US CARRIER AVIATION GROUP BUILD 2013

stikpusher

Well since todays bench session was airbrushing modern aircraft interior colors, I pulled my Scooter off of the sidelines and first airbrushed a coat of Humbrol Gray Primer, and then a coat of Humbrol Dark Gull Gray. Not very exciting, but the ball is rolling again

This kit has beautiful detail in most areas. Once I have it all painted up it should be gorgeous in the office.

Can't wait !!!!!!!!!

Stik, that is a nicely detailed interior indeed. I'm sure you will do it proud.

Joe, thanks for the nice comments. :) The kit is so good I'm almost sorry I built it as my first kit back. It is really that good, IMO.

mustang1989

Greg and Ghost: I have an Accurate Miniatures TBD-3 in the stash...........and you guys are making my want to drag it out! It won't be in time for this build but in the future after a couple of more Luftwaffe builds I see something happening. Good work on these....both of you!!

I know what you mean, buddy. I have Academy's re-release in my stash and all those TBM builds make me want to start mine as well... Maybe in round 2?

TBD or TBM?

Anyway, next problem to tackle is the ball turret, it turned out that my gunner figure was sitting too high up in his seat for the dome to fit on the turret, now I've got to figure out how to get him back in there much lower, this may require some surgery.

TBM. Sorry, my bad...

lol, that's ok.

in other news, I finally got the airbrush to cooperate and finished the Mk 13 pickle with alcad gunmetal and matte aluminum, I put the aluminum down a bit thick and it orangepeeled, so the boys in the NFM GB aren't going to be too proud of the finish, but considering it's in the bomb bay, and some of the pictures I've seen of these fish look a bit banged up anyway, it's probably ok, I sanded it down as much as I felt comfortable, and I got it fairly smooth.

I am in the NMF GB and I really like the look of that torp! I think the real things were cast metal, so they had a slightly rough texture anyway (I might be wrong though...)

Man Ghostrider that looks good so far bud! Oh and it is in fact TBM-3!! Good grief! Man you can tell my Pacific plane lingo is out the window!!!

Not to rain on  your parade about the Torpedo. But, it looks like the instructions have teh colors reversed- the body should be metalic and the warhead either OD or Dark Gray- hard to tell from B&W photos, but the basic colors are obvious enough.

That torpedo looks cool in there, Ghost! Looking good, for sure.

Have you figured out how to mount it yet or is it just sitting there for now?

yeah, I figured out where the torpedo mount goes, so it's in there.  As for the color, the research I turned up showed a variety of different appearances, sometimes they were painted, but not always.  Unpainted they tended to look a lot like mine, although the gunmetal came out darker then I expected.

And, as it turns out, Spartan is right, the warhead isn't too rough after all, a lot of these show very rough texture and an almost matte finish.  that may also explain why those fish look so dark in your pic stik.

Oh the warheads are certainly matt finish. They were originally paintd to match the undersides of the aircraft, presumably for camoflage purposes, as they were carried externally.

at the moment, I'm struggling to get the canopy together on the gun turret.  I've done significant surgery to the poor gunner, I ended up amputating an arm (the shoulder is hidden by the .50, so you can't tell from looking at it) and taking most of the meat out of his ass so he'd sit lower in the seat.  The gunner isn't in the way anymore, but now for some reason the whole turret is too wide for the canopy to fit.  I suspect it's just got too much glue on it from pulling it apart and putting it back together while fiddling with the gunner.

Ghostrider: Hang in there Ghostrider! If theres one part of a build that gives me the most problem it is the final fit area. Everything falls into place for me until its time for the "rubber to meet the road"! You seem adamant enough to make it work AND look good. Looking forward to the pics.

Everybody:Well I'm officially stuck except for a wash on the wheels right now. I painted a gloss on the wheel assys, finished up the pitot tube except for a touch of silver on the tip(hell I even drilled the hole for the tube end), finished up the arresting hook, prop is done and waiting on installation, sanded the elevators (except for the "MMI" that was one one of them, bombs are painted and waiting on a light, and I mean light, wash and all the decals that I currently are going to use are now on the bird. I even used the stenciling I got from the 'updated" Revell Dauntless. There aint many stencils but I've got em on there! Here's a couple of recent shots:

This is everything but the wheel / tires. Just waitin' on the letters and numbers for the sides!

and here's a side shot:

She's looking great, Joe! I'm looking forward to adding this beauty to the front page!

Thanks Clemens. I'm simply running out of things to do to this thing until my decals arrive in the mail from Hannants. I have managed to use the Hasegawa .50 cal gun barrels for the cowl guns and have drilled them out. I also worked on the pitot tube. At first I was just going to use the Monogram box part until I checked references and I'm glad I did. Its not just a little off, its WAY off!

Here's what the Monogram part looks like:(and I had this thing painted up and ready to go!)

I don't know what aircraft that tube belongs to but it sure aint a Dauntless!! This is what the reference photo looks like:

and this is the Hasegawa part. Which one do you think I'm going with????

It's pretty plain to me!

Yeah, the Monogram part really looks horrible.

I still have to encourage myself to start replacing those damn rivets. I bought HGW's rivet decal sheet and I read about them being raised rivets on a carrier film, but they look dead flat to me on the carrier film...

You know you bring up a subject I'm curious about. What is this rivet tool that some of you have spoken of? Pics??

Rivet tool? I don't have one. Only the rivet decals...

I finally udaerstand how the HGW rivets work! I found a step-by-step guide on how to apply them. The rivets seem to be BELOW the transfer film and not sitting on top. You apply them with the decal film facing away from the model, let them dry for 1-2 hours an then carefully remove the carrier film using your tweezers. That should leave you with nice rivet lines with no decal film to take care of. I really like this idea!

Sorry for the misunderstanding Clemens. I've seen on the forum here and there about a rivet tool. Seems to me like Nathan T has mentioned a couple of times along with a couple of other folks. I'll find out and get pics for you as I'm sure you , like me, could use this tool.

Glad you figured out the rivet decals. I haven't heard of those until now.

I think that kind of rivet tool is a punch for making flush rivets, that probably wouldn't work with non-flush ones.

I've pulled the whole turret apart and am in the process of sanding and reglueing all the joints, hopefully that'll help with the fit.  It is kinda frustrating though, because at this point, that's all I have left to do before I can put the fuselage together and paint it.  As I mentioned before, decent painting weather can be hard to come by this time of year in the Pacific Northwest.

Hang in there Ghostrider. Sometimes what you are doing is what it takes with just backtracking a little bit. I understand the time crunch though.

Well guys I'm down to the "nitty gritty" as far as officially nothing else I can do to this thing until my decals get here. I drilled out the cowl gun barrel ends and painted the barrels. I've drilled out the end of the pitot tube and painted that. Got the wheel/ tires painted, a wash applied and now a flat coat over that and have that light wash applied over the bombs. Hopefully those things make it here today.

Got some painting done in the cockpit of my Scooter today. Flat Black panels on the IP and side consoles, Seat cushions, straps, and activation handles on the bang seat. I wanted to do a bit more, but my Satin Black had dried up, so I need to get a new tin of that.

Just checking in from the west coast. Good to see the good work going on here!

Slow but sure for me. Now that my Chi Ha is winding down I can turn my full attention to some wingy thingy fast movers....

I'm liking that interior stikpusher. Nice!