Battle of Midway Aircraft Group Build

bobbaily

Member since
November 2003
From: Nashville, TN area

Posted by bobbaily on Tuesday, March 8, 2005 7:55 AM

As always, thanks for the encouraging comments.

Hopefully will be able to apply a light wash, get the seat/rear turret & PE belts done over the weekend and get it buttoned up. Still much to do....

Bob

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pmm736

Member since
April 2004

Posted by pmm736 on Tuesday, March 8, 2005 8:23 PM

I'm about to start preliminary painting of my SBD-2. One thing I can't figure out from the instructions is what color to paint the interior of the wheel wells. Are they interior green or the same grey as the underside of the plane?

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tho9900

Member since
July 2004
From: SETX. USA

Posted by tho9900 on Tuesday, March 8, 2005 8:43 PM

Pete, according to my references they were the same color as the underside, light gray... in fact went out to the Naval Air Museum and they were the underside color...

ok just wanna ask... for those of you building your first AM SBD model... do you like it? how do you feel about the interior?

Just curious.. will give my take on it after I hear some comments...

---Tom--- O' brave new world, That has such people in it!

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Anonymous

Member since
November 2005

Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 5:22 AM

Tom My Avenger will be the first AM kit i've ever done so i'll make sure i post regular pics just to let you guys know how i'm going with it, just have to wait until it gets here....

Well my computer is pretty much fixed but i lost all my reference pics and everything but on the bright side i have an empty system that i can fill with pics of Madam De Kremp.....
Tom Do you still have those pics of her in that Leopard skin bikini you know the ones where she kinda looks like a cross between Alice of the Brady bunch and that Fat Phs Ed teacher from the Porkys movie.......

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Edit

pingtang

Member since
April 2003
From: NSW, Australia

Posted by pingtang on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 5:58 AM

We'll have to start a reference donation service for Jules. How can a modeler live without a huge supply of pics and books? I will be the first to offer up a disc full of reference materials. It even has the walkaround and in action books of the Avenger in pdf format (shhh.....just don't tell anyone else). Just tell me your adress, and it is yours (I'll even throw in a free set of steak knives Wink [;)]

).

-Daniel

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tho9900

Member since
July 2004
From: SETX. USA

Posted by tho9900 on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 6:15 AM

Jules: when Tweets gives me back the disks I have a several walkarounds of Kremps... some good detail shots... even the one you are talking about! Wink [;)]

---Tom--- O' brave new world, That has such people in it!

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bobbaily

Member since
November 2003
From: Nashville, TN area

Posted by bobbaily on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 6:54 AM

QUOTE: Originally posted by tho9900

ok just wanna ask... for those of you building your first AM SBD model... do you like it? how do you feel about the interior?

Just curious.. will give my take on it after I hear some comments...

As far as detail, good to great. As far as instructions showing exact placement, just glad I had the 'on line build' to figure out where to put things.

Bob

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KINGTHAD

Member since
May 2004
From: Dallas

Posted by KINGTHAD on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 8:25 AM

Tom, I like the detail of the interior but after I closed her up alot of it did disappeared.

Thad

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tweety1

Member since
August 2003
From: Alice Springs Australia

Posted by tweety1 on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 9:05 AM

QUOTE: Originally posted by tho9900

Jules: when Tweets gives me back the disks

TOM you aint NEVER gettin em back!!![:0]
Those fell into my bag fair and square!!!!!!!

QUOTE:
I have a several walkarounds of Kremps... some good detail shots... even the one you are talking about!

Guys, it TAKES several walk arounds to get Kremps to fit into 1 pic!!! Wink [;)]

And it has to be recorded on DVD, those 750Meg discs just can't hold that much data!![:0]

--Sean-- If you are driving at the speed of light and you turn on the headlights, what happens???

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tho9900

Member since
July 2004
From: SETX. USA

Posted by tho9900 on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 3:21 PM

Thad, Bob - I agree 100%.. the interior looks fabulous when you are doing it... it is kind of anti-climactic when you close her up though... still all in all the plane looks GREAT even without a good view of the cockpit... nice panel lines, good exterior detail... and that engine with a wiring harness showing is good... you don't see that on many kits. (wiring harness etc..)

Tweets - thats just the first two pics mate... I had to span DVD's on the last one...

---Tom--- O' brave new world, That has such people in it!

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darson

Member since
February 2003
From: Melbourne, Australia

Posted by darson on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 7:26 PM

Jules, good to see you back on line Smile [:)]

. Do you still have the stuff from the disk I sent up to you, if not let me know and I'll create a new one for you?

