Combat Models SB2U Vindicator, anyone have one, thoughts..?

[ssculptor]

Guys who produce the Vacuum kits have their dies and little else. When they get an order they have the plastic drawn over the dies and thus produce a kit to order. They do not keep much of a stock.  Which means you can order replacement canopies from CM in the USA and from Tigger in England. That is also good because some of the older clear parts have turned color after the many years.

As to the Grand Canyon panel lines, there is this material knows as putty, which one can buy at a hobby shop or on line. You stick it into the grooves and then sand smooth. Canyons all gone. Come on fellas, this is scratch building. You do all the work; you do not  just assemble a vac, you become a model maker and actually make the model, virtually from scratch. Some of the guys have trouble facing the fact that they are not dealing with an injection molded kit or a good resin cast kit. When I build a model from scratch I start with good plans (I hope) and sheets of thin balsa wood. I buy #11 Xacto blades in packages of 100 and a good wood glue.  Not much different from a vac kit as far as I am concerned. I know guys who start with good plans and blocks of a good hard wood and very sharp carving knives, a set of sharp chisels and start hacking away. I know other guys who scratch build starting with sheets of plastic and good plans.

My advice is if you see a vac kit you want just buy it and worry about building it later. Also buy plenty of putty and sanding paper of various grades for when you start it.

By the way, there were vacuform kits that were a cut above the rest and were thus easier to build. Echelon's Lightning and Hunter were two that were better. Also the Australian kit of the Boomerang was a step up from the usual vacs. But most vacuform kits are very simple and almost crude.

But please, guys, when you try a vacuform please do not be like that stupid twit who, some years ago, wrote a scathing critique on one of Combat Models 1/72 submarine model kits. The jerk was upset that it was so crude. That is like complaining that the Yugo he bought is not a Ferrari. What a moron! I call him a jackass because shortly thereafter I saw an article on a CM submarine kit where the work done by a talented modeler that was absolutely stupendous. If you want to make a good model of something starting with a vacuform you are going to work your ass off because you are starting with practically nothing. Period. That's reality.

Stephen

[ssculptor]

Steph,

 Just do it on the side, via PMs, and no one will know......

I know, but I cannot say so in public.

signed,

Mysterious stranger.

 

P.S. these paper card model kits cost only $10-$30 and they appear on eBay at times. Also if you can live with the slight discrepancy in scale (1/33 is 97% of the size of 1/32) you can use the interior parts of the paper model for your interiors. They are all colored already. Its OK, I wont tell.

Edited July 15, 2014 by ssculptor

[Harold]

OK, But I'll have to find it in the basement first. I hope you are patient because we are now rebuilding the kitchen and all my free time is involved with that.  I am trying to find a new cabinet to put under the sink and from the looks of it I may have to end up building my own cabinet. The cabinet makers in my area are swamped with work and they seem to prefer rebuilding the complete kitchen to the latest style and cannot be bothered with my wife, who just wants a simple cabinet to match the other cabinetry in the kitchen.

My wife has simple old fashioned tastes as she grew up on her grandparents' farm and when we got married and left the hills of Kentucky they still had an outhouse and she had to bring up the water from an outside well. Her grandfather had built the house himself back before WW1 and the cabinets were simple, not ornate and fancy like today. Her grandpa was in on the Alaskan gold rush and then worked as a locomotive engineer in California. When he had enough money he returned to KY, bought some farmland, built a one room house and a barn and got married. Back then they did everything themselves. By the time my wife left grandpa had added extra rooms and a second floor to the house.

So perhaps I will build the simple cabinet. We will, however, get new granite counters for all the cabinets in the kitchen and the latest types of drawers with bearings, latest faucets, etc. 

But before I do all this I'll have to buy a new pair of bib overalls, a straw hat and develop a taste fer chawing terbaccy. Yup.

By the way, when I was last down there in the '70's I helped grandpa spray all sorts of anti-bug poisons on the tobacco crop. The skull and crossbones and danger poison markings on these sprays was scary as hell. Especially when one is spraying them all over the crop. To think that people smoke and chew that tobacco afterwards is really scary. That experience kept me from smoking afterwards.

But this project will be done soon because now we have no sink in the kitchen. Then I'll find and photo the kit for you.

Stephen

Don't forget "whittlin'"...My dad had his dads pocket knife. He "whittled" with it like his dad did. Sittin' on the porch, "whittlin" when he no other work to do around the house. His dad was a small farmer in Missouri, I visited the old "homestead" as a kid. It is as you described to a T....

[JRutman]

I think Steven answered this very well already.  I would only add that I built quite a few vacs from Combat. I actually prefer the ID models because they had no surface detail. It saves you the extra step of filling in the awful panel lines. There are very few vacs anywhere that have good panel lines.

  I just look at the shape and the symetry. Some combat kits had such a problem with the left side matching the right that I gave up.

J

[Kagemusha]

An easy way to get the interior for these models is to buy a good paper card kit of the plane, using a copy machine scale it up to 1/32,

 

Just bought a 1/33 Vindicator from a Polish ebay seller, cheers for the suggestion.

[Guest Clunkmeister]

I have the Accurate Miniatures 48 size Wind Indicator, and, like most of their stuff, it's a beautiful model kit. If someone would just release it to the same standard in 32, I'd be a happy guy.

[Tnarg]

Here are the photos of the Combat Vindicator:

 

 

 

 

That is all you get... no interior, but you probably can use that card model and references for a lot better detail if you do it yourself.

 

Hope that helps,

 

Tnarg

Edited July 15, 2014 by Tnarg

[LSP_K2]

Kag, if you're not already aware, Classic Warbirds Publishing does a great little book on the Vindicator.

[Tnarg]

That Classic Warbirds book is probably the best guide you will find to the details you would need for this plane, both interior and exterior.

 

Tnarg

[Lee White]

That Combat vac looks better than I expected-

[Kagemusha]

Thanks for the photos Grant, and the book info Kevin, just bought it.

Edited July 16, 2014 by Kagemusha

[pennausamike]

First, I agree with the idea of using a paper card model for its interior.

I had the same idea for my ID Models Ki-45.

 

 

I keep flip-flopping back and forth between using the paper pieces for patterns,

or to just say the heck with it and glue the paper interior right in...

 

 

And second of all.....

[pennausamike]

...I took a trip to the Naval Aviation Museum a couple years back,and got some interesting shots of the Vindicator.

 

 

The Vindicator was a good cross between old and procedures for building aircraft.

 

 

 

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Not sure if these help, but here they are.

 

Mike

Edited July 16, 2014 by pennausamike

[LSP_K2]

Great photos. I've head the Pensacola museum is outstanding.

[Kagemusha]

Thanks for the photos Mike, very much appreciated, I read there is a sole Vindicator at Pensacola, recovered from Lake Michigan and restored immaculately.