| Grumman’s Big Bad Bird
Trumpeter 1:32nd TBF/TBM Avenger by Pete Presnell March 2008
Reviewers often speak of that epiphany moment when they pulled the lid off this or that kit, felt the rapture, and couldn’t withstand the urge to dive in… but until you’ve popped the seal on Trumpeter’s TBF-1c (or TBM-3) in 1/32, you don’t know epiphany! Let’s see, well for starters, it’s vast; it’s awesome; it’s incredibly detailed. It’s like working your way along Grumman’s Beth Page assembly line, sub assembly after sub assembly. I half expected to run into “Rosie the Riveter” in the box. The manufacturer claims 489 parts, but I’m convinced they left off a zero. Staring down into the open maw of that box I realized that once I climbed in, I was going to be gone for a very long time. It’s like building the original only a tad smaller. Did I mention it’s vast? Once into building, I realized that Trumpeter had eclipsed what I, and many others, thought was their best and most complete offering: their SBD series. Trump’s Avenger is the SBD up about five times. It’s hard to imagine where they could possibly go from here. In fact, since I elected to build it with wings spread to celebrate the full glory of the beast, it’s hard to imagine where I’ll find a shelf in our house with enough available real estate. It’s just my opinion, but having completed four Trumpeter kits in this scale, it occurs to me that this is a company in a constant state of reinventing itself. Their kit engineers go out on limbs, they innovate, they take risks. Granted, a few of the limbs they’ve gone out on might better serve as firewood, than innovation, but through the trial and error process they keep nudging the bar higher, and it’s interesting to note how many of Trumpeter’s “risks” and innovations have so rapidly found their way into the kits of other mainstream manufactures. This build is OOB with the exception of Eduard seat belts (for all three stations), white metal landing gear (an absolute necessity considering the weight of the completed model), Montex insignia masks, and my homemade ignition harness. With only a few exceptions here and there, the fit and finish was superb.    
“White 95” of VT-2, as depicted here, was deployed aboard the second USS Hornet (CV 12) during the summer of 1944. She carried out 53 bombing missions, 3 torpedo missions, and participated in the battle of the Philippine Sea. As I soaked up more and more facts about Avenger squadrons it became clear to me that “White 95” would not sit right depicted as a polished restoration. She participated in some of the most horrific and desperate warfare ever to take place on or above the sea. Big, slow, pilot friendly, and packing an ordnance load deadlier than hell, she was a survivor. So I wanted this Avenger to look like she’d been in the fight and was game for more. 
I painted with White Ensign’s phenomenal enamels (varying shades of their Zinc Chromate inside, and various mixes of Extra Dark Sea Grey and Non Specular White for the exterior) and applied them according to lessons learned from Jay Laverty’s tutelage, ie.: pre and post shading, working wet into wet. I then went back and used the air from my airbrush to blow droplets of dark oily looking watercolor into the slipstream. I finished up by dusting on finely ground pastels for gun and engine exhaust.  
My Avenger odyssey lasted six months. Then one day, unexpectedly, the project was finished, and it was generally agreed that a celebration was in order! 
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B-26B-50MA Marauder
1:72 by Peter Ohlenmacher 
This is the Hasegawa Marauder finished as a B-26B-50MA of the 584th Bomb Squadron. It is built out of the box with the addition of a scratchbuilt bombsight, photo etched seatbelts, True Details wheels and decals from Zotz.
   
   
 
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| Tamiya 1:48 P-51B Mustang In German Markings "Zircus Rosarius" by Jay Laverty
These markings were from the Cutting Edge sheet featuring captured aircraft in service with JG 200, AKA "Zircus Rosarius". I fancied building it right away as the colours on this particular P-51B jumped out at me. The classic and very accurate Tamiya kit was selected for this project because one can always count on Tamiya for an easy build.
This model was such a simple build that it hardly seemed like any effort to get together. I can highly recommend this kit to anyone with any level of ability and guarantee a respectable result. It took a grand total of an evening to build and that included painting and weathering the cockpit.
The only details that I added are the superb etched/pre-painted seatbelts from Eduard.
I used Alclad for the metal finish and I do love this gear. Several shades were used to pick out different panels on the wings and when it came to shading the panel lines I found an old bottle of Alclads "Shade" in my paints box and find myself wondering why on earth they no longer offer this colour.
This sheet is up to Cutting Edge's usual standards and went on with no effort, requiring little or no microset and very little microsol to settle down.
I confess that I felt a bit gutted when I looked at the finished model as I thought that the big black cross on the fuselage takes away from the lines of this beautiful aircraft.
