Um, that masking looks terrific, Mike. 

The rain has been relentless of late. I've been working down in Longview/Kelso an the weather has been bad for weeks. Working outside has been miserable.

What area, may I ask, do you reside in? I have not met but one fellow modeller since I've gotten back into the hobby. We seem to be few and far away in this State lol.

I'd like the opportunity to share my knowledge first hand with someone. :)

Mike,

I just sent you an email via your public email address.

Cool. I'll check my email.

I'm watching with great interest.

i have started the same kit but I wanted to detail up the engine bay, since the kit had a resin engine in the box, but hit a wall due to lack of skills in this area.

Another reason I'm stalled is I have started a new part-time job and am working far too many hours , way more than I expected and it's waring my old but out.

I have this kit as well and have considered the wing fold conversion. I will be watching this with great interest.

BK

Jay Jay and BK,

I certainly appreciate you guys following along. You already know my skill level so please don't expect much other than my normal notes along the build where I screwed up and was or was not able to fix.

Yesterday, used PPP (Perfect Plastic Putty) to attempt to fill in some of the major gouges that I created when sawing off the resin parts from the mold "block". (I must mention again what a PITA I find it to get the resin parts cut off properly . Then I attempted to rescribe some lines without much success. The rescribed lines will remain the way I left them since they're under the inboard portion of the wing and won't show in normal viewing. I then proceeded to prime all the resin and styrene parts.

My next problem is the order in which to paint the resin wing folding set. I can't imagine attemping to mask and paint the wings once they're in their folded configuration so I'll paint them before gluing them together.

I guess that's all for now. I'll sign off for the moment with a few shots of what I've just talked about as well as a shot from 9,000' looking down at the valley floor when I was in Death Valley doing some hiking the week before last. It's from the top of Wildrose Peak.

OK, We were NOT amused! (The laughable scribing job ).

So, for a couple of days I've been trying to get that little area rescribed to my satisfaction. I'm now OK with it although I think with more patience than I'm capable of mustering I might have done a little better. Anyway, I'm at a stage where either I can continue working on the painting/decaling of the folded wings or begin the fuselage. I think I'll now start the fuselage.

I've been lazy lately and haven't done too much with the Avenger. I did get the torpedo and the torpedo loading cart done with a few touch-ups to be done shortly.

I was disappointed with the resin set of the torpedo because one of the four propellers that are in the kit was broken on arrival. One would think that, since only two props are needed, I was OK. Wrong . I broke the other matched prop so now the torpedo does not have counter rotating props. For this model I'm not too concerned. The torpedo will have a stabilizer wood box over its fins and be on the cart to be loaded on board.

I took some artistic liberty with the painting of the torpedo. My research has shown me that the paint jobs on Mk 13 torpedos varied quite a bit. I painted the bulk of the propulsion section dark sea gray and the business end a combo of silver and brass which I will scuff up even more before I'm done with it.

That's all for now.

Everything is pulling together great.  The torpedo and rack looks fantastic!  Looking forward to more.

Toshi

Yeah she's looking pretty good so far. Good luck with the scribing and resin, I've used a little but never that much. Canopy masking looks perfect! 

Toshi and Gamera,

Thanks!

I'm at the exciting stage of my build - waiting for paint to dry .

This part always tests the little patience I have.

Some work done on the fuselage: Starting to get the cockpit in order - still a long way to go. Have done considerable work (for me) on installing PE. Lots of little fiddly bits to go.

I made a seat cushion from some brass mesh for the pilot. Not sure if they would actually have done this - just something I thought would be OK.

I've noticed lots of areas where I've chipped/scraped off some paint while working on a section or two. That's what close ups do for me - let me see what needs to be touched up or corrected. Here are some progress pictures.

 P.S. Gotta get rid of that flash in the IP

Regardless of the flash, it still looks really good, Mike. You're making great progress.  :)

I love what you're doing here. It looks great.

BK

I love what you've done with the Edward Interior PE set. It looks real good and I might have to re-do mine in purchasing a set.

Mike, Brandon, and Jay Jay,

Thanks for the encouragement.

Here's a minuscule update with my concerns about the closing up of the fuselage when I get to it.

