Battle of Midway Aircraft Group Build

Panzer here is a link to a review of the Special Hobby Brewster F2A-3 Buffalo
"Battle of Midway" edition. At the bottom of the page is a pic of a Buffalo from VMF-211 and Tom is right, apart from the national insignia there's not much to the markings. If you could pick up some generic black serials you could combine them to make the correct codes.

http://kits.kitreview.com/sh48032reviewse_1.htm

Cheers
Darren

Bob - The decals in the Tamiya Wildcat aren't too bad actually. When I built mine a while ago, they behaved themselves quite well. They are no where near as thick as the decals in the P-47's, Corsairs (or most of Tamiyas kits for that matter). Some of the better decals Tamiya have produced actually.

Daniel-thanks for the info. Using the kit decals will be a cost savings (to be spent elsewhere) and a time savings. Seems that everything I order is 'out of stock'.

Oh well, builds patience I guess...

Ultracast seats didn't ship until today-won't see until Tue. (if i'm lucky-the canopy masks for the North Africa F-6A are in the same shipment) so I used the last seat of PE belts I had and finished the interior. With a little luck, should be able to get everything buttoned up this weekend and maybe painted....maybe.

Looks great so far Bob. The colour looks just about right for a wildcats interior. Looks good with the floor secttions cut out too. Great job.

Lookin' good Bob! Can't wait to see it buttoned up.

looking good Bob! who makes those belts? they look nice!

Thanks all-Really enjoying the quality of the Tamiya kit-this is my first Tamiya plane (one tank last year and some 1/12th F1 cars waaaay back when I was in college-let's just say mid-70's and leave it at that..).

Tom-The belts are Eduard, product number 49001, pre-painted. Happy with them to date but still like the looks of the Ultracast products. I have the Wildcat seats coming, therefore, I will have to build at least two more Wildcats to break even-one in Atlantic paint scheme and one tbd. Just hope Hobby Lobby keeps running the 50% off sales!

Bob - agree on the HL sales... sadly it doesn't look like they restocked much after the last sale... hope it doesn't mean they are cutting down on stock!!!

On a positive note they started carrying Iwata brushes and the wife lovingly picked one up today for me as she knew I had been wanting to buy one. I had wanted the HP-CS but she got me the CR but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth??? It's still gravity fed!!! And the needle/nozzle combo will handle my acrylics better anyway... She mentioned the HP-CS would make a good Christmas present... so maybe I'll have to keepo her around at least till then!

I may have to order a set of those belts for those kits with no seat detail and no Ultracast seats... I want to get a Luftwaffe set to as they don't have many of those in Ultracast...

Wow Tom, your wife sounds like a keeper!!! My wife bought me my paasche H many years ago, I should start dropping some hints that its time for an upgrade.

Yeah Dave ... Xmas is 4 months away... you should have started hinting 2 months ago!! of course you'll need the right kit to try it out on!!!

Tom-congrats on the airbrush. Sounds like a winner-like the wife. I've decided that I have a regulator going bad. Set it at 10-15psi and it 'bleeds' down to almost zero. Unfortunatly, it is 'built into' the compressor. However, I think I can attach a new/better one after the moisture filter and then crank-up the original one to 50-60psi and make it work.

Made some more progress on the Wildcat. Engine done, paint applied. Not brave enough let to add white/blue-grey mix to 'fade' the finish-will do that with chalk pastels later. Lost the radio antenna somewhere in the process.....such is life....there appears to be a different antenna in the Tamiya kit for a different version-should be able to make it work though. Fighting the urge to not use the kit decals but oder decals that will make this a legit Midway Wildcat....money....ligitimicy....money....oh, never mind...

Tom-when you have a moment, please refresh my memory on how you did your artist oil wash on your North Africa Martlett. Might give it a try after the Future coat insteat of the norma acrylic wash. Thanks

hmmm... I may have to do a real Wildcat one day... it doesn't look all that bad in blue either!

Bob- On the Martlet I used a mix of Paynes grey and burnt umber, but on your you might want to stick with a black or very dark grey. Just get some of that turpenoid from the hobby lobby or whatever is near and mix it just like an acrylic wash. On a completely futured fuselage just take a soft wide brush and brush an entire section at a time as in a whole upper wing. You can immediately take a paper towel and wipe off the excess in the direction of air flow. Then get a fresh paper towel and begin wiping off the oil until it looks just right to a little heavy. Any deep crevices or detail near a part junction (wing root) can collect a lot of oil, use a pointed end brush to drag this out till you can get at it with a qtip or a piece of paper towel. Just work at it like this till you like it!!!

On the lower wing surfaces it works particularly well as the counterweights will provide a streaking effect after them just like you see on the real things... the various protuberances will do the same thing...

