The Official 1942 70th Anniversary Group Build

I have a Yamato i am doing for the Imp Japanese GB in 1942 color scheme (it stayed the same the whole time). Could I add this.

How far along is it? If it's still in the early build/prep phase then sure. Otherwise just sit tight for the Sherman. Don't worry! You have all the way until December!

 The sherman was my first model i did a while ago and have been wanting to redo it.  The Yamato is this far along.

Tell ya what. You agree to do the Sherman when it comes in, and we'll include the Yamato too. How's that?

The yamato i started yesterday so i have made some progress the decks arent glued on just shown for demonstration purposes.

Sorry for no clarifacation just leave me as the M4 not the Yamato

Finally something picture worthy on my end! Got the cockpit all assembled and painted up...

Note this is the first time I have ever tried scratch-building seatbelts. Far from perfect, but I think they turned out pretty nice for my first try.

So one issue with the build that I discovered when I stumbled on a review of this kit somewhere. The directions have you glue the finished cockpit to the bottom of the wing, and then attach the entire thing to the already closed fuselage. See directions below:

The review I found said that this is not possible because it will not fit. Fortunetly for me, I found the review and thus did a series of "dry fits" to check:

Sure enough, there is NO WAY to get the assembled cockpit into the already assembled fuselage. This creates a rather tricky scenario. By the directions, the fuselage is glued together, at the same time inserting the tail wheel and the top part of the nose. Then the instrument panel is inserted, then the cockpit assembly. Now, the instrument panel cannot be inserted if the cockpit is already in (thanks again, numerous dry runs.) So now the super human feat to accomplish is to glue the fuslage together while at the same time inserting the cockpit, instrument panel, and top of the nose, all at the same time without any of them losing alignment (the tail wheel can be inserted later if you don't glue that part just yet.) Once all of it is together, it needs tape. LOTS of it to hold it all together while it drys. Parts fit is very snug, which is good, just means it needs to be held.

So when it was all said and done, I wound up with this:

Again, dry fitting showed the bottom wing piece can easily be added after all of this, so I  left it off for ease of taping. The cockpit, panel, nose top, and tail wheel are all in there and drying snugly. Oh yes, and I also fitted the canopy on top just to be sure the cockpit is positioned right. Soon as this dries, I should be ready to add the rest of the major assemblies without too much difficulty.

Thanks

Nice piece you stated SubRevolution!!! this academy is on my wishbook  

Time to get in me too with the he-111

here the pieces before start work, need to collect some references to start the real work, already some minor piece was glued

the kit includes 5 pilots but i'll not use them. If put some pilot in ,i have the luftwaffe preiser set

I rescribbed already all main panel lines using the original raised as dime

Not planned again the work to do but surely cockpit and gear/wells improving.

What scale is that? I ask because if it is 1/72, then I think I bought that same kit from a guy last week! He walked in the LHS as I was leaving and said he had some kits he would never get around to and wanted to sell them back to the store. Naturally, looking for a bargain, I hit him up and walked away with three kits for $35. Guess I will have to see what you think of this one!

72 scale what else?

Last night grabbed lots of documentation, for now cockpit seems generally correct, for panel lines need again to check, but already used the same lines of the kit need also to check general shapes with some scale draw

The completed builds on the first page are very impressive.  Nice job all around.  I'm looking forward to seeing how progress goes on the rest of them.

My contribution to the group build was (is) Trumpeter's 1/700 scale Douglas Devastator torpedo bomber--actually 24 of them.  I built Fujimi's 1/700 USS Lexington CV-2 last summer, but never put any aircraft on it.  It came with some Wildcats, Dauntlesses, and, oddly, Avengers--which the Lex never had.   In the meantime, I picked up Trumpeter's Coral Sea version, in which there were six Devastators.  That plus an after-market box of 18 yielded a total of 24.

Starfighter decals makes a set of markings for the whole Lexington airgroup in 1942, including Wildcats, Dauntlesses and Devastators.  The markings include separate designators for Coral Sea and pre-Coral Sea.  Since the Fujimi kit depicts the Lex before modifications in April, I went with the pre-Coral Sea markings.  The Lex's cruise in February, March and early April 1942 is very well described in Lundstrom's The First Team.

