**** DONE: GB-48 1/48 SBD-1 Dauntless - Carrier & Maritime Patrol A/C of WWII

[rochie]

Fantastic

 

[Wayne Little]

Real Nice Andy.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far Andy!

 

[Bustedwing]

That looks great love the yellow. Handy job on the canopy as well.

 

[Airframes]

Neat

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks all. With the painted red band finished, I cut the "2-MB-1" decal into three pieces with a sharp scalpel and began placing the bits over the band:

After getting the rest of the bits on and decal solution dry, things turned out pretty good:

Back on the rudder, the white wrinkles were scraped smooth and the red and blue bands were touched up by hand before adding some heavily de-tacked masks.

The white was then sprayed and the whole rudder covered with a semi-gloss clear coat. Not great but it will pass:

On t'other end, the exhaust stacks were glued on and the prop was pressed in place. The cowl is not glued in as it's a snug fit. I realized as I took this picture that I lost one of the Hamilton Standard labels on the prop blades. This has since been replaced with a new old spare one from kits past.

The rear-facing gun was painted and glued in the stowed position:

And finally, for today, I glued the flaps in place. A couple of the actuator rods had broken off during handling and I'll need to replace those and bend the rest so they more or less attach to the flaps.

I'm getting close to finishing this one well before the deadline, a heck of a change for me! Thanks again and see you in the next and possibly final instalment.

 

[Wurger]

 

[fubar57]

Good fixes

 

[Airframes]

I agree, and looking the biz.

 

[rochie]

Love it Andy

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks gentlemen. It's still sitting there staring at me to fix the flap actuators but I'm not in a fiddly mood right now.

 

[nuuumannn]

Superb Andy, a master at work. That canopy fix was inspired genius.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Grant. I'm pleased with how it turned out too as it could have been much, much worse.

 

[Crimea_River]

I tackled the flap actuators today. As stated earlier, several of these broke off and so needed to be replaced. I didn't really like how they fit anyway as they were on an odd angle and didn't join the flap. Pics show that the actuators on the fully extended flaps were in the vertical and so I decided to rip off the rest of them and replace them with square 0.02" rod.

Before:

After (on the opposite side):

And now fully complete:

Better than it was if a bit on the clunky side. Anyway, the last thing to do was to stick on the antenna wire and so that was done.

And that should just about do it. I'll post some finished pics in the next day or two.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Snautzer01]

Very sharp looking.

 

[rochie]

Really great build Andy

 

[Airframes]

I agree, very nicely done, and looks a beaut.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Final pics here and I'll put up the Finished thread right after. Still need to check my camera as it doesn't seem to be focusing as well as my cell phone. I did a sensor clean but it doesn't seem to have helped.

My thanks to all who followed along and who contributed comments and likes.