A brief interlude to describe how I came to my current dilemma, may be long winded so skip towards the bottom section titled “THE PLAN” to hear my actual plan if you want to argue with it
.So I have in my stash, an Accurate Miniatures TBF-1C. I have previously built this kit, but it was damaged during one of several moves, so I bought a second kit cheaply off ebay (yes suprisingly, cheaply), to replace the missing parts. I decided instead to replicate the required parts, and build the second kit as a British Avenger Mk 2.
Then I discovered that Hobby Boss do an Avenger Mk 1, and I bought that as well, figured I could do different colour schemes and show slight variations in configuration.
Silly me, only after purchase did I do some research, turns out the Hobby boss is just a TBF-1C same as the AM kit with some FAA decals.
Now to my dilemma.
So based on my research (internet only), The Hobby Boss Avenger, may or may not actually be a Mk 1.
Depending on which side of which particular argument I read, Mk 1s were all TBF-1s and Mk 2s were TBF/M-1Cs, but Mk 1s could also be 1Cs, or they might be 1s with replacement wings from 1Cs, or some other unknown configuration of TBF-1.
Other information I read tells me that ALL British avengers had the second seat behind the pilot, but given that actual surviving FAA Avengers appear to be the proverbial hens teeth, I am uncertain whether this really applies to late war versions, and there does seem to be some information that at least one FAA squadron got unmodified American Avengers. I don’t have the funds to buy up a whole heap of reference books to try and figure things out so…
THE PLAN
My intent when I finally get around to building these beasts, is to modify the HB kit to backdate it to a TBF-1 by:
1 – adding the appearance of the cowling machine gun, and remove any hint of the wing machine guns by filling in the gun port on the leading edge, and filling the access panels on top of the wings
2 – Add a second seat, and some basic instruments behind the pilot, using parts of the Verlinden and Eduard detail sets that I have
3 – Copy the bulged sighting windows from the AM kit and replace the rectangular ones
4 – Remove and fill the underwing mounting points for the zero length rails
5 – Add some actual detail to what looks like a fairly garbage wing fold mechanism
6 – Other mods yet to be determined.
AM Kit mods:
1 – Wings will be replaced with the folded set from Wolfpack
2 – Rectangular windows will be replaced with the bulged versions
3 – Decals from Xtradecal
4 – Haven’t decided if I will also add the second seat and associated gear to this, or leave it as unmodified.
As far as British equipment like radios, sutton harnesses, and oxygen gear goes, I am still trying to source info and/or aftermarket parts that won’t see me too much out of pocket, as like reference books, the budget is severely limited.
I do have a plethora of scratchbuilding tools and supplies at my disposal, so any guidance on I how might achieve the results I want with the tools at hand would be welcomed.
And if anyone has any access to definitive information, that too would be welcome.
