1:32 Trumpeter TBM Avenger Build

That floor is nasty.

Glad to keep you guys happy. I'm happy too since I'm building the railroad and the TBM concurrently. What could be better than that.

I poured the liquid resin into the pond area so while this was setting up I got to work on the TBM's instrument panel.

I built a quicky project for the pond: a little fishing pier that will eventually have a fisherman or two. It's all styrene, primed with Tamiya Surface Primer and then a dark brown wash. Two boards were treated like they've been replaced.



The Trumpeter panel for this 1:32 ship is a three-part affair, with a clear outer panel, a film inner layer with instrument faces in clear, and a grey styrene back panel. Both the front and back panels have extra parts on them and they have lots of knobs and switches.

The outer clear panel (and for the life of me I don't know why it's clear since the instrument faces are just holes, and the rest needs to be painted) has five PE levers/pull knobs attahched. The PE parts are very small so to cut them without losing them, I used an idea I found from Chuck Walas, who's a superior fine scale builder, where you cut the parts with the fret attached to masking take so nothing flies away. I measured their little stems and they were 0.021". I drilled the panel with this size drill and it made fastening them in much more secure than just expecting the CA to hold them there.

After drilling the holes I looked, but couldn't find the darn panel. It disappeared. I searched the work space three times, swept the floor, check my pockets, etc. NOTHING! I had all the little parts cut and stuck to the masking, but no panel. Then I find it sitting direclty in front of me on the upper bench in front of my Panavise. Hiding in plain sight! See! There it is! I think I should resurface the workbench since all the stains make picking out parts sitting on it much more difficult. That surface is Homasote, which is excellent for pinning plans and parts down to hold for assembling.



I then painted this clear panel with the Tamiya Primer so it had some good tooth for the color coat. You can see the little levers on the lower left.



After airbrushing flat black on both panels I found my favorite fine-pont brush and was able to pick out all the knobs and things. I used red, white, silver and back painted flat black when necessary.



Some folks pick out the instrument rims with dry-brushed silver. I'm not going to do that since all of those aircraft instruments have black rims. I may pick them out with gloss black if I need some highlights.

The insert instrument face film is photographically produced (it seems to be Kodalith or equivalent) which has jet black background, but is clear where the instrument graphics lie. They need to be white. So I painted the back with some Vallejo white in two coats



I put the front and isert togehter to see how they'll look together. The registration is not perfect yet, but it's just sitting.



I like the way it looks. None of this painting was called out in the instuctions. If the back panel was painted black, the instruments would have been obscured. I'm going to glue this 3-part sandwich together with MicroMark's Pressure Sensitive Adhesive (PSA) since the film will not respond to plastic cement and the PSA is very easy to control. The instrument don't need gloss faces since the film is glossy on that side.

More work will come tomorrow.

Two things:

1) That engine looks real!
2) Can I come over your house and play trains?

Looking good. The film is probably Kodak 'Ultratec', a very fine resolution lith film - that is, of course, unless it's been replaced by digital material (I'm out of touch since leaving the industry, 25 years ago !).

Liking your work.

Looks great so far!

One of the readers of this thread that I'm also posting on two other sites is actually rebuilding his own TBM Avenger... a real one. He's been posting great pictures on the thread including this one of the panel on a restored TBM. It shows some differences in color than I guessed. I'm gong to adjust mine tomorrow.



Most of today was spent getting "water" into the water feature on the layout. But I did get to do just a few things on the TBM. I first glued all the control panel layers together with PSA. I then went back and put a couple of dabs of thin CA since there were some gaps that needed to be tightened up.



I dropped it on the floor and the small red T-handle PE parts disappeared. I don't know if I'll worry about it.

I put together the pilots seat and painted it O.D. although it's probably interior green. I then glued up two of the side panels. Instead of using the PE parts, i made my own using 0.021" brass rod with round balls created with medium CA.



Tomorrow I'll adjust the panel colors and keep going on the cockpit parts.

Great looking panel. Slight misalignment on the upper instruments but no big deal.

Very nice indeed.

I was able to adjust the colors on the panel to as closely match the picture as possible.



After doing this I was reading ahead in the instructions and looking where the cockpit floor (which supports the entire engine/firewall assembly) joins to the bomb bay ceiling. It's a critical joint that takes places on a thin edge in the front and vertical plate in the rear. It's so critical that it would be hard (for me) to get a good strong joint when all the other stuff is glued in place. After staring at it for a while, I concluded that it could be safely glued in place now to ensure it was a strong joint.

I also came to this conclusion since the engine as I modified it, was interfering with the front edge of the bomb bay floor. That oil line that I put it was right smack in the way. I had to carve a bit away so the line would clear and this added stress to the cockpit floor joint which was another reason to glue it now.



In this picture you can see the front thin joint. That has to fuse properly. The other place the engine is supported is the firewall to fuselage side joint. That's going to provide most of the support.



Next up will be more cockpit componets moving rearward to the radio compartments.

Looking good.

Nicely done so far!

The IP looks like Darth Vader.

Good work though.

Nice work

(This post should have gone in before the holidays)
While I did this work yesterday, I'm just getting around to post it. I did some more mountain work and while the epoxy "water" was curing, I did get some ADM work done.

I began to realize that air brushing the cockpit was problematic based on the various colored pieces that needed to be glued in, and some parts were actually partially hidden by parts that were interior green. So I've been brush painting the green. It takes two coats, but looks decent. I'll do some aging and wearing on it to kill the "newness". Here's a case in point. That radio set buried in the structure that sits behind the pilot. And those oxygen bottles...



The main part of the cockpit has two consoles mounted to the floor and I decorated them with little bits of paint. The right-hand one in real life is all chrome toggle switches and circuit breakers on the side. I briefly entertained the thought of actually inserting pieces of High-E guitar string to simulate those switches and then as quickly disabused myself of that stupid idea since that panel will be partially hidden by the tumble-home of the fuselage sides and basically invisible. It wasn't worth breaking expensive 0.010" carbide drills to do it.





The control sticks will be painted next session.

Here's the opposite side view.



I finished the mountain and all its water features today. I still have to add bushes, trees and whatnot, but it's now a complete feature unto itself and trains can run again.







Should get to some more ABM work tomorrow.

Hi gang! Holiday trips are over. We spent the time from Christmas through New Years with family and friends in the Philly area and State College, PA. Got to do some ABM work today. I'm in a hold on the layout waiting for the laser cutting for a new Bernheim Distillery that is to go into Heaven Hills' "Evan Williams Bourbon Experience" in downtown Louisville.

I continued work on the upper fuse interior and put the parts into the bomb bay as well.



I just placed it into the right fuse half to see what fit where. It's a very nice fit indeed. I need to add some cabling since all the black boxes on top will be visible through the large greenhouse canopy. You can also see that I finished painting the flight stick with the red pickle switches on it.

I glued together the left side cockpit wall, added some brass levers, and let it all dry before painting. The bright spots you see is me rushing to take the shot before the paint dried flat



I then turned the assembly over and mounted in the Panavise to glue in all the bomb bay details. The instructiions didn't have the upper pieces glued in yet, but I found it better to put them in while painting them. I'm going to air brush the interior green in this area since it has so many vertical surfaces sticking up.



You have several choices for load out: extra fuel tank, bomb load or torpedo. I'm going with the torpedo since the Avenger was first and foremost a torpedo bomber, and the torpedo is more interesting to look at. I'll keep working on this stuff as long as I can.

Nice work on both projects