Still it's an interesting subject and makes for something a little different and with the yellow undersides it is defintely very colourful.
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| Trumpeter 1:32nd SBD-3 Dauntless by Jay Laverty
 
Someone’s Listening
Say what you like about Trumpeter and their kits, they are listening. Over the last couple of years we have seen a steady improvement in the engineering of every progressive release and in this kit we see what the pinnacle is thus far. There is some debate in the usual places with regards to the representation of the rivet detail on the model, and the designers at Trumpeter must be shaking their heads wondering how they can win. The saying goes “You can’t please all of the people all of the time” and that is never more true than here. Aviation modellers prefer recessed detail and of course all of the detail on this kit is recessed. Now however, there are those who bemoan the recessed rivets claiming they are inappropriate in this scale. I disagree with this as I feel this is a spectacular model, and this fact becomes apparent very quickly.
For me every kit starts with a careful studying of the instruction sheet to plan the build and see where the instructions will conflict with painting. Clearly the folks at Trumpeter have thought this one through, as the interior assembly is laid out in such a way that there is very little conflict in this respect. Several of the components, such as consoles and the radios, need to be a different colour than the basic interior green, therefore I decided to cut all of the parts away from the sprue, clean them up then label them on the rear in order to keep track of where they will go when it comes time to assemble them. Here we start to see the superior quality of the tooling of this kit, as all of these parts are superbly detailed and comprise more detail than most kits I have seen in this scale, if not all.
Clear Innovations
The fit of the parts thus far is proving to be excellent, and the only minor problem was the turret, which requires a small amount of superglue to fill a gap that arises at the rear of the ring. Interestingly the instructions call for the flaps in the turret to be painted red brown, which I erroneously assumed to represent bakelite or something like that. After looking at a couple of references including the Squadron “Walk Around” title, it was obvious that this colour is incorrect and they are the same colour as the interior. In fact there are a couple of instances in the instructions that call for the incorrect colour, therefore I recommend keeping some trustworthy reference at hand and following that as much as possible. Despite following this advice I imagine there will be a couple of instances where I have got it wrong, but you will have to excuse me if I do not lose any sleep over it.
One thing that I have always never completely understood about Trumpeter kits is their insistence on a clear instrument panel incorporating the dials. Personally I would much rather have a panel made from the same plastic as the kit, with openings for the dials that can be filled later with Kristal Kleer. Thumbs up though, for using the film sandwich method on Trumpeters part, as this is clearly (forgive the pun) one of the more positive innovations a mainstream manufacturer has given us in a long time. I was faced with a dilemma on what to do about the dials; however this was quickly resolved after the intervention of Darek at Montex masks. After speaking to him about the possibility of having some masks done for this kits canopy, the added bonus was them thoughtfully including complete masks for the instrument panels. So after covering the dials, it was a five minute job to paint the thing! With the way the masks are laid out, the black areas can then be covered and the green areas painted. It really is as simple as it sounds. After an hour or so of work on the instrument panel, we are ready to move onto painting the cockpit interior as a whole.
Step Inside
As the pictures and accompanying captions will hopefully illustrate, a method of painting a base of Alclad Aluminium was employed, followed with the interior Zinc Chromate which was then picked away in places to reveal the metal underneath. A simple operation that hinges on the enamels still being ever so slightly wet (others may do it differently, but I find this works for me) it does not take long to “chip” away enough of the interior green from areas that are likely to receive a lot of wear and tear, before the effect looks very convincing. Now we can assemble some of the various components of the interior sidewalls, along with just about everything aside from the seat, and apply some Gloss varnish. After that the details may be picked out on the sidewalls (the gloss being helpful if any mistakes are made when painting as this allows for the quick removal of the offending “smudge” without damaging the paint underneath) and the wash applied.
With the interior ready to be assembled, it was decided to move onto the engine, which is a superb tooling unto itself. Provided are just about every detail aside from the cooling flaps actuator ring and thus cries out for the opening of a cowling. Being game for that, I decided to add some ( not all ) of the wiring detail around the engine and behind it, deciding to make it look somewhat busy and interesting as opposed to completely accurate. Besides you could spend a week recreating all of the detail in there! Once again, in the interests of preventing extreme literary boredom I hope the pictures and captions will once again illustrate what I did to this effect with some clarity.
With these two subassemblies ready to go can join the fuselage halves, which fit rather well, aside from the fact that the floor behind the turret splays them apart slightly and this requires quite a bit of carefully applied pressure to achieve a snug fit.
