Revell Snaptite “1/72” P-51D as a RCAF 442 Squadron Mustang IV

To make up for my glacial build rate, David Geldmacher, now of Alabama, has submitted an article on an RCAF model. Over to you David...

The IPMS Birmingham Phantom Phlashers “President’s Challenge Build” theme for Summer 2013 was “SnapTite.”   Models were required to be finished per IPMS Out of the Box Rules, but removing the SnapTite features to use glue/cement was permitted.  The OOB requirement prevented me from pursuing my usual interests in reconnaissance or special missions variants of the available SnapTite kits in 1/72.  I considered the old Revell YF-23 in a What-If scheme, maybe as an Aggressor, but none were on the shelves locally.  If a SnapTite Spitfire IX were available in 1/72, I could have managed one of the late war pink Tac Recce versions, but alas only the Mk.I is out there.  So, if I can’t go with a mission-driven build, it would have to be color and markings.  Coming from a SnapTite meant it wouldn’t be in natural metal. Hmm…

Well, one of the most interesting of all Mustang schemes, and something that would look very different on a club contest table in Alabama (for sure) is the RCAF 442 Sqn pattern from around V-E day.  These had the unusual “Loop” variation of the RAF day fighter scheme and bore a brilliant ID yellow “antiglare” panel and canopy frame.  The squadron codes were arrayed unusually and trimmed with a fine yellow outline.  Now, off to find decals.  A kindly blogger from the frozen wastes offered me a spare set of Arrow Graphics decals for the scheme with a 1994 copyright date.  There was a suggestion that these might be somewhat overscale, but more on that later.

The Revell Mustang kit is circa 1974 (it says so in big raised letters right on the starboard flap undersurface).  It is now available in a prepainted version, listed as 1/72 scale, and prominently features on the shelves of mainstream craft/hobby retailers like Michaels.  Upon measuring, the wingspan scales out about 10% oversize, or about 1/65 scale.  There are 21 parts plus the clear canopy.  The canopy shape is distorted to facilitate snap-together assembly and the sliding portion of the canopy frame is molded as part of the fuselage.  Panel lines are prominently raised throughout, but there are no rivets.  There is no interior detail except for a nicely formed pilot.  Neither the radiator intake nor radiator outlet flap is molded with any opening.  No one here in Alabama is likely to recognize that the engine breather panel on the nose is “perforated” (represented by raised lumps) instead the louvered RCAF version.

First, I stripped the preprinted markings from the wings and fuselage.  I repainted the pilot to RCAF/RAF standards and painted the interior sidewalls black.  The interior shelf with pilot was located and the fuselage halves were assembled after cutting off the snap lugs.  Fit was generally poor.  The wings come as a single lower piece and the upper halves mate no more poorly with the fuselage than any vintage Airfix kit.  I used a styrene shim in the gap of the port wing to get the dihedral even.  The wing thickness was altered by removing the snap pins so the flaps and ailerons molded into the upper halves stand proud of the wing lower surface. The tailplane passes through a slot in the fuselage halves with plenty of space to spare.  A lot of red auto filler putty and many rounds of putty sand repeat were needed.  The underside wing to fuselage seam proved unfixable, due both to the changed thickness and its location adjacent to the radiator scoop.   Oh, and I sanded off all the manufacturers copyright lettering on the flap, too.  Final seam filling involved Mr. Dissolved Putty in many places and thick CA glue where flexing was a problem along the wing seam.  The canopy to fuselage joint was atrocious.  I thinned the snap lugs and hand painted the coaming and deck flat black.  After a dip in Future, I blackened the lower edge of the canopy with a paint marker and tacked the clear part in place with CA.

 I carefully masked the canopy.  The unusual size and shape prevented me from using any precut masks, so I did it the old fashioned way. Then I used thick CA to try to fill the gaps, this was followed by Mr. Dissolved putty and plenty of sanding to smooth the joint.  After all the sanding, it was no longer evident that there was a sliding hood.  I then masked the outline of the metal canopy section and doubled up the tape thickness.  I filled to the level of the tape with Mr. Surfacer 500 in multiple layers and sanded until I was back down to the tape. Removing the tape left me with a subtle, though nowhere near perfect, canopy frame.

I then primed the airframe with Floquil enamel primer and addressed a few more small seam cracks and sinkmarks.  Next a Tamiya flat white undercoat went on along the antiglare section and the wing leading edges.  A coat of Tamiya Flat Yellow stood in for UK ID yellow in the same spots.  After that was masked, I used Tamiya Sky for the fuselage ID band.  Once that was masked, Life Color FS36270/Medium Sea Grey went on all undersurfaces.  I used Tamiya Ocean Grey for the primary upper color, which was then masked for the Tamiya Dark Green disruptive pattern.