After you are happy with it let it sit about 2 days before coating it as it will still be somewhat workable. This is a pain BUT the thing is if you decide something looks a bit off you can still correct it in the first day or so after washing... oil stains can be done the same way by adding a litle burnt umber to the mix, placing a dab along the panel you want it to be coming from then use a paper towel to LIGHTLY run it back in the direction of drip or air flow...

if it looks overdone after drying you can take some powdered pastels and brush over the area to lighten it... I did that on the wingtops and upper fuselage as well to simulate some fading... the future washed some of it off when I sprayed it on but it actually provided a somewhat mottled fading which was even nicer...

Good luck!! If that didn't make sense let me know, sometimes I confuse even myself!

Thanks Tom-makes sense. Just might give it a go. Still a bit off till I get around to that point. Best case I might get it Futured late week (noticed that the grey on the left side is a bit too low around the engine area-a little touch-up may be in order. And I still need to mask the canopy....and the canopy on the F-6A. With a little luck & a good tail wind, I might get both done by Labor Day and then move on to the P-40 GB. Which should time out perfectly to the start of the Old Guns GB & the Battle for Germany GB.....

I'm glad you reminded me of that Bob - I might enter my P-26 from the Pearl Harbor GB in the old guns one... hope they let multiple GB kits fly!!!

I didn't think Bob - I just did an oil wash onthe cockpit of the P-26, I should took pics for ya... oh well I am sure I will be doing it again before the weekend...

Nice paint job Bob. Looks like you're really getting really good with that AB. For decals, why not use the kit decals and re-arrange them to make a Midway wildcat? From looking at the decal sheet of my old Tamiya kit, here's what I'd do:

There's plenty of black F's on there and a couple of black 8's. All you have to do is arrange them to say F-8 on the fuselage side. Then you've got yourself a Wildcat from VF-6 that flew from Enterprise at Midway. By the time of Midway, the squadron numbers were removed so F-8 will be fine. If you want to show the squadron codes, just cut out one of the 9' and flip it over to say 6. Arrange the decals to say 6-F-8 and you're set. Then just use the insignias without the red dots. That's all the markings the aircraft would have had.

Thanks Daniel-sounds like a plan!

Bob, I know his is a couple of posts back but WOW! Excellent cockpit, how did you get the details on the IP dials, it looks great?

Darren

Thanks Darren-for the IP, I used a white pencil (I think Tom mentioned it many posts ago). Also used a red pencil for various switches.

yeah if there is no decal (of decent look) I use a silver or white pencil sharpened very good and pick out the detai on the graduations, and later began playing with the yellow and red for the marks as well... it works a lot better than drybrushing them for me as I tend to get too much on the IP as well haha...

hey bob beautiful cockpit and great paintjob so far cant wait yo see the finished product
my buff is as done as can be without buttioning it up cockpit is built and painted as is engine maybe i could add an ignition harness anyone have any pics of the engine that was in a buffalo? thanx for your help and ideas helping me build this thing up nice btw a lil back info my great uncle did advanced training in a buffalo before going to wildcats and eventually hellcats

cool Panzer, not sure if you read the early parts of this build but my uncle was a SBD gunner.. gotta wonder what it was to fly daily in the things we dream and build so much of...

Well i buttoned up the fuselage and i'm workin on the wings things are going smooth for now i still want to get some pics for you guys oh btw whats the url for the GB badge

P.S. a lil off topic but i mentioned an idea i had for a GB well i posted it today take a look if ya want tell me what ya thinkseeya

Panzer - most of us are hosting it ourselves. you can right click on mine and slick on save as. just save it to your desktop then upload it to where you host your pics at. If you dont have a pic hosting site check out www.photobucket.com... it will be invaluable for posting your model build pics here!

Looking forward to the pics!!! I'll have some of my Zero this weekend, been 95% done for a week now just haven't got around to pics...

Decals are on the Wildcat-many thanks to Daniel for suggesting how to use the existing Tamiya decals.

Tamiya decals are a bit thick though-hard to manage. Not happy with the alignment of the side decals, but I can live with them. Also used enough Solveaset to melt duct tape. The Future clouded around the decals, but another coat should cure that. That will give me time to get brave enough to try an oil wash....

Bob - good luck! just make sure you have the much fabled 'coffee' consistency to your wash... just like acrylics... you should do fine!!! thing is if you don't like it you have 2 days to wipe it off with Turpenoid or Turpatine!!! And yeah... the future will blot out that hazing for ya!!!

Sounds like some good progress being made fellas. Looking forward to some pics. BTW, good to see those decals worked out for you Bob.

Decals on, second coat of Future on. Maybe work on the oil wash Sunday pm, maybe later in the week. Still need to work on the landing gear & tires/wheels & mask/paint the canopy. Still plenty to do....



In the future, any Tamiya kits will probably warrent AM decals-not happy working with this set.

Bob my good man you are coming along VERY nicely on that kit!!! I really am looking forward to seeing it finished... you've done a smash up job of painting it and the decals are nice and smooth...

Thank you.....thank you very much...(in my best Elvis voice)