TBF-1c Avenger

[Greif8]

Hello friends, it has been a while since I have posted to the forum.  A combination of work, road cycling and assembling/painting miniature Federation and Klingon fleets to play a game (Federation Commander: Klingon Border) that my two sons and a couple of their friends got into in early May, have taken nearly all my free time.  As both my work load has gotten less and the beginning of fall weather has cut into my cycling a bit, it is time to get back to the bench and on the forum! 

 

I have had the Trumpeter TBF-1c Avenger for some time now and decided to pull it out of the stash and build it.  I do not plan to use much aftermarket on this build and will also keep in scratchbuilding to a minimum.  I am also planning to display the finished model on a carrier deck base, and I'll probably show how I approach making/assembling that on this thread when the time comes.

 

First up, the very large box full of plastic.  The Synthetic Ordnance Works undercarriage and some Anyz stuff is all the aftermarket items for this build.  This will be a fairly big beast when built and I will display it with the wings folded to save space.

 

I am going to add some detail to the engine, but I won't be going "all in" like I did for the FW 190 build I did this past spring as most of the engine will not be seen once finished.

Below you can see that I have added some Anyz spark plugs to the cylinder heads after drilling holes for them.  The Wright R-2600 Double Cyclone engine had the cylinders arranged in a double bank with seven cylinders per bank.  Each cylinder had two spark plugs which I have replicated for a total of 28; this WIP shot highlights one of them.

 

The rear of one of the cylinder banks showing the seven spark plugs and the 2mm discs I punched to cover the holes that one the actual engine had a cover bolted into place.

 

 

The kit's ignition ring is going to receive the most scratchbuilding.  I have already added the two couplers that the real ignition ring had.  Braided lines were fastened to them and ran towards the rear of the engine to locations in the gearing/transmission area.  After measuring and marking the locations, I drilled two holes and glued to Anyz couplers that I modified to look more correct (though still not perfect).  Later I will attach braided lines to the couplers and run them as they were on the actual engine to their rear attachment points.  The small rods that you can see in pairs are far too small drill locater holes for the spark plug lines.  I plan to use some newer type Anyz couplers and will cut the kit parts off, replacing them with the Anyz stuff. 

 

With the exception of the ignition ring, the parts associated with the engine have been cleaned up an are ready for priming and painting. 

 

It is good to be back!

 

Ernest 

[Neo]

Love this kit 

[LSP_Kevin]

Welcome back, Ernest!

 

Kev

[monthebiff]

Looking forward to seeing you bring  this build together Ernest. I've often been tempted to buy one of these.

 

Regards. Andy

[Oldbaldguy]

14 hours ago, monthebiff said:

Looking forward to seeing you bring  this build together Ernest. I've often been tempted to buy one of these.

 

Regards. Andy

Do it.  Get one.  You won’t be sorry.

[Gazzas]

I was wondering where you've been.  I'll follow along.

[dennismcc]

You do not see many of these kits built so this will be very nice to watch, one day I will build mine.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Greif8]

On 9/12/2025 at 11:55 PM, LSP_Kevin said:

Welcome back, Ernest!

 

Kev

 

On 9/13/2025 at 1:25 AM, monthebiff said:

Looking forward to seeing you bring  this build together Ernest. I've often been tempted to buy one of these.

 

Regards. Andy

 

14 hours ago, Gazzas said:

I was wondering where you've been.  I'll follow along.

 

8 hours ago, dennismcc said:

You do not see many of these kits built so this will be very nice to watch, one day I will build mine.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

Thank you to everyone for stopping by and looking/commenting.  Kev, thank you for the welcome back wishes, it is much appreciated. 

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

I got most of the engine primed and painted this weekend.  I think Trumpeter did a great job designing and making the kit engine (the entire kit actually).  The fit is quite good and it is very well detailed for a kit engine.  

 

With the exception of the ignition ring all the parts are painted with the base colors.  I find it much easier to paint engines as sub-assemblies and have done so with this build. 

 

The completed cylinder banks while in the process of having a pin wash added.  The fit was very good to excellent.  I used a water based gloss on the black rods

and top of the cylinder heads as those area were painted with gloss black on the actual engine.  I painted the cylinders stainless steel and the wash added some depth 

to them, as well as making them look like the have seen some use.  I left the spark plugs the same color as the cylinders as photos of the real engine show them to be very close to the same color and I was not able to find information stating what color they might have been.

 

The rear of the completed double bank.  Again the fit was excellent with all the parts going into position with a positive gap-free fit.  The circular disks that I

punched out to replicate blanking discs look like they should when painted.

 

The front side of the double banked cylinders.  You can see that I have started to weather the grey area by doing some minor chipping using the spong technique.

 

The area that will be behind the engine before any weathering.  None of this will be seen on the finished build, but I wanted to paint it, and will weather it,

anyway as for me, that is part of the fun in building kits.

 

Once the Anyz parts arrive I will modify the ignition ring as the next step.  On previous builds I have used a variety of different media to replicate ignition

wires.  This time I will be using stretched sprue to see how that works.  More to follow soon.

 

Ernest

[MikeMaben]

Good to see you back Ern , have fun 

[dennismcc]

Fine work, very neat.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Greif8]

9 hours ago, MikeMaben said:

Good to see you back Ern , have fun 

 

9 hours ago, dennismcc said:

Fine work, very neat.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

Thank you Mike and Dennis.  I am glad to be back at the bench working on an LSP.

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

While waiting for the parts that I need to modify the ignition ring I began work on the cockpit, the IP to be exact.  I decided before beginning the build to use as little A/M as possible on and do some extra detailing or make minor improvements as required.  The kit IP is actually pretty nice and fairly accurate; it is not perfectly accurate, but neither are the A/M kits that serve as a replacement.  I spent a surprising amount of time on the IP and below are some in progress photos of that work.

 

The IP after priming, painting and general assembly.  I will be spraying the front part of the cockpit Bronze Green and you can see a preview of that color on the ends of the part directly below the IP.

 

Some of the modifications that I am making to make the IP closer to how it looked on the actual aircraft.  I am using a combination of Airscale products and scratchbuilding to make the modifications.  The Airscale parts are metal colored and some of the scratched stuff is white.

 

After detail painting and with most of the pretty minor modifications finished.  Again, the IP is pretty nice and took the modifications with no issues.

 

Close up of some of the work.  The first photo highlights the knobs and sliders I made. The larger red "button" and the smaller white ones above it, the slightly out of focus black "button" on the white disc were all punched out using different sized punches.  The second photo also shows some buttons, red and black that were punched out.  The two small yellow levers on the black and grey colored item was all built using Airscale products.  I added white detent marking on the right side.  The yellow switch above is also an Airscale offering.

 

 

 

 

The finished IP that I marked with Airscale placards.  I also added a couple of more pull handles on the left side of the IP.

 

Ernest

[monthebiff]

Very nice looking IP Ernest, very clean work.

 

Regards. Andy

[FW190A-5]

Excellent work! This puts the Eduard PE to shame.