial-powered aircraft. Having it all askew wouldn't work for me. It's not uncommon for early Trumpeter kits to have geometry problems. My grandson built their 1:32 F-18 Super Hornet and there was big fit problems in putting the fuze together.

And once again, you see how stress-free my retirement is when the worse thing I think about is the engine not fitting well on my ABM-3 model. Have to put things in perspective. 

You are doing some fantastic work there.

Mike

Yup! I'm on three scale model forums too as well as the two forums posting the railroad build. I don't write the post three times. I do it once and cut and paste. The only differences are the individual banter that I engage in with responders and how they handle pictures. I'm also on the WW2aircraft forum. I find them when I'm doing research on Google. They have different audiences and the WW2 forum has a lot of international folks. It's a load of fun.

I should try that other filler. The Tamiya filler is quite hard and you have to file your butt off to get it level, but it sticks and fills great.

Had a rare working Sunday. Wife and daughter went to see La La Land (chick flick) and I got another work session in the shop. 

I folded the PE liners, CA'd them to the outer bomb bay doors and painted the liners Chromate yellow. They fit nicely, but they're not going on until the plane is painted. 

Terror struck!. The turret came out again and when I peered into the fuze's innards I see that the radioman's seat didn't lodge into the correct spot, but was upwards at a weird angle on top of the ammo box on the fuze side. And then I saw something much worse. The turret mounting ring was fractured AND it was not sitting against the fuze sides. Why? I checked the instructions to see if there was a clue as to its orientation. There was, and I missed it. There's three lugs on the ring that captivate the turret; one on one side and two on the other. The side with the one lug faces foward. I had it facing backwards. I realized that the ring had one end wider than the other. I mistakenly thought that the wide part was foward. Nope. The fuze is actually a bit wider behind the ring. 

To get this out while the fuze was glued together seemed impossible, but I persisted. I split the fuze a bit in front of the ring, used the fractered part as a way to manhandle the ring out after breaking the glue bonds holding it to the left fuze side, and then got it out, reversed it and reglued it and the fuze. It positioned the ring more centered under the opening AND it enabled the fuze to close more completely in front of the opening. I wondered why that joint kept popping open. Now I knew.

I'm leaving the turret off until the end of the build since that gun's going to get broken. I know I can snap it back in whenever I want to. Speaking of breaking guns, all this handliing ended up breaking the barrel off of the belly gun. I drilled and inserted brass 0.021" rod and re-glued it. It may break again, but not in that spot. I'll touch it up at the end.

I sanded and filed all the filled areas and then went back and re-scribed all the panel lines and rivet dots. After the primer goes on I'll see more areas needing work.

Next I attempted to create an intake trunk in the top of the cowl. Another builder did this so I should be able to also. I used my rarely-used pin profile copier to get the curve shape and made a cardboard template. I cut the pieces out of some styrene sheet and glued them in. The cowl didn't close at all.

I trimmed the trunk way back and added a floor to it. But the cowl still fits terribly.

I'm really bummed out about the cowl fit. The engine's orientation is making it impossible to get it right. In retrospect, there's no reason why the engine had to be glued to the shield when it was. It exposed the engine to lots of handling, and made it impossible to realign it for this specific reason.

So...I woke up this morning thinking about how to fix this. If I can cut the engine off of the shield, reshape its back to bring the thrust line downward and then reglue the engine is a slightly lowered position, I could restore the geometry and get the front correctly fitted. I would use epoxy to reattach the engine and would have the cowl fitted over it while it set so it would be in the right place. I just went downstairs and checked to see if I could get a razor saw behind the engine without breaking anything and I beleive I can. So stay tuned and we'll see how this works out.

Yes, those pins and PE pieces for the rudder and such are designed just like Tamiya's 1/32 offerings of the Mustang, Corsair, Zero, and Spitfire.  I don't know about the Mosquito as I have yet to build that.  I put CA on everything and it held fast while still being able to function.  You got a lot done, that's a very productive time slot!  Great Job!

Toshi

I'm really enjoying this your very interesting build and learning much.

A tip from yor Uncle jay; You can save yourself much time and effort in sanding etc. by using Perfect Platic Putty my friend. I'm really a cheapskate but this stuff is worth it's weight in gold. After applying it it can be smothed out by a Q-tip and water ,saving most of the sanding and consequently the detail underneath the putty.

