Plodding along real sloooooow. Trying to get these wings to fit right has been a PITA!!! I think I have that licked. Sanding the leading edge, with all that raised detail really tries the patience as well.
Here’s a few of the things I have been doing.
I had to add some extensions to the wing parts, to fill the gaps(never had putty go well for me)
This is roughly what the gap was like before the styrene filler. (a touch exaggerated)
After
I just CAed a strip of styrene to the end of the part, cut it down close then filed and sanded.
The exaust pipes don’t look so hot, so aluminum tubing to replace them.
I cut out the molded in nav.lights and made some new ones. I sanded down two sides of some clear sprue to make a 90* angle. Drilled out the “bulbs” and painted red/green, then painted the rest silver.
Cut part down and CA’ed into place.
Using my trusty grinding bit and Dremel, I ground them down to shape and sanded them along with the wing. Then, used a buffing wheel in the Dremel, they got polished.
The rest of this evening was spent just cleaning things up a bit. If we get the rain that the weather guessers are calling for tomorrow, I ought to be able to get her almost ready for some paint.
Wow, Fermis, great progress! I like your detail on the navigation lights, I’m going to try that myself, I never thought about drilling out and putting the color inside, that sounds like a great idea.
I did some painting yesterday, white belly and a couple shades of intermediate blue for the rest. Inspiration for the markings came from this pic in the book that came with the kit.
And this pic was inspiration for the well worn finish.
Today, I cut masks and painted the markings. I started with white, then cut out the stars from the decals to use as masks for painting the blue (before decals set). As soon as the paint was dry to the touch, I used a bit of masking tape to pull off the decal/mask.
Mkngs all painted and a raw umber wash.
Still got some beating up to do yet, then on to the fiddly bits!
Kinda dark, Pard… Can you adjust the exposure with Windows? I tried, but some error keeps me from saving them… There’s a ligghter-shaded band of some sort around the TBDs and I can’t tell if a different color or just newer paint on 600 & 602…
IMHO, I think there is a differant color band on the fuselage, I believe its due to the time period of the shot, I can’t remember the dating, but the Navy changed the size of the fuselage roundels, in '42 ?? from the larger Prewar/Early war to the smaller roundel. I beleive the differant color band is from overpainting the previous markings to the new…
Well, that’s where I have some confusing issues too… Pre-war/Post Yellow-wing, the US Navy had one size of roundel on the fuselage, then went to an over-sized one (but only in the PTO, I think) just prior to the Coral Sea battle, then painted out the red center between then & Midway, THEN changed the size again, all in 1942…
Stikpusher (I think) posted a link once upon a time to US Navy Markings and Camouflage but damned if I can find it now…
also another possibility, is the band is where the numbers are, could it be these planes were front line planes, returned to the states or rear areas for training ?The front line unit codes painted out, and training numbers painted on, the fuselage numbers are high as in high numbered, didnt most training planes use high numbers ? most front line planes had lower numbers didn’t they ??
I think so… The unit codes were removed right around the “Midway” time… 'Course, they could be aircraft from “Theater” OTUs rather than “Stateside” units… I’m not all that up on what the Navy did during that time-frame…
One of the things I read about was that the use of the US Insignia on both wings was discontinued because of an unintended “Aiming Point” given to enemy gunners allowing them to “aim at center mass between the stars” in order to target the cockpit. The red disc was ordered removed due to “friendly fire” incidents, gunners mistaking the red center for Japanese Hinomaru…
The short-lived red-bordered insignia was added in the summer of '43, and it was felt that it wouldn’t be a recognition issue for gunners… Turned out that the 'Planners" were wrong: Gunners were still “Seeing red” and shooting at aircraft marked with the red borders…