Cheers
Darren

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tho9900

Member since
July 2004
From: SETX. USA

Posted by tho9900 on Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:34 PM

Bump

---Tom--- O' brave new world, That has such people in it!

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pingtang

Member since
April 2003
From: NSW, Australia

Posted by pingtang on Thursday, March 10, 2005 8:25 PM

Tom Out of the box, it is one of the best detailed pits I've seen. It's a shame it won't be very visible when in the fuselage, but it's the same with most cockpits. Looking forward to building mine.

-Daniel

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KINGTHAD

Member since
May 2004
From: Dallas

Posted by KINGTHAD on Friday, March 11, 2005 8:46 AM

Daniel, I worked on mine last night and added a few more bits and even more detail disappeared. Its a shame no one will be able to see all that great detail from such a fine kite.

Thad

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tho9900

Member since
July 2004
From: SETX. USA

Posted by tho9900 on Friday, March 11, 2005 4:16 PM

Somehow I think people can tell the model is detailed... my neighbor came over last night and I had my unfinshed SBD sitting out along with several others (he is pondering building models as a hobby so wanted to show him a few) his eyes went straight to the SBD even though it had only one wheel and no prop on it and remarked how that one was way out of his league.

It was sitting next to my S-100 Schnellboot with 130 plus pieces if I remember right (and many more hours of work), and few otrher models with PE and resin cockpits that took me much longer to get together... I have to agree with him, with a few mods the SBD cockpit would be the ULTIMATE!!! mainly the seat and a litle PE in the controls and levers would be all that was needed... but it is great by itself!!

---Tom--- O' brave new world, That has such people in it!

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pmm736

Member since
April 2004

Posted by pmm736 on Friday, March 11, 2005 9:08 PM

Started painting the AM SBD tonight and although I haven't started construction, the kit looks very detailed and well molded with just a little bit of flash. The instructions, on the other hand have a bunch of errors (not counting the one they point out themselves). I'm glad I'm doing as much of the painting ahead of time because its giving me an opprtunity to examine all the parts and compare them to the instuctions. Can't wait to get building. I have a question on one minor point. Should the direction finder loop be painted half white and half black? The painting guide is a bit confusing. Thanks, Pete

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pingtang

Member since
April 2003
From: NSW, Australia

Posted by pingtang on Saturday, March 12, 2005 1:12 AM

I think the DF loop antenna should be half black, and half silver. The pictures I've seen seem to show it like that.

-Daniel

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bobbaily

Member since
November 2003
From: Nashville, TN area

Posted by bobbaily on Saturday, March 12, 2005 4:09 PM

QUOTE: Originally posted by pingtang

I think the DF loop antenna should be half black, and half silver. The pictures I've seen seem to show it like that.

Question-when you say half black, half silver, do you mean upper half/lower half (and if so, which color goes where) or left/right. I guess you could do inner/outer, etc. but I try to stick with the obvious. I am finding the Accurate Min. instructions to be a bit vague in certain areas and the on-line build didn't help on this question. Thanks in advance.

Bob

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pingtang

Member since
April 2003
From: NSW, Australia

Posted by pingtang on Saturday, March 12, 2005 6:49 PM

The black/silver would be painted with the black on the starboard side and the silver on the port. Not exactly sure why they painted them that way. It might have had something to do with the antenna spinning, and they painted it like that so they knew which way it was facing.

-Daniel

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pmm736

Member since
April 2004

Posted by pmm736 on Saturday, March 12, 2005 11:26 PM

So it would be black/silver and not black/white like the instructions call for? The other color question is the propeller tips. The instructions seem to be missing a couple of lines where it explains the pattern.

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bobbaily

Member since
November 2003
From: Nashville, TN area

Posted by bobbaily on Sunday, March 13, 2005 11:50 AM

Thanks Daniel.

No progress this weekend-a bit of the flu (or something like it). Just want to sleep & cough-not necessarly in that order. But I think I'm gonna live....have to-too many group builds going on....

Bob

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pmm736

Member since
April 2004

Posted by pmm736 on Sunday, March 13, 2005 3:37 PM

Made good progress today - completed the cockpit and buttoned everything up. I found the construction to be fiddely and the instructions were less than helpful in more than a couple of areas (and I thought Dragon instructions were bad!!), although the finished product looks good (even for my first plane in a very long time). My next question concerns masking the cockpit. I plan on using the canopy in the open position, so I need to protect the interior form overspray when putting on the exterior color. I was thinking of tacking on the full canopy with white glue during the painting, then removing it and installing the open sections later. Is this a good idea or is there something better I can do?