 P.S. Regarding that bottle/canister that I installed under the pit floor, The Eduard PE has a piece to hold the object but does not supply the canister. One has to make it from scratch. A piece of 2mm styrene rod would have worked but, not having any of that dimension, I cut a piece of 2mm brass rod, filled in the ends with PPP, painted it yellow, and, Voila!

Hit a speed bump. I removed the masking from my clear canopy and turret parts and was disappointed to find bleeding under the masks, misalignment between the interior and exterior paint jobs. All my fault.

I decided to do all the masking over since I do have an extra set of masks for this aircraft. I stripped the paint and dipped the parts in Future last night. They are now ready for masking. Hopefully I'll be more careful this time by burnishing them well. Also I'm only going to do the outside - both colors - like Builder 2010 did in his 1/32 Avenger build. That way I'm at least assured of no misalignment. Bleeding under the masks is another story.

Here's a shot of where I am now on this kit:

Here are some shots of the area you are working on.

Hope you find them useful. Your build is looking very nice.

BK

Thanks Brandon.

They are images that show a great deal of detail in the aft fuselage. I'm happy to see dirty/scratched windows . Makes me think that working aircraft of this ilk might not have had pristine glass - makes my smudges on the clear plastic more believable .

for some-one who say's his skill's aren't that good , that's pretty impressive so far mike .

t-Johnny,

I guess I'm just not all that confident yet in my abilities compared to most of the folks who post on this forum. That's OK though, I thoroughly enjoy building these kits (both ships and aircraft) and feel like I may be learning a little to better my work at this hobby as I stumble along.

OK, I finished remasking as you saw from my last post and gave a try to the method that Builder used in his 1/32 Avenger. Whatever screw ups occured were totally on me. I like this method and will use it on all my canopies, turrets, etc. in the future. Thanks Builder!

Here are a couple of pictures of my almost finished work on the clear parts. I still have some touch up and the forward section of the canopy to work on but they'll be done in a day or two.

Looking really good Mike. Thanks for the acknowledgement. The Accurate Miniatures 1:48 simplifies the canopy build by not having all the separate pieces. I should have not attempted to glue those two rear parts together as Trumpeter showed in the instructions. I should have just let them stay together by being glued to the air frame on their bottoms. Sometimes more pieces is not actually better.

I'm at a stage where I usually become frustrated. That is closing the fuselage halves. I've dry fit the two halves several times along the build and sanded and filed and popped out a glued in part and repositioned it so the two sections would fit better. Still, I worry. There's one section that I'll have to hold with my fingers (I think I'll wear latex gloves) because it's not going to come together without considerable pressure and none of the clamp, rubber band, or vise implements will work. I'll probably have to hold it together for a couple of minutes -at least. Here's hoping...

Anyway, here are the two fuselage halves ready for mating. BTW, why did I bother to paint the black and white striping on the arrester hook if it's not going to be visible? Such are the questions of a modeler.

Looking good so far. As to why did you paint the tailhook striping? Because it's there of course

About the closing up of the two fuselage halves ... A real PITA! Probably all my fault but I had to use 3 sets of clamps and a rubber band - all at the same time while the glue was drying. That didn't get the top part of the fuselage just behind the pilot's head to close. I had to do that separately after the process I've just described was finished. It required a clothes pin which was just barely holding on - a little vibration and it would have shot up to the ceiling!. Fortunately it seems as if all is well for the moment.

Then there's the story of the turret "guts"... #$%&@!. After gluing the parts together and tearing them apart three times I finally got the unit to fit into the turret canopy. I don't have any idea why it was so much more difficult for me this time than on my last TBM-3 build of a month or so ago - just bad karma I guess .

Lots more work to do. Looks like the weather up this way is going to be getting better (read Spring like) this week. Probably out hiking rather than working indoors. Next update whenever I can.

Not sure where exactly you are in the turret process but I have a link here that explains how to install the turret in this kit. Hopefully, you will find it usefull. I love what you're doing, it looks great.

BK

http://web.archive.org/web/20090327114353/http://www.accurate-miniatures.com:80/builds/avenger/avengerturret.shtml

Brandon, thanks for the link. However I have already intalled it and taken it out again. It's not that difficult once you get the turret & turret canopy together correctly. I just wanted to make sure that I could install it and I can. Had I left the masking on the turret canopy I probably would have left it in but I'd already taken off the masks so that masking the installed turret would have been a problem for me. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever learn !