1:32 Trumpeter TBM Avenger Build

[Builder 2010]

After such a nice reception about my B-17 build I decided to get into action building this Trumpeter kit. I did a quick review of what's already been posted and I think what I'll have to offer will not be redundant.

I was wrong. I thought that this kit wouldn't be started for a while since I'm scheduled to build another large structure for a commission project, but since that hasn't kicked off, I decided to pull this big beauty off the shelf and get into it. While I'm doing this I'm building a large plaster mountain for the railroad and while various things are drying/hardening, I can work on this model.

This model was a gift from a parent whose son I had in my Grandpop's Model Building Workshop that I ran a few years back. A close friend of hers father died and left a treasure trove of un-built Trumpeter kits. They offered them to her and she offered some to me. Included was this Avenger, a 1:32 Super Hornet which my grandson proudly built, and two Trumpeter 1:350 carriers (Hornet and Essex). Grandson is building the Hornet and I'm going to build the Essex.

This Avenger is a pretty big model with lots of details, much of which will be invisible (like the B-17) unless I open access panels to show it off, which I may do. The kit has some PE, but I added to it with two Eduard sets: Engine Details, and an Exterior set. I also ordered, but haven't received their mask set. Unfortunately, to order directly from Eduard the order needs to be over $20 and the masks are just under $10. I would buy a set for the Essex, but they don't offer it. They do offere two sets for the Hornet, but that would be up to my grandson if he wanted to mess around with it, and he's pretty much glued everything up. I have the capability to do all the masking by hand, but it's very time consuming.

I'm going to do the plane in the all-gloss sea blue scheme, instead of the three-tone, white, navy and light blue, not because it's any better, but I'm just a bit lazy and the three-tone scheme offers a lot of opportunity to screw up.

The build starts with the Wright R-2600 accessory case and engine baffle plate. This model has a beautifully detailed engine and with the Eduard stuff it could be a show-stopper like those 1:48 radials I built for the B-17. This entire subassembly will be buried in the airframe unless I go with the aforementioned access panels. As any of you who followed my previous build you know that I'm not very big in heavy weathering. I want to build a well-cared for build or even as it appears in the various museums, instead of a battle-weary bucket of bolts.

This whole deal will get airbrushed, semi-gloss black. Between this part and the engine baffle engine mount cradle. I think the outside of the baffle gets sea blue, but the inside is probably zinc chromate green. I'm going check some references on this coloring before proceeding.

 

[Crimea_River]

Great to see this one started. If I recall correctly, the interior colours may vary depending on whether your machine was built by Grumman (TBF) or General Motors (TBM). I'd have to go over my notes on this to be sure.

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff, and yes, Andy is correct regarding the interior colours and their demarcations, from engine bay to rear fuselage.
If you're stuck, give me a shout, as I should still have my research notes somewhere on the HD.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work so far!

 

[Builder 2010]

I would suggest giving me your data now since I don't have a clue what color differences there are. This is a TBM so it was built by GM. The Trumpeter made models of both species and the TBM version has the fully formed engine baffle plate behind the cowl flaps.

First thing I did today was install the front motor mount ring into the baffle plate (don't know what else to call it since it's not really the fire wall since that's behind the engine mounts, especially since the carburetor is on the rear side of this piece. I think it just acts as a guide to steer air flow through the cowl flaps.) I painted both interior green. I masked the outside since I didn't want to have to paint the blue over another color if I didn't have to. The accessory case was airbrushed semi-gloss black.

I noticed 2 large conduits coming into the ignition ring from the rear of the engine. They are the ignition feeds from the two magnetos on the accessory case. I wanted to add this wire in the front and also at the magnetos.

Here's a picture that was available on the web which shows all the activity at the accessory case.

The mag wire is the large white one that's heading directly left into the engine. The wire comes into the mag's side with a 90° fitting. There's a lead on each side feeding that side of the ignition ring.

To make the connection, I flattened the end of a piece of 1/32 brass rod, punched and drilled it 0.032" and then soldered another piece of the same rod into the hole. After some bending and fussing I fit the wires and put them through holes in the baffle.

After gluing the accessory drive I CA's the mag leads and painted them chrome silver.