Very nice Avenger Myles! =] It's been a while since I built my first Avenger and at 1:48 it was huge. So I can just about imagine how big this must be when complete. I am very much a fan of leaving something better than you found it and I apply this to scale modeling as well. Really cool stuff you have going on. Albion slide tubes ARE the best, and matched with a little lead foil and Tamiya tape...you can scratch out just about anything. =]

Looking forward to seeing the rest.

Builder! I had no idea you were over here on Fine Scale Forums, too! I've (obviously) been following you on WAB. Glad to see my (one) picture was usefull! Unfortunately, like I said, there aren't that many. I'll post those torpedo pictures in this thread, too, if you want me to.

Keep up the good work! Looks like I'll have to follow you on TWO forums now!

Thanks Toshi! Today was a new day, and I got a chance to work in the shop on a weekend. And it was a very productive, albeit challenging, day.

Started with completing the tailwheel assembly with interior painting interior green and painting the 30 Cal MG with semi gloss black. I then scraped paint of all the gluing surfaces.

I masked and painted the tailhook's zebra stripes. I tacked the ends of the tape (which I cut to narrow strips) to itself, but it proved prone to leakage and made for some delicate touch up painting.

Next was the rudder. Eduard calls out some microscopic PE to replace the plastic simulated linkage to the trim tabs. I knew looking at these parts that this wasn't going to end well. I hate when I'm right.

Look at them compared to the #11 Xacto blade. You were supposed to fold the ends over themselves and then fold them towards the middle. Not only couldn't I fold them, I couldn't even pick the part up to handle it and I have a pair of very nice expensive tweezers. I tried one and then gave up, realizing that it was such a small detail, it was effectively invisible unless someone picks up the model and stares at that spot... and they won't.

Trumpeter uses a strange PE bar that has a steel rod thread through it as an actual hinge. The lower part of the rudder is hinged by a pin into the tail. This PE part drops into a slot on the fin which sort of captivates it when the fuze halves are put together. It works, but seems to come out of the slot very easily. I thought about burying it in medium CA. I think I'll do that for the others going forward.

There's another piece of Eduard PE glued to that apparatus in the fin. I don't know what the purpose of this feature is, but there's now PE details on both sides of it.

I always rough up the brass on the back side of PE, otherwise, CA may just pop off whenever it feels like it.

It was time to glue all of the interior pieces into the left fuze half. Prior to placing them, I also scraped all the paint off mating surfaces on all parts. I used the Touch-n-flow glue applicator to apply solvent cement to all the interfaces. I glued the radioman's seat with medium CA so it stayed put. So here's everything in an waiting for the other half.

I used Testor's tube cement applied with a toothpick to apply glue to the mating edges. I used various rubber bands to hold it all together, and then went back and used the Touch-n-Flow to add cement to the joints from the outside. There were a couple of trouble areas that needed addressing. The first was the cowl fairing gap that appeared on both sides. This is an engineering error since I read another build thread of this plane and the fellow had the same problem. 

The second was a narrow part of the fuze that had broken off some time ago and was in the quantum rift with the other parts lost off this project.

I fabricated a styrene piece to replace the lost fuze part. The part has a little less curvature, but it will work since it's hidden behind the cowl flaps.

For the cowl gaps I started by making styrene filler pieces and solvent cementing them into place. After they dried I sanded and filed them to good fits, and ended with fllling them with Tamiya Filler. Here's the filler piece.

After filing and sanding. I removed a lot of blue paint, but that should be okay to repaint when I do the whole deal.

And lastly, application of the filler. This will dry overnight before finishing. I filled all the other seams at the same time, but they were pretty good not needing very much.

I wanted to see how the cowl fit and was a bit discouraged to see that it looks out of alignment, and there's nothing I can think of to fix it. It seems to stem from the same engineering error that had the cowl gap.

I may fabricate intake and oil cooler air trunks for the inside of the cowl to separate those areas from the cylinders. This was also done in that other build I reviewed. I'm also going to look at prototype pics to see if maybe the cowl wasn't centered, but I think it probably was.

Well, here's a frontal view of a TBM 3 and it does seem that more of the lower cylinders are exposed than the upper so I'm not going to worry about it. Notice how glossy that gloss sea blue really is...

I used my new razor saw to open up another access panel to show off the cylinders of that very cool engine. I also stuck the propeller on to see if the angle was too bad. Notice, I didn't even trim of the attachment pips.

