War In The Pacific Group Build 2009 - 2010

No worries Darren!!! Here is a pic I found on the net of the Testors 1/72 SBD. I haven't seen one for awhile butthey are still out there.

Well I have my Jake fuse closed up, and a couple shots of the basic office. Letting the glue cure, and then will clean and mend the joins. There is a very prominent gap on the starboard side of the rear where the appropriate fuse half fits under the vertical stab which is molded to the port half. So some filling of it with ACC should do. Will drill and ream out the fresh air vent bulges on the fuse sides for a bit of detail.

Thanks for looking!!!

simpilot34 wrote:

No worries Darren!!! Here is a pic I found on the net of the Testors 1/72 SBD. I haven't seen one for awhile butthey are still out there.

That's the $7 Dauntless I'm working on.

Well i got my finely airbrushed cowling around my engine and put some liquid cement on the joins to make a nice strong bond only to discover the evidence in the accompanying pic!!!! I wet sanded my offending fingerprints off as I expected to do when I realized the size of the attachment points to the sprue! So I feel like I wasted a bit of paint, but that can be redone! Anyway what I'm trying to say is, I painted the cowl prematurely! I don't know whether it's the age of the kit or what! I put said glue on the middle seat in the cockpit and broke the floor in the process of putting the others on, now I cracked the cowl!!! I'm thinking it must be the age of the kit that has made it seem brittle!!! Just bizarre to me! first time I have had this problem!

darson wrote:

Charles the engine looks great, how much of it do you think you'll be able to see in the cowling?

NOt a whole lot will be soon from the front. I'm hoping that some of the "burnt iron" exhaust pipes can be seen from the rear of the cowling, though.

Richie, sorry to hear about the cracked cowling. It sucks now., but when you whoop this kit into submission you'll feel all that much better about the completed build.

Hey simpilot, Haven't had problems with brittle plastic,but was wondering if the sprues were in a plastic bag or not. On the bright side better to catch things like that now rather than after the final coat of paint and all the decals in place.

 Wildcat update. Just finished the leading edges of the wings. I filled a couple small gaps I found after a pimer coat inspection. I wet sanded with 600, then followed by 1500. Those leading edges are schmooooth. That reminds me, I needs to get smoe san paepa, I'm down to 1/8 of a sheet of 1500, and I've just roughed in the fuselage. Any suggestions for replacing the 6 Browning .50's I sanded off?

Mobious wrote:

Any suggestions for replacing the 6 Browning .50's I sanded off?

I've never used these myself, but I see a lot of people using hypodermic needles. They look convincing.

 Thanks for the suggestion, mucker, I'll check into getting a couple to try. I'll let you know if they work out. Thanks again. Masking the canopy right now, The front section is the worst, all the curved glass and rounded corners.

 I was looking for photo's of the Claude's engine and all I found was a b/w. I'm with simpilot, very little will be seen with the cowling installed. What you've done looks the part.

Mobious wrote:

Any suggestions for replacing the 6 Browning .50's I sanded off?

Mo even though these Quickboost gun barrels are made for a B-25 they could be cut down and made to fit almost anything.

Oh and by the way after reading one of your posts the other day and finally realising where the message in your sig comes from, I had pull out Kelly's Heroes for a watch.  What a great movie that was and still is.

Richie, major bummer about the cowling, I usually have the opposite problem with plastic being too soft rather than too brittle.  Keep battling on though as the fuselage and cockpit are looking excellent.

Cheers

mucker wrote:

Richie, sorry to hear about the cracked cowling. It sucks now., but when you whoop this kit into submission you'll feel all that much better about the completed build.

You are very right about that mucker, just hae to be a bit more careful about how much pressure I use to keep things together I reckon.

Mo, yes the sprues and decals have been in the plastic bag since i bought the kit and had never been opened. The cowl is solidly together now so will gingerly super glue fill the seams and cracks, sand, and then repaint. Not much more I can do than that. Just annoying that it happened!

Thanks Darren, yeah this is just bizarre!!! Just have to be careful gluing now.

 Darren, WOW, the quickboost Brownings look great. I'd hate to waste the rest of the barrel, but the muzzle is an exact match.

 Hey Sherman, hope everythings OK, looking forward to seeing progress on the Float plane and cat.

 Ritchie, glad to read that progress has resumed. I can relate to being a bit more careful. My FW 190 got hit with a book. A German/English translation book, hehe.

