Yellow-Wings decals

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Silver wings1

Airman
84
12
Apr 9, 2017
Rosendale, New York
Has anyone had an experience with the Yellow- Wings decals for the SBD kits. I am in the process of building an Accurate Miniatures 1/48 SBD-1 and plan on several others which I've required. The decals I have for the SBD-1 are confusing with minimal information on their placement. They have several long sections(8) In black faded to a lighter shade in the middle. These look like they could be used for the walk ways but have a strange angle cut on one end. There are a couple of red and dark blue pieces a little wider with strange angled cuts with no explanation of their use, Then there are a couple of others that look like they could be used fort the fuselage. No others that would be used for the front of the cowling. I thought that I could cheat a little by not having to do all the masking to paint the various leaders aircraft but this seems to not be an option. The other strange thing is that they only list painting information in Rattle cans rather than regular paint bottles, making it a very expensive proposition of using just a little for each area and then leaving you with an almost full can with no further use.
 
Usually markings depend on a time period or a particular plane. So you have to know these details for getting the decal markings located correctly. A pic of the decal sheet would be helpful with working out which markings should be used and where these have to be applied.. Also a shot of the instruction with the decal locations and info would be useful. Without that images it is quite difficult to say across the pond what the manufacturer's idea was.
 
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Well here they are, but I think that I will forget using the stripes from this sheet unless they could be identified, and airbrush my own using the information from the Accurate Miniatures kit. Anyway, if someone can figure it out I would be grateful




 
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Oh well, one sheet doubled up, but I think you get the picture. Meanwhile I took a break from working on the SBD-1 and the BF 109E-3 and started the PT-17. Boy that is one small model, more like a 1/72 rather than a 1/48. Anyway it is fun. I have also purchased BIG Ed photo etch package for the 1/24 Airfix Typhoon that is on the schedule. I love this moving from scale to scale and working on all of then at almost the same time.
 
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I have edited your post above and deleted the duplicated pic. Here you are you should use for morkings of the plane the posted profile shows.

The fuselage band and other markings including the rudder.



The wing strips going aslant .. the top is the port one while the bottom one is the starboard strip.



For the footpathes you have to use two of these eight strips. The important thing is these two have to be the left and right like these in the pic below ...



These are for marking of the prop blade tips



Are there still any doubts ?
 
Yes , a major doubt, there is nothing for the nose area, which means that I would have to try to match the paint and mask anyway and why do the stripes have those hooks in them. They wouldn't sit on the wings properly. Might as well just paint all . The walkway stripes would have to be trimmed to conform to the side of the fuselage, that doesn't sound like a good plan. Thanks for correcting the glitch I made.
 
The lack of the decal for the black engine cowling is because the decal manufacturer provided for painting it black. The correct shade is listed in the instruction ... it isn't a major problem IMHO.




Regarding the hooks in these wing strips... do you mean these?



If you do , these hooks are there because the part of the strip has to be folded on the leading edge of the wing.
 
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Silver wings1 said:
The walkway stripes would have to be trimmed to conform to the side of the fuselage, that doesn't sound like a good plan.
Click to expand...

No, not at all...., these wing walk strips don't have to be trimmed. These were going along the bottom edge of the fairing of the fuselage-wing transition. I think that your idea of that was getting while looking at the instruction profile for decal locations. But the shape of the wing walks at the front area has been cause by a graphic designer who included the fuselage curvature at the plan view. Just the fuselage camber occludes the strip there partially. Please check in pics above and here below...

The diagram ...



and the real view in pics ... additionally the wrapping of the wing strip at the leading edge can be noticed too.



 
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I am very confused . On the back of the instruction sheets that came with the Model SBD-1,If necessary I'll try to post a copy later, It shows that the assignment of each aircraft in a pre-war U.S.Navy or U.S. Marine squadron could be easily identified by its color-keyed markings. There were six aircraft sections in each squadron. They were color coded in insignia red, insignia white, insignia blue, black, willow green and lemon yellow.Section leaders had full cowl bands and belly bands in the section color. Wing men had only half cowl bands.The number two man had the top half cowl band, while the number three man had the bottom cowl band. It shows all the various schemes and identifies each group. Each aircraft carried a wing chevron matched to the section color. That is why these decals are not correct for a pre-war aircraft. This was all dropped once the war began and other identification was employed. I have another SBD-1 an SBD-2,, SBD-4, and SBD-5, all but the SBD-1 do not carry any of these markings.. So the pictures you posted are of the later war aircraft and do not reflect the pre=war series. I am so enthralled with these various markings that I think that I will buy more SBD1's for the various colors.
 
Sorry but I can't agree the SBD-1s in pics above are of the late war aircraft. All of them are dated on the 1940. So these are of the pre-war marking because the later ones were of the grey then Sea grey/grey camouflages but not of a such colourfull uniforms. Here you are a shot that shows the SBD-1s both with the engine cowling painted fully and partialy as you said. The image was taken in 1940 according to the caption. More you may see there ... Forums / USAAF / USN Library / The Douglas SBD Dauntless - Axis and Allies Paintworks

 
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Here three SBD1-s of the VBM-1 Squadron in flight at 1940 or 1941 beginning. The top one has the engine cowling painted at the bottom only , the middle one has it entire white and the bottom ( the closest ac ) one of the red paint.



and one more a VMB-1 aircraft based at MCAS Quantico, Virginia, USA, ca. late 1940...



And SBD-1 of the VMB-2 coded 2-MB-13 in late 1940. The plane was the 5th Section leader's mount. The plane standing behing has the engine cowling painted in a half.



As you mentioned the leaders' planes had the engine cowling painted as the full strip while the two other bombers of a section had them painted in a half. One had it at the top while the second at the bottom and both were lacked the fuselage bands ( see the first pic of the post - the top plane with no fuselage band and the marking on bottom of the engine cowling) .. Here the example of marking of the VMB-2 red section.
 
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I agree , but what I am trying to say is that the Yellow Wings decals do not cover the entire spectrum, only giving a partial coverage without the cowling. That is why I cannot go with these partial decals and have to paint the cowling to match. So I will paint my own. I must congratulate you , it is a joy to correspond with such knowledge company.
 
I see. I must tell that the decal sheet isn't as bad as it seems. The lack of the decal for the engine cowling gives more options for markings of the early SBD bombers. If you had the decal for the full cowling strip you would be limited in making of the leader's plane only. In the case you may either paint it fully or partially with omitting the fuselage strip what allows to make replics of other planes of the section. To be honest I prefer painting of strips to using of their decal markings. Just these painted look better IMHO.

And thank you for the kind words.
 
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I agree Wurger The painting looks much better, sometimes I wonder why I buy these decals, but what motivated me to buy them was the fact that this kit sat in my shed for several years and I was concerned that they would not be any good, however after I sprayed the decals with Testors Gloss coat and used some they were OK, but I bought them anyway, hoping that I would get the full complement..
At any rate I may just use the star markings , just for the heck of it. Very good to correspond with you.
 
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Those pictures of the aircraft, Wurger that you posted yesterday were a big help today when I masked the model for painting. I have learned a lot about the way the decals were designed with the hook on the front section. I can see now that it was to cover the yellow section on the bottom of the wing. I spent 2 hours masking this beast and with hind sight I wish I had used the decals. It was very fussy work. I was planning to paint the green squadron, but you know I may just chuck all the masking, which still requires more and use the decals. The cowl is already masked so all that would be necessary is to match the paint to the stripes. Did you use the same book as Fubar57, which I would like to find or perhaps there are others.
I think I'll pass on the book,they are going at Amazon from $75.00 to over $600.00 depending on the volume.
 
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