SBD-3 Guadalcanal done, done and..

[Kaeone57]

1 hour ago, Archer Fine Transfers said:

 

Yea, that's the part. The way it's shaped caused me to pause.

Thank you!

 

 

No worries, anytime!

 

Nice work!

 

Alfonso

[Woody V]

Progress has slowed to a crawl dealing with painting and detailing all these cockpit parts.

 

What you’re looking at here took me almost 50 hours to complete. If you like cockpits, this is the kit for you. Some Eduard placards, paper lap belts and a couple generic Archer placards thrown in just because.

 

Man, do I love lacquer! This stuff is so forgiving and workable. Using Mr. Color I started with a black base coat and then gradually built up color in varying density perpendicular to the surface so that very little paint gets on the sides of things. Modulating the paint like this yields a more interesting finish than one solid color.

 

When that was done the paint had varying degrees of surface texture ranging from a smooth sheen to dry overspray. Now the beauty of lacquer’s ability to be re-wet comes into play. I sprayed a wet coat of Mr. Color Leveling Thinner over everything re-wetting the paint, flowing it out and the final result is a smooth sheen. Weathering comes next.

 

 

Hopefully, things will start to move more quickly now that the fuselage is close to being closed up.

[Lothar]

But it looks like the wait has been worth it, fantastic effort and painting !!!

Lothar

[Phartycr0c]

superb. keep up the good work. 

[Woody V]

Finally got everything added to the fuselage walls.

 

Part of the Eduard PE set is a bracket to hold the flare pistol and a cover for the flare gun port. The kit instructions say to glue the pistol into the open port but I’m thinking that can’t be right. I checked some reference photos and they all showed the gun stored so that’s what I did. The only significant modification on the left side. I also used the Eduard cockpit placards and instruments on that small panel above the spool.

 

Not much to see here. OOTB except for the Eduard and Archer placards. The instrument face happens to be from an Archer instrument set for a German halftrack.  Hey, it fits.

 

 

Cockpit floor dry fit.

All this lacquer painting and weathering stuff is new to me, so I’m just making things up as I go along and taking a lot of liberties in the process. My weathering is all done with oils, which I finally figured out. For the life of me I could never work it with gloss so I dropped back to semi gloss and I finally felt like I had some control over it. But semi gloss is too glossy and flat is dead flat so I mixed semi gloss and flat 50/50 and used that as a final clear. Paint is all Mr Color lacquer.

 

The Mr Color “Interior Green” is a bit on the light side so underpainting with black allowed me vary the density of the green. The first assembly I painted was the cockpit floor, which I did subtly lighter than the sidewalls theorizing that it would be more visible down in the cockpit where there will be less light. Sounds good in theory and it was a fun experiment.

 

My only regret here is that I didn’t do more chipping. I did do some, but there should be more especially considering how dirty the cockpit is. Oh well, next time.

 

 

Now it’s finally time to button this puppy up.

[Brett M]

Nice work, Woody! Your interior is looking sharp, and I definitely like the additions of the placards. 

 

I'm at about the same point as you, minus the work you've already done on the turret. Maybe I'll break out the Nikon later.....

 

Keep it up!

[Alex]

On 6/2/2020 at 7:12 AM, Archer Fine Transfers said:

 

When that was done the paint had varying degrees of surface texture ranging from a smooth sheen to dry overspray. Now the beauty of lacquer’s ability to be re-wet comes into play. I sprayed a wet coat of Mr. Color Leveling Thinner over everything re-wetting the paint, flowing it out and the final result is a smooth sheen. 

 

Yes!  This is one of its secret super-powers.

[petrov27]

Love the pit work here - just amazing colors and details

[Woody V]

Been a while but I finally have something to show, and some of you may have seen this coming…. Rivets.

 

I spent about 9 months developing rivets for this kit, not just rows, but pre-arranged rivet “skins” - individual rivet decals that fit each panel. One of the reasons it took so long is that when started I didn’t know what I knew when I finished. This is a monumental undertaking. Then when it was finally time to package it all up and price it out, I wondered if anyone would pay over $200 to rivet one of these kits. Yes, you read that right…. $200.

 

The only excuse I have is that these resin rivet sheets are priced based on size, and the SBD is covered almost entirely with brazier head rivets - and this isn’t a small model. All told this kit nearly fills an 11x17” (A3) sheet. Then everything has to be priced so we can still make something after dealer discount.

 

So I’m conflicted and asking for opinions. Would you pay $200 to completely rivet your model? Should I release them as a Limited Edition? Should I just pass the dealer discount onto retail customers and not offer them to dealers? Have I lost my mind? I really hate to have wasted all that time for nothing.

 

Regardless, I got the fuselage buttoned up, gloss coated and one side of the fuselage riveted.

 

 

Thanks for looking.

[dodgem37]

Really good show.  Great work.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Landrotten Highlander]

Lovely work.

Re the rivet set, I cannot see me forking out $200 for a single upgrade set - particularly if there is a cheaper alternative available (which in the rivet case is purchasing some of your current sheets and measuring/marking the individual the lines on my model).  From what I understand your current idea is to have 'ready-to-cut' panels complete with rivet decals?  Based on this picture I would guess that approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of that surface is rivets the rest is empty space on the decal sheet.

I have no plans to include a SBD-3 into my collection, but if I were to super-detail one of my models with rivets I would be willing to mark the lines on my models and then cut out small lines of rivets to place on the model bit-by-bit. Just my 2 pence worth.

[Kagemusha]

Really nice interior. 

[Brett M]

Hey Woody,

 

Nice work on going all out with the rivets. Watching Pete work his PAVE HAWK and now seeing this, really made me interested in doing a complete rivet job. I don't know if I'd go out for a $200 upgrade, even with it being a simple cut, dip, apply. I know Mrs. Brett would smack me if she saw I did that, too. 

 

That said, I'm sure there are some folks out there that would do it. I'm just not in that boat right now (though I wish I was). 

 

Looking forward to seeing how your SBD progresses. Working on mine now, smoothing out the fuselage to wing joint area. Really rough texture there on mine.....yours too?

 

Brett

Edited August 13, 2020 by Brett M

[Woody V]

2 hours ago, Brett M said:

Hey Woody,

Working on mine now, smoothing out the fuselage to wing joint area. Really rough texture there on mine.....yours too?

Brett

 

Hi Brett,

Yea, I noticed that early on and sanded it down. Same on the horizontal stabilizer fillet.

Woody

[Woody V]

3 hours ago, Landrotten Highlander said:

Lovely work.

Re the rivet set, I cannot see me forking out $200 for a single upgrade set - particularly if there is a cheaper alternative available (which in the rivet case is purchasing some of your current sheets and measuring/marking the individual the lines on my model).  From what I understand your current idea is to have 'ready-to-cut' panels complete with rivet decals?  Based on this picture I would guess that approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of that surface is rivets the rest is empty space on the decal sheet.

 

Yes, the current set has individual decals that fit each panel.

 

I had the same idea recently, just doing sheets with lines of rivets to be cut and applied individually. It sure would bring the cost way down and Trumpeter really did their homework on the rivet placement so it's just a matter of following the pattern on the kit, with only a few corrections/additions. 

 

Thanks so much for your input!