 Wildcat update, I fitted the elevators and the starboard side aerolon. I'm using hexagon stock because I couldn't wait any longer. It works after sanding. The trouble so far is, thinning the upper wing to accomodate it. I wasn't too sure about what needed removed before glueing the wings together. Cut once measure twice. I could've saved myself a couple hours by sanding that upper wing thinner than I did. On the positive side I didn't remove too much.

 I'll try to get some photo's up later, after a bit more trimming, and sanding, and fitting, and sanding, and trimming again, etc,etc,etc...

Mobious wrote:

Ritchie, glad to read that progress has resumed. I can relate to being a bit more careful. My FW 190 got hit with a book. A German/English translation book, hehe.

 Hey Darren, Big Joe has a trunk full of great tag lines. Telly Savalas protrayed a larger than life sarge in Kelly's Heros. I like the line the radioman says after their vehicles get blown up by the strafing run from the (P47).

 Wildcat update, the photo's are not the best, since my octopus broke it's tentacle(spelling check, good no "s") I tried the aluminum can for the cowling flaps. I couldn't quite get the shape right. I decided to use the plastic ones that I removed earlier. Thinned them down and seperated them, and attached all 8. Of course it took an hour to find them, and they're not as nice as the aluminum would've been.

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 Should be rolling the Wildcat into the paint booth soon.

Ok guys, here is some of my progress on my 1/72 Testors SBD Dauntless. As we discussed earlier it is a cheap kit so I don't expect much. After some of my recent woes with my El Cheap-O Mig 3 model I'm thinking I need to move up to some better quality kits. Then again the best kits in the world won't make up for the lack of modeling skills.

Right after I took this photo a small gust of win came by and took my decal sheet and dumped it into the dogs pool. Now I have to go buy another copy of this model to get a new decal sheet.

I believe had commented earlier on how I was surprised that this kit had recessed panel lines. What I don't understand is why they recessed the Star emblem on the fuselage. I'm not sure I have the skills to fill those lines without destroying the others. I will think about that when the time comes.

As most of us know 1/72 scale models lack in detail because of their size. I'm trying to add detail where ever I can to enhance the model the best I can. The biggest detail I can do is drilling out the dive flaps.

The other detail I started on was the engine. I painted the engine dark gray, and then washed it with black sludge. Using the radial engine posted by simpilot34. I painted the gear box as closely as possible and then added some detail between the cylinders using some safety wire.

Dirkpitt289 wrote:

I believe had commented earlier on how I was surprised that this kit had recessed panel lines. What I don't understand is why they recessed the Star emblem on the fuselage. I'm not sure I have the skills to fill those lines without destroying the others. I will think about that when the time comes.

Don't underestimate yourself , Dirk! Using a decent quality masking tape, mask off the panel lines you don't want filled. THen use your favorite putty on the star. If you want, keep the tape on while you sand, too. SUre, you may sand off some wanted panel lines here and there, but you can rescribe these few areas.

Sure beats a recessed star!

Mobious wrote:

Hey Dirk, the dive brakes look good. Any chance on saving the decals? Might try letting them dry before attempting to use them.

Mobious

I saved the decals and they "LOOK" ok but I won't know until the time comes to apply them. We all know that the decals can make or break a model. It would be worth the $7 bucks to get another kit just to have a a fresh set. The good thing about that is the kit comes with decals for two different aircraft so I will have a set left over to build the second kit someday.  

Hey Dirk...If you need decals I think I might have some 72 dauntless decals in my spares...I will check as soon as I get home.

Al Giordino

aka Carlos

Dirkpitt289 wrote:

We all know that the decals can make or break a model.

 Hey Dirk, I know books break'em real good. hehe. I can relate to the decals, I've had my share of decals that are just to difficult to use.  

 Wildcat update, I had a heck of a time with the paint. I tried the MM acrylic line and didn't have any problems with the interior green, or the USN light grey, both cut easily with water and airbrushed nicely. The USN blue grey was an udder story. It plugged and spit and was just miserable to use so I mixed my own with Vallejo.  Using field blue as a base, added equal parts blue, and half parts dark yellow to the mix, and white to lighten as needed. I shot the Wildcat and added a bit of sun bleaching to the control surfaces and highlight areas. Was getting ready to shoot Future and get things all smoothie before the decals go on.

Dirk here is a pic for you that will be more along the lines of what you need! That was just an odd pic of an R-1830, this is a shot of an SBD at Pensecola with an R-1820 ( just as a guide) Judging by the spinner I would say this might be an earlier model than yours though. Anyway here you are. IMHO there shouldn't be anything in between the cylinders.

Mo can't wait to see more pics!!!