Keeping up Appearances
When it comes to the wings, things are equally as good as we have seen thus far aside from the flaps. I have to confess to being slightly less than impressed at first with the way the flaps are placed on the sprue. It may seem like a small and unimportant issue, but these are laid our with resin type long attachment points which aside from being slightly unusual for an injection moulded kit, are just a tad inconvenient. Nevertheless they are not terribly difficult to deal with and are taken care of in short order with a razor saw. Of course, the very welcome trade off in this is the fact that the flaps are completely devoid of ejector pin marks as these are located on the elongated attachment points, thus this very obvious part of the model will look very good with the minimal amount of work.
Overall let it be said that the detail of the wing components is of a very high calibre, and when compared to photographs the actuators are just about as good as it gets, so credit where it is due, and its hats off to the boys at Trumpeter once again. As the accompanying pictures will illustrate the flaps have been painted separately and the entire wing assembled before attaching to the fuselage. It is worth noting here that so far this has been one very pleasurable kit to build and unless something drastic happens with regards to the fit this little beast will prove to be one of my favourite models of all time.
Casting Call
One of my all time favourite “useful things” has proven to be Cast-A-Coat from Cammett. Unassuming, yet infinitely useful, this awesome stuff finds its way into most projects I take on whether they have tracks or wings. So when it comes to adding the “non-slip” treads on the wing root this is the obvious and logical choice. A ten minute procedure, this stuff is easiest to apply after the wings have been painted, just prior to glossing and weathering.
Managing all of the remaining sub-assemblies is a simple task at this point, although not every component goes together with the precision accuracy the lazy side of me prefers. The engine cowling was one that took some careful and patient work, although it was by no means difficult, and after appropriate care was taken assembling it, it actually comes up quite well. Trust me, gauging my abilities with the result, this shows itself to be quite an easy operation!
Overall there were one or two gaps in the model that required small amounts filler (medium viscosity superglue in this case) but nothing beyond the means of all but the most inexperienced “snap tite” modeller.
Put your Coat on
Having used White Ensign’s Colourcoats previously on my armour projects I knew what to expect, and they certainly didn’t disappoint here. If you use Xtracolor or have used them before, Colourcoat is of equal quality and being a matt finish the only difference is that they dry quicker. This took some getting used to as my method of shading hinges on the colours blending, so I had to adjust to working slightly faster which meant no smoke breaks between coats. As you can see by the photographs everything turned out as well as it can on one of my models and White Ensign earn a well deserved two thumbs up here.
If you have read any of my previous articles you will be familiar with my method of shading, therefore I will briefly summarise the theory behind it here. The highlights and the lowlights perform an obvious task; however the most crucial and easily overlooked step is the blending coat. A heavily thinned mixture of the base colour spraying the entire surface of the model will restore the original colour whilst maintaining the effects of the high and lowlights. This is very important when you consider that by adding either black or white to the base colour, you drastically change its properties. Getting back to the model, with the quicker drying time of the Colourcoats, it is only about two hours before the surface is dry enough to safely apply the gloss varnish. As can be expected, I managed to make a mistake of some sort when applying the varnish, as it ended up with a very prominent “orange peel effect”. Whether this was a matter of temperature, or pressure I am not sure but the problem ended up taking only a night to fix. By sanding back the surface using MasterCasters sanding sponges and finally the Miracle Shiner I managed to get the surface ready for a carefully applied final coat of gloss. Leaving this to dry overnight, we are thankfully able to move onto the decaling and weathering stages of the project, which also happens to be the part I enjoy the most.
Dodgy decals
The kit decals are…err…decals and the less said about them the better. Trumpeter impressed me at a time with their choice of using Cartograph to print their decals, however things have gone downhill ever since. While the norm for these kits have been pretty decent decals, nothing spectacular, but usable, these are pretty bad. Granted, they do indeed settle down onto the model well enough, but they are very fragile and would prove to be quite a nightmare when it came to removing the wash. The film covering the decals must be very thin or very poor as the wash became a part of it right away, and I would therefore recommend glossing the decals after applying them if you decide to use the kit decals. Of course, I have no doubt there will be plenty of companies offering excellent silk screen alternatives to the kit decals.
The Right Wash
As per the norm for on of my projects, out come the Winsor and Newton’s artist oils and white spirits. Mixing at a ratio of approximately 85% thinner and 15% paint, a viscosity will be achieved that will allow the mixture to settle into the lines and rivets, while still being thick enough to require only one pass. As far as the colour of the wash is concerned, my personal preference is for a mixture of Paynes Gray and Raw Umber. Either on its own will does not look correct in my mind, but together they create a perfect mix. Raw Umber is too Brown and Paynes Gray is...well…too grey.