Enough verbiage, though.  Here's how the build has been progressing.

After detaching the tiny planes from their sprues, I cleaned them up, then used regular old Walmart-type masking tape to delineate the canopy.  Below are a group shot and then a close up of one example.

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That was tedious!!  After that, I used MicroMask to fill in the remainder of the canopies.

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Then I was ready to paint.  Since Trumpeter's planes are molded in clear plastic, I started with the interior color, which there wasn't much information for, on the net; but somewhere I picked up that early Devastators had natural metal, unpainted cockpits, so I used silver.

Again, a group shot, then a close-up.

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And then a surprise, since the clear plastic makes it difficult to see the plane, until paint is applied.  Look at the huge lunar crater on the underside.  This was common on most of the planes.  I didn't bother at this point to fill it in.  I didn't want to lose detail, and besides, they will be sitting on their landing gear, so this defect won't be obvious

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I don't want to become too boring, so I'll stop here, and continue in a later post.  Thank you for looking.

They're so CUTE!!

Sorry. Seriously, HOW the heck did you do those tiny little masks?? I would have repeatedly punched myself in the head, then said screw it and just painted the canopies after the rest of the plane.

But that's why you guys are so much better at this. Nice work so far!

Thanks

Latest and greatest:

Remember how I said all that dry-fitting saved me a lot of work, and everything would be easy thereon, blah blah blah....

Wrong.

But first, here is the cockpit all snugly put together:

Not perfect, but not bad for 1/72. Although seeing those tiny Devastators puts me to shame.

Here it is, with major assembly completed:

"So what was the problem, Sub?"

I'm glad you asked. Well, it turns out the bottom wing piece did not fit, as dry-runs had shown. The little sub-assembly inside (air splitter?) bumped into the bottom of the cockpit assembly and prevented it from going in all the way. Eventually I said screw it and took the whole darn thing out. Some gap/seam issues with the wing assembly, but I'm not overlly worried about those. They look enough line big panel lines for me to pass them off that way...

Then I noticed it. With the "splitter" assembly gone, you could see right through the air scoop on the bottom of the plane. Not that I can find any detailed shots of it online, but something tells me that is not right. So I had to whittle down the assembly until I could shove it into the airscoop and make it resemble something that looks a little more scoop-ish. Below is the result of that endevour:

So here's a mystery that is still bothering me. I mentioned earlier that like many modern kits, this does not have a wheels up option. Normally not a big deal, a slight modification, glue the doors shut, and it's good right? Except here the doors are molded on, as seen above. I decided the thought of cutting off those tiny doors without destroying them was more than I felt like putting up with, so I'm leaving them as is. But my question then arose when I discovered that the kit has two tire options: Flattened and non-flattened. So.... they give you the option to have the plane on the ground or in flight, just not with the gear up? I'm very confused. Plus with all the fiddly bits this kit had, and they decided to mold the doors on in the first place? Sheesh.

But I shouldn't complain, at least the kit is well detailed and (mostly) well fitting.

Now it's masked off and ready for painting:

Note the remaining fiddly bits (mostly landing gear and ordinance) awaiting paint as well.

Now several days of paint and drying ahead!

Thanks

To me seems good

Like these tiny planes Checkmateking02

sub revolution

They're so CUTE!!

Sorry.    Don't be, sub--actually, they are!!!

Seriously, HOW the heck did you do those tiny little masks??  It really wasn't too difficult, as long as the tape is cut as thin as possible.  Even the cheaper Walmart stuff (made by 3M, I think) works well.  It helps to have one of those magnifying viewer headsets. 

I would have repeatedly punched myself in the head, then said screw it and just painted the canopies after the rest of the plane.  There was still a lot to go wrong on these little devils, that did go wrong.

But that's why you guys are so much better at this. Nice work so far!

