Matt, you are building another masterpiece.

I will go with a different scheme than I normally do. Ive ordered some decals for RNZAF F4U Corsairs. The bottom of the photo is the set that I will go with.

Here are a couple of in progress Photos.





Need to finish some detail painting, do some weathering and dull coat and it is done.

A lot of great models in this campaign!
Tom

Happy New Year!

Lots of good and different builds going on here! Keep it up!

Since my last update I've been fairly productive. Got the cockpit completed, and buttoned up the fuselage and am currently cleaning up the airframe for painting. I also had a bit of fun researching my choice of markings.

This took a bit of digging, but I think I've got it right. Tamiya introduced this kit in 1973, along with the A6M2b (said to be the most kitted zero, not sure on that). Overall it's pretty good, and considering the year it debuted it still holds its own. My sample is one of the original kits from Japan, with instruction in Japanese, and box that is world travelled. It had some minor flash, but the decals looked brand new. Granted they are bit thick, and I think I'll be using them as templates with some frisket paper to make masks. The decals have markings for 4 different planes, 2 off of the seaplane tender Kamikawa Maru.

Now the fun research, which has several accounts, but I believe for what I intend, it's correct. On 14 July 1942 or 10-August 1942, after completing her role in the Aleutians Kamikawa Maru is assigned to the 11th Seaplane Division, Second Fleet with seaplane carrier Chitose. Her aircraft's tail codes are changed to YII-xxx. In August of 1942 she is supporting Guadalcanal activities out of the Shortland Islands.

On 4 September 1942, leading the floatplane fighters assigned to Kamikawa Maru is Lt Ono Jiro. For the following month they will fly 360 sorties on 211 missions claiming 14 victories and one probable to 9 losses. Not bad when you consider the A6M2-N had a top speed of 275 mph, due to the floats. I found photographic proof of the plane on the Kamikawa Maru, with tail code YII-105 and 2 white stripes. The forward white stripe indicating the fighter group the second would indicate the fighters commander. So I'm going with Lt Ono Jiro's grey/green bird from this timeframe. And it appears that Tamiya's research is pretty close on this too.

Sorry had to make this a two-parter, not wanting to lose what I'd written!

Back to the build:

Some of my paints arrived, including some Mr. Color Nakajima interior. It's like RAF interior with some yellow tossed in, it looks convincing. Short note: ALL A6M2-N floatplanes were made by Nakajima, which should help anyone painting later versions. So I got the cockpit painted, and did a sandwich type instrument panel using the kits instrument panel to fill in holes. I really liked how it turned out. I also added some stretched sprue painted silver to represent the fuel lines running along the bottom of the cockpit through its selector and on to engine.



I then added some Eduard seat belts, which gave me grief due to using such thin plastic for the seat. All I can say is they are in where they should be.



Next I closed up the fuselage and put the cockpit in. This proved to be a bit harder than anticipated. I knocked out the seat, and the adjuster lever.




Upon reflection this was a wonderful turn of events, as the amount of work needed to get the cockpit in, and subsequent work on the wings would most likely have ruined them.

I found during test fitting that the port wing was too narrow to match the fuselage, so I inserted a spreader piece of sprue and while attaching the rear of the wings it split the wing. Argh! I went to work on the seams next, which went much better than I expected. Photos to follow, and I'll be moving on to some painting this week, I hope. Comments and critiques that help are always wanted, Enjoy!

John

I really got to get moving on this one. Airfix new tool 1/72 F4F-4.


Heck the parts are still in the plastic bag?!?!?!


I'm thinking of doing the VF-6 one off of the Enterprise in early 1942, with on wing folded and the other wing out.

Posting mostly for the sake of keeping this thread alive.


Not pre-shading so much as looking for missed seams and clumsy scribing.



The landing gear are a true engineering masterpiece. Seventeen parts per side. The lines for the hydraulics are actually four different pieces but you can't even tell. This photo was taken before they were cleaned up for painting



It's ALWAYS wise to spend some money on aftermarket exhausts and wheels. The Brassin pieces are gorgeous. They fit so well that I almost couldn't get them apart again for gluing.



How come everyone jumps on Trumpeter for their 'rubber' tires, but no one even mentions it when reviewing Tamiya's? Sure, they're better, but still they never look right. I wish both of them would cut it out with their rubber tires AND clear cowlings. At least Tamiya provides grey plastic cowlings AS WELL in this kit.


I finally have paint on!

....I preshade AND post shade. I don't understand why either of these scares some people so much - you can just paint over it if you don't like how it turns out.









That's all for now. I'm carefully applying some Miracle Masks custom cut by Master Mask Maker Mal Mayfield. (alliteration for the win).

Hi Guys, WIP update. With the holidays over I have time to get myself back on the bench. I finally put some color on, still a ways to go, still working out some stuff for bomb and cart and flight deck planks. Wishing everyone to have a great year.