A couple of other things happend that gave me pause. A rubber band broke off the front bomb bay actuator arm bracket. No big deal, got it back it reinforced with CA. The second was a little more scary. The turret plate was not seated correctly in the right fuze side and was keeping it pushed outward. I was able to spread the sides and pop it into position, but then the rotating part of the turret came out of its track. Luckily, I was able to take the elevating portion out of its trunnions, and work it all back into position. That was a close one, but it ended okay. Pretty soon I'll be starting on the wings.

Yah, you either get a good Friday the 13th or a pretty much messed up one. Sorry to hear of your troubles but the 14th is another day.  Everything looks great as always!

Toshi

Glad to inspire! I was lucky in that this kit was given to me along with others by one of the mothers of a young man I had in my "Grandpop's Scale Model Building Workshop". I ran two semesters of this class in Louisville five years ago.

Today, being Friday the 13th, was one of those days where I probably should have read a good book, since the quantum parts-sucking rift must have been hungry. I lost more parts to the rift in one day than I've lost in the last few months. Normally, 13s are my wife's and my lucky number. Both kids were born on 13s, I've had two jobs on the 13th, bought new cars, etc. But today, it wasn't so good.

It started with trying to add a stupid piece of PE on the back of the tailwheel strut. I removed the plastic nub as instructred by Eduard, bent the tiny piece and then attempted to CA it to the strut. Tried 3X until it went "Pwang", for the third time. I found it the first two times it took off. Last one, it was in the rift. I then attempted to make my own out of some brass off the PE frets. Again three attempts. I broke the two remaining #88 drills I had while attempting to insert a pin in the hinge point to provide something for the PE to hold onto. Then they too eventually took off into the rift. I gave up. No one, and I mean no one will ever know that this microscopic piece is not there.

Onto the tailwheel itself. The tire is some kind of semi-hard plastic, with an injected molded hub. The hub has a raised ring in the middle of its circumference which is supposed to engage in a similar groove in the center of the tire. Only thing is the tire doesn't give. I tried to press the hub into the tire in a vise and it wasn't working so well so I thought I would do what I did years ago to get vinyl tires onto very fragile wire wheels that were a hallmark of the 1/8 scale Pocher model car kits. I would heat the tires in hot water and they would go like butter without destroying hours of work creating the wheels with their individual spokes. So I decided to heat the tire slightly with the hot air gun. I was careful to blow downward on the tire to keep it from blowing away, but I forgot that the hub was sitting nearby. GONE! It was blown directly into the rift. It did not pass GO and did not collect its $200. I went over everything within an 8 ft radius. GONE.

This was a critical part so I resorted to turning another wheel out of brass on my miniature TAIG lathe. It lacks the spoke detail of the plastic one, but it's the right size and is again an obscure part that doesn't get much scrutiny.

I painted the insides of the tailwheel fork Vallejo Dark Sea Blue before gluing the other half on so it would be properly colored. I then assembled the rest of this complex assembly. To the front of the tailwheel bulkhead goes another frame that supports the belly machine gun. I put the gun together and then went to install it, but something was missing. The drawing shows a tab on the bottom that engages a spot of this frame, but that tab wasn't there. I don't remember chopping off when cutting the part from sprue. I'm usually very careful doing this and I use a good pair of flush cutters to do it. I thought maybe the instructions left out a step to attach the tab, but there were no parts left on any sprue that fit the description. So again, I was forced to jerry rig something or else the gun would not be on the model. I took a part of the sprue with a number tab on it and shaped it so it would do the job. The number is still visible, but will be hidden when the fuse is closed. The arrow shows this part.

All landing gear and gear wells on this model TBM is gloss sea blue like the rest of the aircraft so I painted the tail wheel side that color and next session will mask it and paint the inside parts interior green. I gave it a quick shot of Tamiya Primer since it really helps the Model Master acrylic hold onto the styrene. Then I fgave a quick two coats. I was going to use Microsol Liquid Mask, which I just purchased, but it said DON'T USE IT FOR WATER-BASED PAINTS. So I used Aleen's Tacky glue instead to mask the tire while I spraye the blue.

I put the tailhook together. The only part needing paint will be the hook itself (white and black stripes). The rest is buried in the tail and unseen. The hook is operable.

Lastly, I finish painted the cockpit right-side panel and glued it in place, glued in the left side panel that was made a couple of weeks ago, and put together and painted the radio operator's seat. Before closing up the fuse I have to build the rudder. This kit has workable hinges and the rudder must be installed when you're closing the fuse.

So, there you have it. Not much production for over threee hours of work.

Have a great weekend! And stay warm and dry!

Man I am really interested in this your 1/32 Avenger build and so do appreciate your willingness to post all this.