Thanks

As for your experiences, with the plane, I always wonder why things fit so well when you dry-fit them and test fit them, and then, when you're ready to do the final assembly, they don't fit!  There must be a universal principle somewhere in that; something like a Murphy's Law of modeling.  You're doing a great job compensating, though, and you're getting good results. 

bsyamato

To me seems good

Like these tiny planes Checkmateking02

Thank, bsyamato.  Is your He-111 a rebox of the Hasegawa kit?  I have two of those, unopened so far, along with Revell's and Airfix's--from my "Battle of Britain" phase.  I will be interested to see how your build progresses, since I've never done an He-111.

Unfortunately not is the own italeri mold, with raised panels

Thanks, bsy.  I'm sure I'll learn something anyway.

checkmateking02

sub revolution:

As for your experiences, with the plane, I always wonder why things fit so well when you dry-fit them and test fit them, and then, when you're ready to do the final assembly, they don't fit!  There must be a universal principle somewhere in that; something like a Murphy's Law of modeling.   

 

 

 

Glad it's not just me! I feel like I'm doing a lot of bad-mouthing on what is actually a very nice kit!

Some kits invite bad-mouthing, sub.  It's almost required !

Back to the Devastators.

Once the silver paint dried, I sprayed on the undersurface color, which is the Navy's light gray, from WEM Colourcoats.  It appears much lighter in the photos than it really is.

After that, I masked for the top.  First I used strips of masking tape for the flat surfaces--undersides of wings and horizontal stabilizers.  Then I used MicroMask for the fuselage.

Knowing how tenacious MicroMask can be, I suspected it would pull up some of the gray paint when I removed it; and off course that's what happened, so I touched up with a brush, then coated everything with Floquil Model RR Flat, to prepare for decaling.

Here's a photo of the topsurfaces, again in Colourcoat's Navy Blue Gray.

While all that was curing, I turned my attention to the landing gear and propellers, which are separate pieces.  There is even a tiny tail wheel!  Trumpeter provided some engraving for the canopy frame, so rather than paint that, I painted some clear decal stock with Navy Blue Gray, and cut it into strips.  This would go on the canopy to represent some of the framing.

Above, on the left, is a strip of the decal stock.  It looks like it turned out about 1/32 inch wide.

I painted the landing gear gray, then used acrylic paint for the tires.

Below is a shot of a sprue with the propellors.

It's the last time you'll see them, because here was the major failure of the whole project.  One of the props had lost a blade already when I opened the box.  But the gate in the mold for injecting the plastic was right in the middle of a blade on each prop, and no matter what method I tried to detach them from the sprue, that blade either cracked or broke off.  By the time I had all the props off the sprue, four of them were casualites.  Attempt to sand off the mold nub lost another one--so that's when I a) bad-mouthed the props, and b) decided to leave them all off entirely.  It seems that most other manufacturers of ship models don't bother with props anyway, so these will look like their brethren from other models.

Anyway, next up will be the results of the decaling, which caused a little more bad-mouthing, but basically was successful.

Thank you for looking, and for your comments.

checkmateking02

!!!!!!!,   !!

priobably needed a micro laser to cut these micro pieces!!!

bsyamato

priobably needed a micro laser to cut these micro pieces!!!

Something like that for those propellers.  They seem too fragile to accept much pressure, even from sanding, without damage.  Oh, well.

Here are some photos with decals in place.

I applied a pin wash of thinned black acrylic craft paint to accenturate the panel lines top and bottom.

Next photo below is the entire set.  The top group represents the Torpedo Squadron Two before Coral Sea.  The bottome group carries the markings used at Coral Sea.

You might notice there are only 23 total.  I lost one plane when removing the paint masks.  I grabbed a stabilizer with the tweezers and broke it off.  There wasn't enough mating surface to manage a repair with glue.

Finally, a close up of one plane, carrying the pre-Coral Sea markings.  At that time, they were marked, as in this example, "T-2-5," with "T" representing "Torpedo Squadron," "2" being the squadron number, and "5" designating the individual aircraft.

Starfighter Decals really made some detailed decals here.  It's astonishing they are so small, but yet you can read the letter clearly.  They are fussy, though.  The whole sheet is one big decal, so each marking has to be cut individually.  I used a combination of knife and scissors. 

