Progress Build of Merit's 1/18 SBD-3 Dauntless (Coral Sea)

[Uncarina]

Philip1,

 

Your results look great, and the difficulties you faced with the wing make the build even more epic. Again, thanks for sharing!

 

Cheers, Tom

[Phillip1]

Fellow Modelers-This post focuses on exterior painting!

 

1th Image: The wheel wells, bomb mount and upper center flap were hard to reach areas, so they were masked and painted before the rest of the underside.

 

2th Image: This photo shows the cockpit all sealed up, using both masking tape and tissue.

 

3th Image: Painting the exterior begins with the lower fuselage (Model Master Light Gull Gray-1730). About three costs were applied; with a very soft cloth being rubbed over the area after each coat dried. This photo shows the clean and pristine finish before any weathering.

 

4th Image: This photo shows the lower fuselage after weathering. Weathering consisted of applying medium gray pastel powder with a small brush in recesses and panel lines. The excess powder was then brushed away with a soft, thick make-up brush. Finally, a more thinned down mix of the light gull gray was airbrushed where the pastel had been added to make the effect more subtle and realistic.

 

5th through 8th Image: These photos show how masking tape was applied to establish the demarcation paint line between the lower and upper sections.

[Phillip1]

continued...

 

9th through 10th Image: If I remember correctly, these two beautiful photos are from the July 1942 issue of LIFE magazine. They are probably some of the best wartime color “Dauntless†images I have ever seen. They are included to show how varied the upper surface blue/gray paint finish can be. Both photos show excessive wear and fading. The finish on my model will not look like this, but I think there is a good bit of artistic license when it comes to early war U.S. Navy carrier aircraft.

 

11th Image: Applying the U.S. Navy Blue/Gray color begins. The sections with large recesses were covered first.

 

12th through 13th Image: These photo show the assembly after the third and final coat of paint was added. It is a beautiful and uniform finish…but not for long.

 

14th Image: The same weathering technique used on the lower surfaces was repeated for the upper surfaces, beginning with pastel powder in the recesses and panel lines.

 

15th Image: This photo shows the panel lines after brushing some the excess pastel powder away…

[Phillip1]

continued...

 

16th through 18th Image: …and these photos show how subtle the panel lines are after over-spraying them with a thinned mix of the base color. The final weathering on the upper surfaces was randomly airbrushing a thinned down mix of very light blue (i.e. 10 drops blue/gray to 60 drops white) to represent additional color fading through sun exposure. This was not applied to the sides of the fuselage or rudder.

 

Until next time…

 

Phillip1

[Guest]

Very nice ! I like it. Big bird is coming along very nicely. Great to follow along........Harv

[Uncarina]

Fantastic build and painting! I really like how you incorporated the pastels. It looks great, and I'm looking forward to more!

 

Cheers, Tom

[Phillip1]

Harvey-Thanks for the compliment.

 

Uncarina-Thanks for your interest and continued support. It is appreciated.

 

 

Fellow Modelers-This post focuses on decaling and exterior detailing.

 

1st Image: The three recesses on the outside of each wing are anti-stall slots (nick-named “mail box slots†by ground crews). On the real aircraft the openings go through the wings, although you have to be at an angle to see through them. This must have been a common feature on aircraft of this era, as Grumman's TBF Avenger had something very similar. On the Avenger they were used to reduce air turbulence across the ailerons. Merit accurately reproduced the slots, but they do not go through wings and I did not open them up. I used dark gray pastel powder to darken the lowest part of the recesses. In the attached photo the inner most slot was painted dark sea blue to match the color of the national insignia decal for the upper wings, since I thought I might have to split the decals open.

 

2nd Image: The anti-stall slot is shown after being painted.

 

3rd Image: The kit decals are poor quality. The finish is splotchy, the blue colors on the national insignia are not dark enough and the red circles are not centered inside the stars. I am not going to knock Merit too much for this, since (like many modelers) half the time I do not use kit decals anyway. For my build the national insignia came from a Yellow Wings decal set, and all the numbers/letters came from various AeroMaster and Superscale sheets. The squadron emblem was the only decal used from the kit's decal sheet. Before any decals were applied I sprayed several light coats of Future polish on the areas where each decal would go. I usually cover the entire model, but this kit is so large and heavy it was easier to only do small sections. I bought the largest wing insignias Yellow Wings offered, but they were still too small by about half an inch. You do the best you can with what you have to work with! One down side to building this kit is there will not (I believe) be many aftermarket detail sets to support it. Eduard said they were not issuing any sets for it, and the only parts I have seen are replacement white metal landing gear. Since the upper wing decal was smaller than I needed, it did not cover the entire anti-stall slot. I had to go back and carefully repaint this area U.S. Navy Blue Gray.

 

4th through 5th Image: Because the wing insignias decals are too small, I was able to avoid having to locate them into the lower wing slots. As you can see by these two photos, trying to get decals to lay down into the contours would be a nightmare (at least for me). I was more than happy to position the decals near the slots and move on.