There's a ton of other wires and pipes running around the engine's rear. I don't know how much of this I'm going to model, but if I do, I'm going to open up and access panel so it's visible.

I then started building the engines themselves with painting the blocks and heads flat aluminum. I'm looking forward to building this engine. I find engines some of the most enjoyable aspects of modeling.

Tomorrow I'll keep going on the engines.

 

[Crimea_River]

Stated by Wojtek in a long discussion in my build from a few years ago:

TBM-1, -1C, TBM-3C, -3E Avenger. Cockpit: FS 34151 Interior Green. This also included the crew areas and fuselage interior. Early TBM-1s and –1C's had cowling interiors like those of the TBF-1 with Non-Specular (flat) Light Gray from the firewall forward except for the dishpan. Later production aircraft would have had everything from the inside of the cowling all the way back in interior green. The landing gear and bays were the undersurface color, i.e. Insignia white bottom would be white. Glossy Sea Blue TBM-3 a/c would have GSB landing gear and flap interiors. The inside of the flaps was the upper surface color with the inside of the flap well on the under surface of the wing being the bottom color.

You might want to bookmark this very good article for future reference: Camouflage & Markings: Interior Colours of US Aircraft, 1941-45 (Part I)

 

[Wurger]

 

[Builder 2010]

Thank you for the reference! Below you'll see a nice pic with all the nose panels off showing some interesting features. It looks like a TBF since the baffle plate at the engine mount was different. All the stuff was zine chromate in the yellow flavor. I read one of the posts on this forum that discussed all of the colors that zinc chromate can be. I'm using the green flavor on the model since that's what I have pre-mixed, and I already started with that color and I'd have to hand paint over the green to make it more yellow. I have Model Master zinc chromate yellow, but it's very yellow. I'd have to mix the two to get this color.

Now onto today's work. I hand painted burnt iron on the lower cylinder portions. I then used one of my newly acquired super-small carbide drills. This drill is a #88. That's not found in any micro-drill sets and is so small as to be a needle. And yet somehow they're able to grind flutes into it AND it's solid carbide. After measuring the Eduard PE spark plug wires at 0.008" so I used this 0.009" drill to open up spark plug holes so the PE would have a place to land. The front cylinder bank had a boss that made finding the plug opening easy, but the rear bank didn't have anything since Trumpeter didn't expect people to put spark plug wires... just what were they thinking. An engine this big must have wiring.

While doing this I was painting and plastering tunnel portal wing walls on the mountain project. I got them into position nicely. Then on the ABM, I prepared and painted the crankcase piece with the pushrod tubes. Unlike the Eduard B-17 motors, these are all on one part and that greatly simplifies assembly. Of course I did break one off when attempting to deburr the part. It was a clean break. I drilled the nub with a 0.028" drill just enough to let the broken part have something to hold to and CA'd it back in place. I painted the casing flat aluminum, the tubes semi-gloss black, the upper part first flat black and then dry-brush silver to simulate the clamps. These pieces are not glued in place yet.

In this picture you can clearly see that the valve covers are black over top of aluminum rocker boxes. These parts are separate and, when glued, support the tops of the pushrods. But they're attached to the sprues by their sides which makes painting them on the sprue a little tough, so I'm going to detatch them, stick them to some masking tape and paint the two colors. That will also keep paint off the gluing surface.

The picture shows the yellowish zinc chromate of the structural parts. I also shows the valve cover colors, and it shows the oil cooler and carb intake air trunks. It shows how the panels come off which I'm going to do since I'm going to put a lot of stuff into this part of the plane. Also of interest are the radial rubber snubbers that absorb torque so it doesn't tear up the air frame. There's no provision for these on the model engine, and I'm not sure I'm going to attempt them.

 

[Crimea_River]

So the colour of the engine bay in your pic there is the Interior Green that I referenced in my post above, not zinc chromate.

Below is my version of it. If you are using Tamiya paints, I can dig up the mix ratios I used. Let me know.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Builder 2010]

According to a source on US Navy color schemes TBMs made by Eastern Aircraft (GM) after 1944 were all interior green from the inside of the cowl backwards, and gear struts and inside of wheel wells were all exterior (Deep Sea Blue) color.

