Battle of Midway Group Build, 3 June, 2017 - 7 June, 2018

Welcome to the GB, Lodni!  Glad to have you here with this one, as well as the Coral Sea GB.

When you decide what to build for Midway, just post it and I'll update the build roster.  For right now, I'll put you down as "TBD."

Doug, that is so cool looking!

Sorry about that CMK! I am going to be putting the venerable 1/72 Airfix Aichi D3A1 Val kit together, in conjunction with the Japanese Aircraft GB. Got the kit pretty cheap because it was sans decals but I did find a nice Print Scale sheet for a reasonable price on Evilbay 

In fact, I gave the parts a quick wash while I was getting lunch.

Morning all! Been away for a few days, but when I got back, loads of catching up to do!

First... Welcome Lodni! Join in and have fun!

Scott... That Aircraft carrier looks GREAT! Very nicely done.

68GT, Thanks guy... Been awhile since I've seen you!

Well... On to mine. I think I'm calling this turd done. This old Revell kit was the pits, being brittle and breaking at every opportunity it could, and surprize, surprize... When I got back to finish it up , the glue had released, (didn't bond the old brittle plastic) along the lower fuselage halves, and opened up the seam from about the cockpit to the tail. All I could do at this point was to run a strip of Striping tape to cover the seam and try to touch up the paint. Fortunately I had a bit of paint left (already mixed) to do this. The 1/700th aircraft had arrived and althiugh it shows a heavier gauge wire in pictures, I have since found a much finer (Guitar string gauge) wire and have re-mounted them which looks much better then in these pics... Any way, here it is..

Well , Thats about all, (thank goodness) , I don't think I could have stood too much more fun with this one. CMK, as always, Thanks for running this one, and for the opportunity to join in... Choice of pictures for "finish" is yours. Keep up the good work all, and see you again soon!

Take care, Doug

Lodni:  I've updated the build roster with the Val; looks like a good choice, and it'll be fun watching your progress; that's a pretty colorful decal sheet!

Doug:  congratulations on finishing the beast, and making it look great.  It's a very dramatic set-up, with a lot of action, and really draws attention into the heart of the action.  You done good!

Thanks for contributing to the GB.  It's always a pleasure to see the results of your building.

Well done Doug, your build and diorama turned out very well.

You have completed a great build with brilliant detail and a diorama that has such realism.

Doug, that is just brilliant. Really nicely built kit and a great dio. You havereally pulled that off.

CMK,Damouav,Lodni,Bish...

Thank you all so much for the kind words. I really appreciate them, and love being amongst fellow modelers. Everyone here serves as a great inspiration and as always the fellowship is Top notch! Probably not enough time for another here with prior commitments, But I will as usual try to keep an eye on upcoming GBs. Bish, I'm sure you have some upcoming builds planned. Please keep me in mind! Thanks again...

Doug

Always Doug. But i don't have any new ones planned until the middle of next year. I am cutting back a bit on hosting. But i am sure someone will come up with something new soon.

Ditto from me Doug on saving this kit from the round file.  Kuddos, looks great.  

I have finally finished up my late F4U-6 Corsair and can start the 1/48 Hobby Boss Grumman TBF-1 Avenger. The box shows the airframe as a TBF-1C, which requires some modifications to change to a single 30mm cannon on the starboard side upper engine cowl and filling in a window on the port side and adding a window in the rear door. This build will be pretty much OOB.

I will be using the already purchased MRP paint, which I hope I don't have as much hassel as I have in the past with it, so onward we go.

I will be using the Eduards canopy mask set due to the amount of masking required.

Detail looks good, from my reaserach this kit is one of the better examples of the TBF Avenger.

I'm not sure if I will do a seperate WIP for this build or not, I ill see how I feel.

Enjoy

Does look like some nice detail on that Avenger. Are you useing AM decals for it.

Maybe, depending if I can source any, and I will also make as many diy masks as I can.

Any suggestion on 1/48 decals for a TBF-1 Avenger?

No idea about 48th decals, but if they were all marked similar to the one i did, it should not be to hard to find generic numbers and letters for it.

scottrc

Ditto from me Doug on saving this kit from the round file.  Kuddos, looks great.  

 

Nice to get a look at the kit, damouav.  Looks like you've got plenty of parts to play around with!

Thanks guys, Looking forward to the first build session.

Please sign me up with a Fujimi 1/48 Val. 

plasticjunkie

Please sign me up with a Fujimi 1/48 Val. 

 

Will do asap. Still no working computer at home.

Got you signed up now, pj.  Glad to have you in the GB.  Looking forward to watching your build!

Thanks check!

Got started on my contribution which I picked up at the last model show's vendor tables for $5 and still factory sealed.

Told myself I was gonna buld it OOB but it's beginning to not look as planned. I decided to drop the flaps so some cutting is required. I'm using the back edge of a #11 blade to score the outline and the UMM razor saw to easily cut the ends. It takes a steady hand and multiple passes using light pressure on the blade to get an even clean line.

I also started on the VERY sparse pit. It will need lots of thingies to make it look busy.

$5?! Nice score! That’s a good old kit. Not as nice as the newer Hasegawa kit, but no dog by a long shot. 

What marking options does your boxing have? Is that the one you posted about in the Japanese Translation thread?

stikpusher

$5?! Nice score! That’s a good old kit. Not as nice as the newer Hasegawa kit, but no dog by a long shot. 

What marking options does your boxing have? Is that the one you posted about in the Japanese Translation thread?

 

Yes Stik the same. Tespest Johnny helped me out by giving me some left over decals he had for the Val from the Kaga and Akagi.

Yes it's a nice kit with fine recessed details but the pit needs some TLC but hey, not bad at $5! 

Hey PJ, nice to see you in the GB.  Looking forward to seeing what you do with that kit.  I am sure it will be fantastic.  $5.  Why can't I ever find those.  LOL.

D

Here is the box art and where I'm at on the Monogram B-26.  The first thing I did was saw off the fin from the fuselage halves, the early B-26's had smaller fins.  Then I sawed off the outer wing panels after gluing the wing panels together.  I did it with my band saw and it worked well and was gratifyingly fast.  A rough file was used to remove the remaining  plastic back to the tape line, which was even with a panel line on the top of the wing.  A little of the tab on the end of the resin wing panels had to be filed off before the fit was correct.  The resin outer panels were attached using thin CA and microballoons.  One of the photos shows the difference in the early and late wing panels, not a minor difference.  And that's all I've got to say about this.

Thanks D

Jeaton the surgery looks awesome.

As I got more info on the Val, the pit detail shortcomings kept mounting. So much for the OOB build.

Here's the pit as OOB

And after adding a bunch of missing details. Some may not be historically correct but they resemble the instruments and thingies in the real thing (Gismology). The seat in the actual Val was not attached to the floor as in the kit but rather suspended in a metal tube cradle which I fashioned out of stretched sprue. I did not bother to remove the seat from the kit's floor mount since it will not be visible when viewed from above after the fuselage assembly. The rudder pedals were made from stretched sprue and pe parts from my spares/junk box.

closeup of the seat cradle

I also want to the pit details visible so I sliced up the kit two piece canopy. I used the UMM saw for this task.

The saw is paper thin and did a great job.

The pit sidewalls were also gismolized

some more details at the rear position

The wings needed some stretchers made from sprue to get an even join at the root.

Flaps were cut out and edges filled with PPP.

I still have to add some wiring in the pit, paint and weathering then seatbelts will go on. And forgot about the IP that is next.