You've inspired me to re-start my 1/48 Mini Craft Avenger that I got half done and shelved. I am going to try to incorporate at least some of the scratch built stuff you so adroitly added to yours.  I only wish I could afford a 1/32 kit  but I'll do my best with what I 've got, just like a true Marine.

My hands aren't steady either... especially when I'm hungry. I find I'm steadiest after a big meal and a couple of glasses of wine. That being said, I first use a pin *** from a divider or some other very pointy instrument to eyeball the center of the tiny circle and help get the drill started. I hold the work piece in my left hand and the pin vise in my right. I don't use power tools for this... way too uncontrolable. I think my shakiness works in sync with each hand so they're both shaking the same direction at the same time and I don't usually break the drill. I take my time, clearing the drill and chips out of the hole often. i've been using the #88 drill for drilling to accept the high E guitar string. It's flexible when you have a reasonable length of it, but when you have a piece 1/8" long, it's as hard and stiff as a piece of tool steel. Music wire is just about the hardest steel there is.

Speaking of the #88 drill (0.0095"). I found that I installed the gun trigger box upside down. I couldn't quite figure out which way was up from the instructions and found the error when I attempted to install the bullet proof glass shield and there was no where to attach it. Another check of the instructions showed that it attached to the gun trigger box which was upside down. I removed it fairly easily, but broke the trigger handle off when trying to remove it. This required a drill job and some guitar string to reinforce it. It was a tricky job all the way around, but it finally was fixed.

All the rest of the parts of the turret were installed and the turret mounted to its ring. I removed paint in the roller path so the turret rotated freely. It does. I went over all the interior green areas with an alcohol/India ink wash to tone it down a bit. I lightened the paint on the armor shield top behind the pilot since it's in the sun all the time. I took a couple of status pics. All that's left to for the interior is the radio operator's seat, some doodads on the walls, the belly gun and then the tail wheel and its attendant apparatus. When I get into the tail wheel I will again be adding Eduard PE since I bought the exterior detail set. Nothing in these pics is glued into the fuse half.

I also glued in the instrument panel since it was time to do that.

Tomorrow could see the remaining interior stuff finished and we'll be ready to join the fuse halves. I do see a problem with a gap between the front fairing and the fuselage. I may fill thise with some styrene strip followed by Tamiya filler.

Fascinating WIP. I'm really curious as to how you drilled out the kit gun barrel. That's some precision drilling! What's your method for doing that? I couldn't - with my shakey hands - do it just by holding the part and a dremel.

Thanks guys!

I'm going to do mild weathering. One of my sources is the fellow who's restoring a real TBF that he owns and I'm sure that it will not be weathered at all, it will be pristine. Almost all restored aircraft, whether static or flying are prisitine, except for hot areas such as exhaust headers. Also, even equipment in action was (and is) kept pretty clean by dedicated maintenance teams since it makes it much easier to inspect for leaks, cracks and damage. I get a kick out of the weathering excesses some guys like to do, and believe me, it's an art form, but not always prototypical. There was a recent discussion in this very magazine about this topic.

First thing I did was mask and paint the torpedo's nose Vallejo red. I forced dried the first coat and let the second coat air dry. I find Vallejo, unlike other acrylics, flashes off, but is still tacky (and easy to get fingerprints) for many hours (24). Tamiya dries without tackiness very quickly as does Model Master acrylics. Model Tech is somewhere in between. Life Color also dries quickly. So I set it aside and didn't mess around with it. I did place it in the bomb bay for this pic. This should get some weathering to make it a little more worldly.

Next up was the single Browning 50cal electric gun turret. It surprises me that the Avengers designers spent so much effort on making a fully capable electrically driven gun turret, but kept it at a single barrel.

This is a very nice feature of this model and how Trumpeter likes to engineer them. They don't leave anything out. Since some many layers needed to be laid up, and some of the parts buried in said layers were not interior green, I was forced to hand paint it as I went along so I could actually paint the insides and the differing colors.

First: lets look at the real turret. The motors are black and the cabling and control lines are wrapped with aluminum. The rest is mostly interior green. It's interesting to see the roller path that suspends the turret in the ring. It probably rotated very smoothly.

Here's what I got done today. Clearly, I didn't get it all painted yet.