My plastering on the mountain needs at least another day of drying so I did more ABM work (after getting back from the LHS and buying Dark Sea Blue). I went further into the engine. It's a nice model to work in 1/32.

After gluing on the pushrod tube components on the front and rear banks, I needed to paint the valve box/valve cover parts. I could have painted the flat aluminum while the parts were glued to the engine, but felt that it would have been more difficult so I stuck them all to some masking tape. I only wanted to paint the bottom aluminum-colored part because I could paint the black valve cover part.

I could have airbrushed them, but was afraid that the blast would blow them all over the place so I brush painted them.

After fitting and gluing them in place on the engine, I brush-painted the covers semi-gloss black.

This really jazzed up the engine's look. Next up was the intake manifold which was also painted flat aluminum, and then it was time for the first engine PE. Eduard includes two different kinds of sheet metal baffles that sit atop the front and rear cylinder heads.

This part gets folded in a "Z" fold and then is CA'd to the rear heads. I scrap the primer (Tamiya primer) to expose bare metal so I'm not gluing to paint. Luckily, Eduard includes extra parts because I ended up folding two of them backwards and when you try to fold Eduard brass twice they usually break. Here are the first two in place. After taking the picture, I glued on all 7. BTW: I use the Small Shop's Plexiglass PE holding fixture so you can cut the parts in such a way that they don't disappear into the quantum rift.

Tomorrow I will install the front pieces and paint them semi-gloss black before adding the plug wiring.

 

[fubar57]

Nice. Wiring will really spruce it up

 

[Crimea_River]

According to a source on US Navy color schemes TBMs made by Eastern Aircraft (GM) after 1944 were all interior green from the inside of the cowl backwards,......

I thought that's what I said in post #7. Anyway, nice work so far and agree the wiring will look good..

 

[Builder 2010]

Yes... you did. I'm posting the same thread on 3 Forums (different audiences) and I sometimes get confused as to who is saying what.

 

[Lucky13]

Nice!!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[Builder 2010]

Thank you gents!

Plaster was still not dry on the mountain so I spent the day building an R-2600 and moving into other engine bay stuff.

I finished putting all the "sheet metal" PE baffles onto the cylinder heads. I then wrapped that thin piece of PE around the engine tying it to each baffle with thin CA and a sharp toothpick and then painting it all semi-gloss black.

I hold the engine in a Panavise with soft jaws to keep it steady while working on all this cylinder stuff. I painted the induction pipes semi-gloss black while on the sprue since it would have been very difficult to fully paint them when installed. That being said, I did have to touch up the sprue attachment point after they were all installed. I also touched up the flat aluminum at the intake flange at the head for the rear bank.

While I was waiting for the black to dry I started working on the firewall PE. The first thing to do was shave off the molded oil tank brackets which get replaced with the folded PE brackets. I used a large hold-n-fold from the Small Shop to do most of my PE bending. I got this one from them as payment for allowing them to use my Missouri in their advertising. It's a wonderfully designed tool that makes the almost impossible very possible.

These were CA'd to the firewall and then the glued up tank CA's to the bracket. You have to remove the attachment pins on the tank so it woudl nest properly. Eduard included some new straps that would attach the tank to the brackets. These were an example of "even though you can DO a thing, you probably shouldn't". The parts were damaged on the fret and the little tangs that were supposed to attach the straps were so frail that several had already separated before I even attempted to remove the part from the fret.

The strap you see on the right center of the pic shows the tiny metal connection between the tangs and the straps. The other one was toast. So I had to make new straps using left-over fret material. It lacks those tiny eyes but who cares. i certainly don't.

There were several other PE details on the firewall: another brackety kind of thing, an instrument box of some sort and a wiring harness. All of this will be airbrushed interior greena and then the details picked out by hand. Again... I always scrap off the primer to reveal bare metal before CA'ing. Otherwise, the PE WILL FALL OFF when the paint lets go from the metal.

On Monday, the plaster will be dry on the mountain and I will be painting that. After landscaping there will be more drying time and I'll be back on the ABM. The next step will be to install the ignition system.

 

[Wurger]