US CARRIER AVIATION GROUP BUILD 2013

The spray gun was wielded by somebody, possibly at the end of a long shift, possibly hungover the next day, possibly with their mind on something else besides a precision duplicate job to the last airframe. "Close enough for government work" & "that looks about right" pretty much says it all. just look at the cowls on 1151, 1152, and 1153- they are all different.

Thanks stikpusher!! I guess I do have the demarcation in a "correct enough" place.

just in case you need a little more reference... how about the assembly line?

Looking great there, mate! Very convincing!

Here we go. First off we'll start with a refresher of the way the upper camo/ middle camo demarcation lines are supposted to look.

 . I have the line a little farther down on the sides than I'm supposed to but the line is no longer a hard demarcation line between the two colors. This is shown here:

and finally one of the nose. I applied the border in much the same way as I approach mottling on German aircraft. Air pressure at about 30 psi, paint thinned out ALOT and the needle barely open. This Vallejo white that I'm using was giving me a lot of static this morning. Even thinned out it wanted to splatter but I managed to keep it at bay by constantly cleaning the needle. I discovered after I was through painting that it wasn't the Vallejo airbrush color, just the regular Vallejo white. Guess that's why I had to thin the white even more than the Airbrush Vallejo Blue!  Here's a pic of the midsection and nose:

 This last little bit here cleaned things up a lot and made for a more realistic border between the colors. Hopefuly I can move on to joining the fuselage and wings soon and applying the glosscoat and decals!!

Good morning guys! Well this morning I got up and "dirtied" those demarcation lines up a bit between the colors. I think Ive got the look I was going for. Pics after a bit.

Gotcha, mate. :)

Hey man I've got internet capability same as you buddy. That was about half a wisecrack.

mustang1989

Greg

Clemens, I stumbled across the old AM instructions for my Academy TBM-3 about a third of the way through the build. Those written instructions are amazing, and we'll probably never see anything like that again.

Now if you can just find some for the SBD.............................

I actually tried to re-download the one for the TBM I found earlier this year. I think the site was the old Accurate Miniatures site, and it seems to have disappeared. Otherwise, I'd have gone looking for you, Joe.

Sorry!

Greg

Clemens, I stumbled across the old AM instructions for my Academy TBM-3 about a third of the way through the build. Those written instructions are amazing, and we'll probably never see anything like that again.

Clemens, I stumbled across the old AM instructions for my Academy TBM-3 about a third of the way through the build. Those written instructions are amazing, and we'll probably never see anything like that again.

SchattenSpartan

Ok, the "expert" is here!

"What!? Clemens is an expert? When did that happen?"

Nah, I'm not really an expert, but I did some research on the AM Dauntless reboxings:

There are actually 3 of them:

• Italeri SBD-5
• Academy SBD-2 "Midway" (announced)
• Accurate Miniatures SBD-4 (marked as future release at Hannants? Seems strange because AM doesn't exist anymore AFAIK...)

I agree ith Greg on your Dauntless, Joe: Very nice fix and I think the overall appearance improved a lot!

Yeah, the instructions are horrible, because all the manufacturers just take the drawings of the AM instructions and forget to add the text that makes them so good. Without it they are just really bad...

Thank you, Clemens. #3 at Hannants is odd indeed. Nice of you to find this info for me!

If the AM kit is anything like their TBM-3 rebox, I'd think they have a winner coming, except for the instructions again. :)

I am sad that I missed the whole Accurate Miniatures experience whilst they were still around.

Ok, the "expert" is here!

"What!? Clemens is an expert? When did that happen?"

Nah, I'm not really an expert, but I did some research on the AM Dauntless reboxings:

There are actually 3 of them:

• Italeri SBD-5
• Academy SBD-2 "Midway" (announced)
• Accurate Miniatures SBD-4 (marked as future release at Hannants? Seems strange because AM doesn't exist anymore AFAIK...)

I agree ith Greg on your Dauntless, Joe: Very nice fix and I think the overall appearance improved a lot!

That right there is better left to the experts who I hope will comment on that question. I'd like to dedicate a full time build to one of these and do it up right!