I did have one mishap, when "T-2-1" doubled back on itself, and would shake loose.  But since I lost one plane, anyway, it was no big deal.

Finally, it's blurry, but here's the typical photo shot with a penny for showing the size.

I built Fujimi's USS Lexington CV-2 last summer, so I will later post some photos with the planes posed on the carrier deck.

Thank you for looking.  I appreciate your comments.

cmking02 - those tiny aircraft turned out really well, and look forward to seeing them on the carrier.  Will you be posing one or two in take off or landing mode?  I've seen this done with the aircraft suspended in the air by a thin metal wire imbedded into the deck. 

For the propellers I'm certain there is at least one AM company out there that provides them as photo-etch.  About 30 yrs ago I did one of Lindberg's American carriers, and for the props just stretched some sprue and cut to  length.  Didn't think of it back then, but you could possibly flatten the sprue by rolling it with something round ( an exacto knife handle comes to mind here).  A couple swipes with a file should return the pointed tips.  Sounds like a  lot of work, but watching the tele at the same time will make it less boring.

regards,

Jack

They turned out great Chackmateking

Sorry for the propeller but a good way is the one that Jack already posted

Thanks for the comments, bsyamato and Jack.

That idea about sprue sounds promising, Jack.  I may give it a go.  I did notice, before I ditched them, that the mounting hole on the back of the props was far too small to fit over the little nub on the front of the planes (I painted the nub silver to represent the prop hub.  So to fit the kit props, one would have to cut the nub off and mount the prop directly to front.  Using sprue might work even better.

I still have a box of Wildcats and Dauntlesses, plus the decals for them, but there'd be no room on the flight deck!

Anywhere, here is the finale.

So I'm declaring my little project done.  It's been a fun build, and good finally to get some planes on the carrier.  I appreciate the generous comments.  I look foward to checking in and seeing everyone else's progress on their projects.

Made a little progress with my Buffalo...

Used the salt weathering technique very lightly on this one...wanted to try rubber cement but someone was supposed to post a tutorial on it...still waiting HvH...lol....

Sorry...started on the wrong pics...here`s the cockpit...

Had to cover the back deck of the cockpit with some sheet styrene to cover a nasty seam...

 The kit plastic is a little brittle...notice the crack in the above picture. So far I`ve painted the plane MM aluminum buffing metalizer, sprayed it with water and added salt, and after all that dried, I painted the medium blue/light gray scheme and removed the salt, exposing the aluminum chips and scratches. I have also sealed the whole thing with future and am now ready for decals. I will post more pictures after a little weathering. These last two pics are where it stands as of now...thanks for looking.

Len

Checkmate- Those little planes are AWESOME!! You have almost inspired me to try my hand at an aircraft carrier just so I can play with the teeny little planes... As for the propellers, they're so small, I would put the planes in takeoff postions and just tell people they can't see the props because they are spinning!

Troublemaker- Nice work on the Buffalo so far. Look forward to seeing it done!

As for me...

Preliminary airbrushing is done, including "underside blue" on the bottom, then "topside green" with a light coating of white on top. I wondered a while back if the Soviets simply white-washed their aircraft like they did their tanks, or if they did actual, decent paint jobs. After a lot of staring at reference photos, I was surprised to come to the conclusion that their aircraft must have received the same shoddy white-wash that their tanks did. As such, their aircraft tended to look very faded, worn, and dirty. I'm going to try to replicate this, but it's pretty ambitious for me! I started with varying shades and thicknesses of white to give an uneven appearance. Overall, I think it turned out more light grey than I had wanted, but not bad enough to warrant a redo. Now I have future brushed on where the decals will go, and once those are on will commence a few days worth of blending/washes/drybrushing to further "wear" the paint. Here's hoping!

Thanks

Len, I like what you are doing with the Buffalo.  What kind of paint did you use?

Thanks, sub.  I think you're right--the props are spinning.

Nice work on the winter camouflage.  I tried this a number of years ago with a Messerschmitt.  I couldn't pull it off, so I'll be looking to your build for insights.  Looks good.

checkmateking02

Len, I like what you are doing with the Buffalo.  What kind of paint did you use?

Len