 

6th Image: The middle photo (3) was dated the Fall of 1941 and shows a VS-2 aircraft with a complete side code (“2†for CV2-USS Lexington, “S†scouting assignment and “9†for ninth plane in the squadron). A couple of months after the United States entered WWII the first number of the side code was painted over. This was done to keep the Japanese from determining which American aircraft carriers were participating in a battle by seeing the markings on the planes.

 

7th Image: Here is an overhead shot after all the decals were added. No dullcote has been applied and the decals have not been weathered.

 

8th Image: Several thin coats of Testors Dullcote mixed with Model Master Airbrush Thinner (50/50) were sprayed over the decals until the finish matched the rest of the model. Medium gray and dark gray pastel powder was applied to the upper wing decals to tone down the colors and make them look uneven/weather-beaten like the rest of the wing.

 

9th Image: Only medium gray pastel powder was added to the vertical fuselage decals.

[Phillip1]

continued...

 

10th Image: This photo shows the squadron emblem decal. I do not know if these planes actually carried this marking on their aircraft after the blue/gray camouflage scheme was adopted in October 1941, but it looks great and adds a splash of color to the model.

 

11th Image: Dark gray pastel powder was added after the stack to represent exhaust stains. A Q-tip was used to give it a feathered look. Random paint chipping was added to the wing's leading edge with Model Master Aluminum paint, using a small pointed brush.

 

12th Image: Windsor & Newton's oil based raw umber paint was used to represent oil leaking from the engine. Tiny amounts were dabbed on, and Q-Tips were used to sweep the paint away from the engine.

 

13th Image: This photo shows the retractable landing light after the liquid mask was pulled away and the edges cleaned up.

 

14th Image: I used masking tape to represent the crew wing walkways. On model airplanes this size I think using masking tape looks better than a decal or masking off the areas and painting them black.

 

15th through 16th Image: After being cut to the correct size the walkways were: laid on a piece of glass, painted flat black, over-sprayed with a weak wash of light gray and finally dry-brushed with Model Master camouflage gray. These steps produced a worn and used appearance.

 

17th Image: A lot of thick superglue was used to fix the main landing gear into place, since the model is so heavy. The SBD's main gear is vertical when viewed from the side, but has a noticeable inward slant when viewed from the front.

 

18th Image: The three, large identification/formation lights on the lower fuselage were made by mixing a few drops of paint with 5-Minute Epoxy.

[Phillip1]

continued...

 

19th Image: The sway braces for the outer wing bomb mounts were scratch built from Evergreen styrene rod. The vinyl tires were not painted, but medium gray pastel powder was used to discolor them. The small holes in the back of the mount and in the wing are where a piece of small diameter wire will be added to represent an electrical connection.

 

20th Image: The 1,000lb.bomb and displacement gear are shown painted and glued in place. The bomb was painted Model Master olive drab. For bombing missions a 1,000lb. bomb was the “standard size†carried by SBDs.

 

21th Image: The arrestor hook, rear landing gear and tow bar are shown in this close-up photo. It was a common practice for carrier aircraft to have black stripes added to their arrestor hooks. This made it easier for the LSO (Landing Signal Officer) to determine if the hook had been deployed before an aircraft landed on the deck.

 

22nd Image: Overall view of the lower fuselage showing the work in progress.

 

Until next time...

 

Phillip1

[LSP_Kevin]

Very nice work Phillip! I'm curious about why you didn't choose to mask and paint the insignia though.

Kev

[Uncarina]

Excellent progress! I'm really liking how it is coming together.

 

Cheers, Tom

[Phillip1]

LSP_Kevin-Thanks for the compliment. Is there a company that makes early WWII U.S. Navy insignia stencils this size? If so, I may have considered it. I would not attempt to make them myself out of masking tape. It is outside my skillset and I would not be happy with the results. I am okay with using the Yellow Wings decals. Their color is spot on and the decals are thin, crisp and the registry very sharp.

 

Uncarina-Thank you. The light at the end of the tunnel is very bright now!

 

Phillip1

[Ironwing]

Phillip

 

This is just lovely, especially the size of it. This will be more than impressive once finished. Keep up the great work.

 

Best

 

Geoff

[David Hansen]

Very nice, restrained work. i was frankly skeptical that the model would look "right" once built up, but you changed my mind. In some shots its impossible to determine if its the model or the restoration at the Museum of Naval Aviation. i think part of the reason is the decision to not put a wash in the rivets, which seems to be sort of the accepted norm among a lot of model builders these days.

 

I wonder if Merit will consider a later version of Dauntless. I'm kind of a pushover for a Navy plane in three-tone schemes. Wonder why they chose 18th scale in the first place anyway...

 

Keep on posting the pics. Very inspirational and i'm much impressed.

 

david

[Phillip1]

Ironwing-Thanks for the compliment. As Nicholas Cage would say, "coming from someone of your modeling ability, that's high praise". (ha! ha!)

 

David-Thanks for the kind words. I never really learned to do paint brush washes. All my color variations come from either pastels or dry-brushing. If you wanted to do a tri-color SBD-5 I do not believe you would have to make many modifications to this kit, but I have not researched it. I know you would need a propeller spinner, but the kit already gives an option for radio operator twin .30 caliber machine guns.

 

Thanks

 

Phillip1