Hello guys,
I haven't moved too far with my Buffalo. Mainly, because I again decided to struggle with PE parts instead of going OOB
I only glued few elements but cockpit seems to be ready to be primed and painted...



I'll glue the coloured parts of the Eduard's PE set after cockpit is fully painted and ready to be closed in canopy.
Cheers,
Radek

WOW, guys!
There is some really great stuff going on here indeed!

Beautiful choices and builds. And the mixture away from only
winged units makes it most enjoyable.

Fantastic finished kits, cudos & congrats !!!

Matt, very nicely done and straight progress thus far! Great looking bird - that scale is amazingly huge. Can easily believe that a kit like this needs intense time, space and materials. Keep on that nice work.

No progress on my Tamiya Zero as I moved on with that small Mirage. Hope I can share some more time on both builds from now on.

Thomas

i really got to get moving. mark your just about at the same point i am and i have "started" this build before xmas.
i need some help guys-
i'm doing a tbd devastators of midway and am not sure of the cockpit color and inside the engine cowl and wheel wells. since these were re painted from the pre war scheme would the cockpit be bare metal? same for the rest of the mentioned panels and such. would they have bothered to re paint everything int green? i can't find a color pix of the time period for them.

thanks- joe

All depends if they were overhauled Joe, as when they were overhauled they were repainted otherwise it's whatever they were pre-war. Which I believe was actually a silver paint? Or was it bare Aluminium? Not terribly sure on that count. So as with most things it's open to interpretation and who's to say you're wrong? Certainly not me!

true chris.my reasoning would be it was easy enough to give the exterior a coat of war paint (blue gray over grey) but to remove all the knobs, switches, panels,buttons,and levers in the cockpit just to give the cockpit walls a spray of int green and then bolt everything back would be a major PIA and time consuming. but who knows with the government's ways. would be interesting for me to know too.

joe

Remember to that the government wasn't there in the front lines so it was whatever was fastest and easiest for the maintenance crews. And I remember that it was pretty hectic at that time so it would have been whatever was expedient. But I've got a monograph for the devastator that came with a kit I bought I'll take a look and see what it recommends and let you know when I get home.

Hey Joe,

Good news, bad news. My reading would indicate that the interior of all TBD's overhauled were painted interior green, and were painted in war time colors (grey) in 1941. All combat TBD's were overhauled. So interior green is appropriate for a Midway TBD. Note the US Navy didn't start using shoulder harnesses until after Midway, so that should save a little bit of time.

John

Finally,got some real work done on my F4F.

Mark - FWIW the gear bay (as it were) should be the underside colour.

Feel free to leave it as is, just thought I'd point it out.

yep, my next steps are to mask gear bay and paint it gull gray.

from what i seen the landing gear were semi gloss black. i think maybe the inside of the small gear doors were too.














joe

thanks john. i was considering painting just the fuselage walls silver and everything else int green but maybe i will just go all green. either way i get to test my new airbrush that santa gave me.
interesting fact about the shoulder harness. i know the p-40 b/c's did not have shoulder harnesses but i was not aware the navy didn't either. was the lack of shoulder harnesses throughout the us military or just the army/navy? because i see a lot of builds that should be without then.
joe

thanks chris. lets see what you turn up. both points make sense and the planes were needed so they didn't have too much time to get it done.

joe

Joe the book only gives the basics and provides black and white pics of the pilots, bombardiers and radio operator/gunners positions which would all appear to be in natural aluminium or painted silver. No other information is given other than a brief combat history of the type.

However after doing some web gazing I ran across this piece by Dana Bell who's done some exceptional research regarding the colours for interiors. And it would appear Bronze green was used, well actually a mix of Zinc Chromate and black. Follow the link and read for yourself.

Ready for paint.



The cowling is just held on with masking fluid from the inside, so I don't have to try and mask up the engine and it can be installed after painting.

iain, really nice clean looking job so far.

The decals for the RNZA F4U arrived today.

Bob

If you can't trust Dana Bell, you can't trust anyone. If I saw that he has made a ruling on color, I would confidently go with it.

Great work, everyone! Still struggling with whether to get moving on the Tamiya 1/32 F4U-1D to go with my Ki-84. Today may decide it.

Michael

Hi,
a little more progress on Buffalo.
I managed to fit all these fiddly tiny PE parts, but can't say zero f**ks given... I swore terribly while assembling these stuff

Nevertheless, hull is now closed with cockpit elements installed.
Tamiya's instructions suggested painting cockpit area with XF-3 Yellow / XF-5 Green mix 1:2 , but instead I used Gunze H58 US interior colours for WW2 planes. Apart of this a little bit of black paint (Tamiya) & aluminium from Vallejo Metal Color series.
I added a little weathering by drybrushing with silver colour from VMC and a little wash with Tamiya's brown panel liner.

Here are the results:





And here's fuselage glued together:



Cheers,
Radek