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bobbaily

Member since
November 2003
From: Nashville, TN area

Posted by bobbaily on Sunday, March 13, 2005 3:57 PM

Pete-sounds like a good plan to me. So good, I think I'll do that myself! Thanks for the tip.

Bob

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tho9900

Member since
July 2004
From: SETX. USA

Posted by tho9900 on Sunday, March 13, 2005 7:05 PM

Pete, I have done this, but since your plane is all one color basically you could stuff the cockpit with wet tissue and spray, remove the wet tissue. Then you could pray the canopy separately by using blue-tak on the end of a pencil stuck to the interior of the canopy piece to hold it while you spray...

either way would work... I think I would choose the second one but then I've never been called the sharpest crayon in the box... Wink [;)]

but have done it the other way too with success...

on a multipiece canopy I would worry about if a gap was large enough paint could run inside the gap possibly getting on the interior..

---Tom--- O' brave new world, That has such people in it!

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tho9900

Member since
July 2004
From: SETX. USA

Posted by tho9900 on Sunday, March 13, 2005 7:08 PM

Pete - just curious which areas of closing the cockpit you found fiddly... for me it was getting the gunners aft bulkhead to stay.. and the trailing edge of the wong root at the body...

that's why next time I think I will use the way shown in the online build on AM's site... attach upper wing surfaces, leaving the trailing edges near the fuselage unglued, then stick the cockpit in... it looked like it would work...

---Tom--- O' brave new world, That has such people in it!

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pmm736

Member since
April 2004

Posted by pmm736 on Sunday, March 13, 2005 7:52 PM

Maybe it was my fat fingers but I had some trouble just getting the various pieces within the cockpit to go where I wanted them to. The fact that most of them were rounded made using tweezers difficult as well. The bulkhead with the pilots seat didn't want to line up and the instrument panel never really sat in the notches correctly. Had a bit of trouble getting the points above the pilots seats to stay together. I don't have any clamps(and I couldn't find a clothes pin) so I had to hold it together until the glue dried. That was the trickiest part of putting the halves together. I have it all rubberbanded and the seams look pretty tight. I have a slight gap between the sides on the leading edge of the tail that I need to fill, but it's pretty small so it shouldn't be a problem once its painted up.

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tho9900

Member since
July 2004
From: SETX. USA

Posted by tho9900 on Sunday, March 13, 2005 8:09 PM

oh yeah I see what ya mean.. I had trouble on the first SBD I built with the fuselage around the pilots aft bulhead... on the second one I bought some plastic clips from the grocery store (in the hardware section) with rubber teeth and those work GREAT!!! just clipped on one and BAM! it was done!

good luck to you all the same... I did notice on my dash-2 it was a bit harder in places than the dash-5... maybe thats why they have it in the shop now retooling it...

----edit----

or was that the dash-3?? I can't remember now...

---Tom--- O' brave new world, That has such people in it!

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razordws

Member since
September 2004
From: Vernon, BC, Canada

Posted by razordws on Monday, March 14, 2005 2:20 PM

I finally found a kit at the LHS today for this build. It is the Academy TBF Avenger in 1/72 scale but I have a question for you. The kit gives no indication of what unit the decals are for. The only marking it has on it other than the insignia's is the arrow on the tail and the number 301. It also has a yellow nose and yellow spinner tip. Any ideas on what these markings are for? Sorry for my ignorance but this is my first non-European theatre aircraft in a loooooong time.

Dave

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tho9900

Member since
July 2004
From: SETX. USA

Posted by tho9900 on Monday, March 14, 2005 7:48 PM

if it is the yellow spinner and about the first 1/4 of the cowl that is yellow that is a squadron marking and not specific to a ship, different squadrons used different colors and sometimes they overlapped with other ships. As far as the code numbers 301 if it is one number would probably be the plane number although that is very high...

Previous to Midway they used letter/number combos to designate squadron/campaign/plane number... like on my pre-midway SBD the number on the side is 41-S-17.. so your would probably fit as it doesn't have the squadron numbers on it.. (they were painted over just prior to the battle)

hmm they arrow might give a clue to a unit but I dont know off the bat, was it poiting forward, up etc...?

---Tom--- O' brave new world, That has such people in it!

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razordws

Member since
September 2004
From: Vernon, BC, Canada

Posted by razordws on Monday, March 14, 2005 8:32 PM

Thanks Tom but I was able to do some searching earlier and I found the info I was looking for and some good links at the beginning of this thread. The kit markings are for the Bunker Hill circa '45 and has the star with bars so I will need to get a hold of some without the bars. I guess there wasn't much else on these birds besides that and a number for the aircraft. Anyway, got some other stuff to do before I can get to it.

Dave

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