Got the interior finished and buttoned up the fuselage last night...

Hi Everyone,

I have made some progress on my Avenger, interior is complete and fuselage has been buttoned up, along with the underside painted. Hopefully I have finally figured out how to post pictures.









That's it for now.

I've got an awful lot of balls in the air at this point, but if I ever do get going on this one...



Box is a little the worse for wear, but the plastic is fine:



I did get some aluminum painting done, but that's it. I've always liked this early war Navy scheme, so I think the box art is the one I'll do.

Michael

Hey Michael .... I want I want I want! Been looking for this kit at a reasonable price since forever!

I got one of each when they first came out and they've been in the stash since. Hope Italeri or someone re-releases them some day!

Michael

Got some color on today...

Chris, I think I would read that as a no! Keep searching mate

Mike, very nice work on the paint, looks great!

Cheers, D

Bit more paint work...

Moving right along there Mike!

Michael

Just a quick update on my Avenger.
Have completed the painting of it, and am in the process of applying the decals and stencils.





Cheers

I see a lot of nice dive bombers, but what about the quintessential of this weapon??

No brave chap willing to include at least one in this campaign?

Cheers
Pedro

The Stuka? The Luftwaffe's flying artillery? Uhmmmm I have two in 1/24th scale but I doubt I could get one finished in time!

Yep, that's the one Chris

I remember building the Airfix 1/24 in my teenage years, and I loved it! Huge and well engineered.

Too bad the only Stuka I have is a G version, not really a dive bomber

Cheers
Pedro

After consulting the database I discover I have Italeri's 1/72nd Ju87B-2/R2! So just for Jose I'll build this one also.... I'll have to look but I think it has decals for the Regia Aeronautica.

Well I am calling this one done.







I have nothing but praise for this kit. Detail is amazing to say the least. Instructions could be a little better.

Cheers

Nicely done Ted!

Nice clean build Ted, I must say I do really like the Atlantic camouflage, it makes a striking difference to the three tone Pacific colour scheme etc.

Okay here's a pic of the Italeri offering I'll be doing the North African aircraft with the snake! Surprise surprise lol!

This will be my entry for the very first group build I'm participating on.



First impressions on my initial test fits, this kit is going to be a challenge in terms of fitting and gap filling. I will be doing this OOB so the empty cockpit walls will have to remain empty. I think my major focus of learning here would be fixing the poor fittings. This tooling is way back from the '80s so poor fittings are not surprising at all.

For some reason the edges of the wings have yellowed a bit. No idea what caused that. The instructions are okay (not yellowed), so I think this is more from a recent production run. This tooling has been having reboxed released up to 2015, according to Scalemates.com



So we all start with the cockpit. And I present to you, probably the comfiest seats in Imperial Japan. The instrument panel has no decals, but surprisingly the dials are sculpted. I can probably try to do a little wash or something here to liven it up, but I won't spend too much time in the cockpit work. And sadly, the kit comes with a rear machine gun but no mount for it, and no mention in the instructions as well. Probably because there is no open canopy option.



God, this kit sure has a lot of fitting issues. It could be a contender for the forum's Hall of Shame but then this being my first circa '80s kit I won't make judgements.

So first I airbrushed the usual interior green on the cockpit areas.



Upon assembly, one can finally encounter the struggles. First, would be fitting the cockpit tub between the fuselage halves. That's centering the tub and making sure it's on the assigned grooves while holding two fuselage halves.

As the photo shows, I deliberately applied a lot of super glue to make sure the tub stays put. The fuselage halves won't sit flush together, so when the cement was dried I took some Tamiya putty to fill in the gaps, and then wet-sanded it once the putty has dried.



Now for the wings. Dry fitting shows two humongous gaps. I did a bit of sanding around the surfaces to be joined, applied cement, and assembled them together. The starboard wing seems okay, but the port side one still has the huge gap. That will have to be filled with putty on my next sitting.

Thank you gentlemen for the comments.

I also am very impressed with the Atlantic scheme as well, very unique, looks great on the display shelf !

I look forward to continue following the remainder of the builds for the balance of this campaign.

Cheers Ted

Welcome to your first campaign/group build vincent! Interesting choice of kit, I like what you've done so far.

I would make the suggestion that if you have access to plastic strip or plasticard I'd use that to fill the gap initially. If not you could always use stretched sprue to gap fill. If your not familiar with stretched sprue it's simply sprue from your kit heated by a match or lighter till it's soft (but not burnt or on fire, don't ask how I know this!) and then stretched.

The reason for this being that large areas of putty are brittle and weak and will not take the wings flexing. Using plastic to fill the gap will make the joint stronger and provide a solid bed for the putty.

Thank for the tip, Chris. I do have some styrene sheets here that I might try to get in that gap. This kit has quite a number of fitting issues, even the rudder has some.



Cowling halves have been cemented together and the engine was painted (and will be masked prior to priming of course). Here's a dry fit of the cowling. Seeing the thing take shape somewhat gives me that additional drive to push through despite the fitting problems.

Mike,
Nicely done so far. I really like the images of the paint build up.... I like that technique...

Chris....
Ah The Snake scheme, No Forza Italia!


Jeff D

Welcome Vincent!

Looking good so far.
I agree with Chris. I learned the "Hard Way" about large gap filling with putty It did not crack immediately it wait till not long after it was all completed, As usual.

I have my Aichi B7A Ryusei/Grace I should post the start images that I took 2 days ago....

Hi Jeff, I could do the Regia Areonautica scheme but it is a simple green over blue with painted out Balkan Kreuz. I suppose the snake scheme is pretty much done to death.