Removing the excess mixture is another source of constant education, and a tedious uninteresting exercise as well. There is however, a point in the drying process of the wash where it reaches the perfect point at which it is easy to remove from the surface while not “pulling” the remnants from the trenches and divots. There are several ways to achieve some more interesting results than are plainly obvious, as by simply following the airflow with the cotton bud when removing the excess wash it is simple to create the impression of wear that realistically follows the flow of air over the wings.
A Nice Effect
Leaving the matt varnish (did I mention how much I like it?) overnight to dry the model is ready for the weathering pigments the following day. My attempts recently have been to concentrate on creating more of an overall impression with my weathering as opposed to highlighting each individual effect, and I feel I have managed some degree of success with this model. I used most of the normal repertoire of CMK’s stardust weathering pigments on this one, but as you can see from the images, they have all gone together superbly creating a nice effect. After experimenting with different types of brushes for applying the pigments I have found that a good stiff, small to medium width flat brush is the most effective for applying, blending and removing of excess pigment. Pleased with the results of the pigments, that will be it. Job done.
| Available From: | 
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Grumman’s Big Bad Bird
Trumpeter 1:32nd TBF/TBM Avenger by Pete Presnell March 2008
Reviewers often speak of that epiphany moment when they pulled the lid off this or that kit, felt the rapture, and couldn’t withstand the urge to dive in… but until you’ve popped the seal on Trumpeter’s TBF-1c (or TBM-3) in 1/32, you don’t know epiphany! Let’s see, well for starters, it’s vast; it’s awesome; it’s incredibly detailed. It’s like working your way along Grumman’s Beth Page assembly line, sub assembly after sub assembly. I half expected to run into “Rosie the Riveter” in the box. The manufacturer claims 489 parts, but I’m convinced they left off a zero. Staring down into the open maw of that box I realized that once I climbed in, I was going to be gone for a very long time. It’s like building the original only a tad smaller. Did I mention it’s vast? Once into building, I realized that Trumpeter had eclipsed what I, and many others, thought was their best and most complete offering: their SBD series. Trump’s Avenger is the SBD up about five times. It’s hard to imagine where they could possibly go from here. In fact, since I elected to build it with wings spread to celebrate the full glory of the beast, it’s hard to imagine where I’ll find a shelf in our house with enough available real estate. It’s just my opinion, but having completed four Trumpeter kits in this scale, it occurs to me that this is a company in a constant state of reinventing itself. Their kit engineers go out on limbs, they innovate, they take risks. Granted, a few of the limbs they’ve gone out on might better serve as firewood, than innovation, but through the trial and error process they keep nudging the bar higher, and it’s interesting to note how many of Trumpeter’s “risks” and innovations have so rapidly found their way into the kits of other mainstream manufactures. This build is OOB with the exception of Eduard seat belts (for all three stations), white metal landing gear (an absolute necessity considering the weight of the completed model), Montex insignia masks, and my homemade ignition harness. With only a few exceptions here and there, the fit and finish was superb. (Photo 2) (Photo 3) (photo 4) “White 95” of VT-2, as depicted here, was deployed aboard the second USS Hornet (CV 12) during the summer of 1944. She carried out 53 bombing missions, 3 torpedo missions, and participated in the battle of the Philippine Sea. As I soaked up more and more facts about Avenger squadrons it became clear to me that “White 95” would not sit right depicted as a polished restoration. She participated in some of the most horrific and desperate warfare ever to take place on or above the sea. Big, slow, pilot friendly, and packing an ordnance load deadlier than hell, she was a survivor. So I wanted this Avenger to look like she’d been in the fight and was game for more. (Photo 5) I painted with White Ensign’s phenomenal enamels (varying shades of their Zinc Chromate inside, and various mixes of Extra Dark Sea Grey and Non Specular White for the exterior) and applied them according to lessons learned from Jay Laverty’s tutelage, ie.: pre and post shading, working wet into wet. I then went back and used the air from my airbrush to blow droplets of dark oily looking watercolor into the slipstream. I finished up by dusting on finely ground pastels for gun and engine exhaust. (Photo 6) (Photo 7) My Avenger odyssey lasted six months. Then one day, unexpectedly, the project was finished, and it was generally agreed that a celebration was in order! (Photo 8) |
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