I tried something new, more or less successfully. I had reported that I bought those micro-tubes from Sprue Brothers and I always like to drill out gun barrels, especially in 1:32. I measured the barrel that was protruding from the heat shield and it was 0.038". One of the tubes was exactly the same diameter, but its i.d. was too big, but the next telescoping tube in the series looked good for the i.d. So I clipped the existing barrel stub and drilled it out in two steps to accept the larger tube, into which I inserted the smaller one. Came out pretty good.

Should have the turret finished up tomorrow.

You're doing an incredable job on this Avenger and I'm watching in ernest and taking notes as well.

That is spectacular. I am only left to wonder if you'll be doing any kind of weathering or not. lol

The view inside the panel is simply wonderful. As a fellow scratch builder I really can appreciate the work you're putting into this. :D

Late start but still productive. Built the torpedo and sprayed it with rattle-can Tamiya Natural Metal spray. Tomorrow I'll mask the nose and paint it insignia red. I also mounted the little support bracket for this load out option into the bomb bay ceiling. Then I remembered that I wanted to open an access panel in front of the firewall to show off the rear of the enging. I used the new fine razor saw I bought at MicroMark which worked very well to make very fine straight cuts with very little effort. After cleaning up the edges I glued some 0.080" X 0.010" Evergreen styrene strip as the backing edge that you see when these panels are removed. Often they're held with Dzus fasteners. I spaced out and drilled some faux mounting holes with a #75 drill. The holes are not in scale, but they'd be almost invisible in scale.

I test fit the engine in position and quickly found that the .010" thick new plastic held the firewall out of position and would have created a problem when joining the fuse halves. So I removed the same amount of material off the firewal so it restored the proper orientation. I did this by first scribing the offset line with a divider and then removed most of the material with the Dremel and a sanding drum...very carefully since the engine and all that details is essentially a finished product and I didn't want to destroy anything.

And here's the engine assembly test fit into final position... nothing glued. That panel removed gives enough view inside to show there's stuff going on.

The last thing I started was the gunner's seat and its seat belt PE, but didn't get far enough along to be photo-worthy. Tomorrow, I'll be getting into the gun turret full tilt.

Work continues on interior. Masked the upper parts that I didn't want to get any more interior green on, and first gave a primer coat of Tamiya Gray Surfacer. I was finding that the Model Master acrylics were not sticking very well to the styrene. I generally do not wash my styrene before starting to work. I just feel it's more trouble than it's worth and could lead to parts loss and breakage. That being said, I suspect, there's mold release on the parts causing the adhesion problem. The Tamiya primer, on the other hand, has not trouble sticking and provides a good surface for the subsequent coats. Unfortunately, it's solvent based and I have to spray very sparingly as to not smelling up the house. It's way too cold outside to do any painting out there. I'm still lobbying for that spray booth.

I then sprayed the entire bomb bay, the rear radio compartment and the nose portion interior green, then went back and picked out some detail parts with chromate yellow, flat black and knobs of different colors. All this taping and handling broke the control stick off at the base. I waited until all the work was done, drilled it with a microscopic #88 (0.0095") and secured it with a piece of high E guitar string, also 0.010".

I then got to work finishing up the pilot's seat with the PE seat belts that were included in the kit and ended up using medium CA to secure the seat into the cockpit.

Next week, I'll continue working on all these interiors bits. I cleaned off the nubs on the fuselage halves and was very happy with the fit and alignment. Very little filling appears to be needed.

Hi gang! Holiday trips are over. We spent the time from Christmas through New Years with family and friends in the Philly area and State College, PA. Got to do some ABM work today. I'm in a hold on the layout waiting for the laser cutting for a new Bernheim Distillery that is to go into Heaven Hills' "Evan Williams Bourbon Experience" in downtown Louisville.

I continued work on the upper fuse interior and put the parts into the bomb bay as well.

I just placed it into the right fuse half to see what fit where. It's a very nice fit indeed. I need to add some cabling since all the black boxes on top will be visible through the large greenhouse canopy. You can also see that I finished painting the flight stick with the red pickle switches on it.

I glued together the left side cockpit wall, added some brass levers, and let it all dry before painting. The bright spots you see is me rushing to take the shot before the paint dried flat

I then turned the assembly over and mounted in the Panavise to glue in all the bomb bay details. The instructiions didn't have the upper pieces glued in yet, but I found it better to put them in while painting them. I'm going to air brush the interior green in this area since it has so many vertical surfaces sticking up.

You have several choices for load out: extra fuel tank, bomb load or torpedo. I'm going with the torpedo since the Avenger was first and foremost a torpedo bomber, and the torpedo is more interesting to look at. I'll keep working on this stuff as long as I can.