 Rolled the Wildcat out of the paint booth. I was planning on building Col. H.W. Bauer's(Commander of VMF-212 & Congressional Medal of Honor reciepient) aircraft. After painting the cowling white, I'd noticed, that like O'hare's Wildcat, it too was an F4F-3. I repainted the cowling and settled for one of the 4 markings from the kit decals. 4 aircraft are depicted, VF-41, VMF-223, VGF-29, and VF-22. I choose the decals for VMF-223. According to Wikipedia, VF-223 was the first Marine fighter squadron deployed to Guadalcanal. The kit decals were thick and I had a heck of a time blending the edges. Overall, I've had a heck of a time with the finish, period. Between the paint and the decals, the cards were stacked against me. Anyway, I shot the F4F with dullcoat and added the panel lines in a dark blue grey color.

 I wrestled with the octopus and managed to get a couple photo's.

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 I also can not find the 3rd ID stencil decal for the Curtis Electric prop. I've looked thru the entire set of decals and have only managed to lactate, er, I mean, locate 2.

P.S. Friday the Military Channel is spot lighting the Vaught Corsair, the F7 in particular, but thought it might be worth a look see.

 Thanks for the comments simpilot, I had to edit the post. I had the VMF #'s all mixed up. It was the "Bulldogs" of VMF-223, which is 1 of the 4 aircraft depicted in the kit. This one's getting close. I still have a few that would qualify for the GB. An F2A-3, F4U-1D, and the A6M2. VMF-221 flew the Buffalo during the Battle of Midway. Sorry for the mix up.

 Thanks again for checking up on the progress.

Hey All I just wanted to give you an update as to where I am with the builds:

1. Pete.  The Pete is assembled and almost ready for painting.  I still have one nagging seam I'm trying to get smoothed out.  I have painted the main Pontoon and though it came out really nice I was surprised at one very unexpected phenomenon:  For the first time I used Alclad Aluminum instead of MM Metalizer as a base coat ontop of the primer.  I'm a sucker for the tape pulling off the top coat weathering affect so commonly seen on Japanese models.  When I went to pull up the green, nothing.  Try as I might the Green Acrylic stuck like glue to the Alclad.  Busted out the toothpick, again, nothing.    So I am going to try a new technique on my Rex that I mentioned had been sitting on my almost finished shelf for the past couple of years.  I laid down the Alclad on the Rex, sealing  it with Tamiya clear, then I splashed on random patterns of liquid masking film.  I've never tried this before so the results of this experiment will determine how I go about painting the rest of the Pete.  The aim is not to go over the top on the Pete, but I do like the looks when the Aluminum peaks through.

2.Dauntless:  Dauntless is assembled for the most part, I am trying to decide how I want to represent the 2 .50s in the nose.  I'm thinking of removing the kit barrels from the breaches and instead installing the barrels from an Aires F-4U Corsair gun bay set I have.  The accurate miniatures barrels are nothing more than plastic sticks and I thought I'd add a tad more realism to the Dauntless using resin barrels.

Pics soon to follow.

As promised Progress Pics:

This is how warped the Dauntless flaps were prior to their utter destruction by my ineptness:

Dauntless L and R:

The Pete:

Pete's pontoon and trailer:

Rex with Liquid mask experiment:

 Hey Stu, If you're trying for a chipped paint effect, you may want to consider trying the salt method. There was an article in Nov '08 FSM. It looks relatively simple and has really cool results. You may want to try a search on the Forums. I've never tried it. I have enough of a time getting the paint on, not taking it off. hehe. The flaps for your Dauntless, ressembled an upper wing for a Spad VII that I tried and failed to build a month or so ago.

 I did get a couple shots of the Wildcat. I've added a specially formulated acrylic weathering wash, (coffee, burnt umber, and a drop of detergent). After the wash was dried and sealed, a drybrushing of highlight color was added next. Exhaust and MG trails were airbrushed on. Here's what I got for the efforts.

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 We ran the Pratt & Whitney up to full throttle this afternoon and had good oil pressure. The rebuild did the trick. Vrrroooom, Vrrrrrooooooommm! Can't wait till I get the MG's.

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 I'm considering replacing the canopy with a vacuformed one and opening it to show the pit,and get the styrofoam out. Have a few items to contend with, namely the Brownings.

Mobius your F4F is looking real good! I especially like the engine check pic!

Well I got abit more work done on my F6F tonite. I drilled out the muzzles on the .50s, the shell ejection ports and built the wings. I also finished cleaning up the resin True Details seat  I will be using and test fittend it in the cockpit. I should be able to commence painting of the cockpit this weekend.