Thanks for the comments on the paint Greg!

Good work on the repaint, Joe. Aside from being more accurate according to your reference pics, IMO it is also more visually appealing overall.

You have mentioned the Accurate Miniature kit a couple times now. Curious, is that still available or would it be an Academy kit from the old AM molds as was my TBM?

Ok gang, I have a couple of pictures below of the "before" paint job which I found to be incorrect "after" I painted it onto the fuselage.

This here is a picture of 22C-14 , which is one serial # away from the one I am building, 22C-13. Notice how the light blue is all over the vertical fin:

Like stikpusher said," A picture is worth a thousand words" and the old phrase, " The picture doesn't lie". I have other photos that show no dark blue at the front of the aircraft around the lower part of the nose as well. So........... I corrected it as best as I could. Still have some touch up to do but getting there. I also dunked the windscreen in Windex this morning to remove all paint/ future finish to start that all over up front there.

 There are definitely a lot of inaccuracies with this kit that I am "tolerating". For instance the tail hook hinge and the bomb crutch mount assy. These are ridiculously inaccurate but in keeping true-to-form with keeping some features of this kit original I'm not going to re-work them. If this build was one of my 8 month build I would be using an Accurate Miniatures kit and definitely NOT  this one. This ones mostly just for fun.

You know Ghostrider now that Ive had a couple of hours of sleep it just makes sense to take them to photoshop. Had a LOOOOOOOONG day yesterday. Thank you for your help, Joe

all I did was load all of the badges in photoshop and copy & paste them into one picture.

Ghostrider114

Mustang:

I combined all the badges into one image, you're running into the character limit because the image code used on this board takes up a lot of characters, but by putting everything in one image you can avoid that.  

Thanks you guys! I may end up re-doing the nose portion at the bottom on both sides. My references are coming up with that to be incorrect as is the dark blue vertical fin. Hey...........I get more painting practice!!!!!

Liking that fuselage paint job very much, Joe! Great lines, very clean.

Joe: Your Dauntless looks great so far! She's going to be a beauty! I know what you mean regarding the masking. I used some Eduard masks on my Wildcat, but the accident that happened to the canopy destroyed all the masks I put on there, so I had to mask it the old-fashioned way (Tamiya tape and a sharp scalpel blade). I only had to half as much masking as you, but it's really frustrating to spend at least an hour on that task, just to find out that the canopy has a crack right across the whole damn part... It is glued in place now and masked off, so I won't replace it a third time.

need new camera batteries, I'll take a pic of those crew figs as soon as I get a chance to get some at the store, meanwhile, I picked up one of the AM WWII armament sets, so I can load it with a torpedo, unfortunately, the instructions don't say how to install the sway braces in the bomb bay, does anyone here have any ideas?

...................and I just got through checking my references again and found that the tail fin is supposed to be the light blue color! Welp it looks like that airbrush compressor is gonna get fired up again!!!

Ok first off here are the two main pieces of the canopy that have been painted showing the inside chromate and outside blue colors. The windscreen is going to get dipped in Windex and I'm just plain starting over with that one!

then theres the tri color on the fuselage. I'm decently happy with this given my reference material but I aint about to start over with that. My goal is to acquire an Accurate Miniatures kit and dedicate a full time build to that. (full time build for me is around 8+ months). With that will come a slew of new reference material. Here's the latest on the fuselage paint though:

Nathan T

stikpusher

The SBD is easy... try a TBD.... :-O

....A Squadron Vacuuform TBD Canopy

stikpusher

The SBD is easy... try a TBD.... :-O

....A Squadron Vacuuform TBD Canopy

Mustang:

I combined all the badges into one image, you're running into the character limit because the image code used on this board takes up a lot of characters, but by putting everything in one image you can avoid that.  

Greg:

The Masking tape wasn't too difficult to do on the curves, I just bent the rolls around the part I wanted the curve in the pattern and sometimes, I just used lots of little rolls of tape, the rough parts happened where there were corners on the rolls that didn't get smoothed properly.  Straight lines would probably have been easier.

as for my own TBM, I'm just finishing up on the crew, then I'll be able to close up the fuselage and start painting.