As a dyed-in-the-wool enamel user trying to make the switch to acrylics, this is the first kit where I’ve used Tamiya as my primary paint.  I have to say I love it, and had no problems at all.  I think it will be my first choice from here on out.  The drop tanks were sprayed PollyScale Aluminum (which did not go as well) and the pylons touched up by brush with the Life Color Medium Sea Grey.  Late Mustangs seem to have gone over to zinc chromate in the wheel wells, so I brush painted Tamiya chromate yellow in the spuriously ribbed main gear wells.  I touched up the tires with Tamiya NATO black.

Decalling got off to a great start.  I chose to begin with the fin flashes because I had plenty of spares if something went wrong.  After trimming to correct a minor color registration problem, they went on like a dream.  The same was true for the serial numbers. Things were looking good for 20 year decal sheet.  The yellow backing circle for the fuselage roundels was quite translucent but would serve OK.  Next up, the roundel itself:  it shattered mercilessly as soon as I started to move it from the paper.  Ouch!  It’s just a roundel though, and I’ve got plenty of those in stock.  Amazingly, not one was the size to match the yellow ring, and none of my yellow ringed C1 roundels was the same size as those on the sheet.  I wonder if that size issue, and the rather large “Edmonton Special” personalized script under the port windscreen was the source of concern about the size of the markings.  I quickly coated all of the remaining markings with liquid decal film.  I found a couple reasonably sized type C roundels for the wing upper surface and figured I was safe.  I was wrong.

Even with the liquid film, I had recurrent problems with markings cracking around the edges and them curling up as they dried.  Eventually everything went on, but all four wing roundels are from other sources.  I decided to sharpen the masked edges of the wing ID panels with thin strips of yellow decal.  This helped their appearance considerably.  Future was necessary to hold most of the decals down tightly.  In the end, the markings are messy but acceptable from the 3 foot intended viewing distance I planned for them.  Final assembly involved adding the landing gear and drop tanks.  Amazingly, the mold-in fuselage aerial mast remained intact throughout the entire build.

In summary this was a tough build.  I didn’t much care for the kit and my much-desired markings turned into a thrash.  However, I was a good citizen, played along with the club’s rules, and brought an attention-getting model to the table.  As an aside, the other SnapTite Mustang on display was the 1/48 Pegasus kit, also done with colorful markings by club member John Hassard.

Dr. David's Photo Hunter - Done!

I had a disaster as I unmasked the dividing line between upper and lower surface colors. The Tamiya tape pulled out a chunk of the epoxy putty that had faired in the camera nose extension. I then had to mask off the nose at the first panel line, reputty (this time with lacquer based automotive putty for better adhesion), resand, and repaint all three colors. Fortunately it went well the second time through. I didn't even need to use my ready made excuse about a "replacement nose section" on the real airplane to account for mismatched camo divisions.

The finishing steps took an exceptionally long time for this model. Having completed the basic finish in mid November, I was able to work in only a few minutes of modeling each week. In the process I missed self-imposed Thanksgiving (US) and Christmas deadlines, but was able to clear enough time in a week of "working from home" to complete everything by New Year's Day.

One of the most challenging steps was getting the underwing serial numbers to properly span the landing gear and still keep their position perpendicular to the centerline. The gear doors are well-engineered to maintain alignment in the open position (perhaps the best engineering for this I've seen in 1/72 scale), but it means they don't lie flush in the closed position, even when anchored with Blu-Tak. The main axis of the main wheel bays is parallel to the sweep angle, not the centerline. So, the combination of angled and nonflush surfaces kept dragging the decal out of square. The Revell kit decals - sadly for a different airframe - have marks for where to cut the decal to fit, but Xtradecal (understandably) did not do this. Once the buzz numbers and the lower roundels were in place, I could add the underwing pylons and landing gear.

The nose gear is very delicate. Mine snapped off at the nosewheel yoke as I removed it from the sprue. I used plastic cement to make the repair, after trapping the nose wheel between the (now separated) yoke halves. This also allowed me to pose the nose wheel at a slight turn angle for interest. I let the newly reconstructed nose wheel strut cure for 3-4 days to ensure adequate strength. There is no great positive connection for the nosewheel doors either. In contrast, the beautifully-engineered main gear was a dream to assemble, with positive attachment points to maintain angles and alignments perfectly.

These reconnaissance birds usually carried four drop tanks. Revell supply only the 100 gallon size for the outer pylons. Fortunately the now-superseded Airfix Hunter FGA.9 kit includes the big 230 gallon tanks that required the flap cut-outs on the Hunter Mk 9 and subsequent variants. I robbed those and painted them all with grey tops and silver bottoms.

After gloss coating, the decals, including lots of fine airfame maintenance marks from the kit decals took nearly a full day to apply. A blizzard that day allowed me to model uninterruptedly without needing to address any out-of-the-house concerns. I used Future as the "setting solution" for the Revell decals since I've had bad silvering with this brand before. I used the Microscale "system" for the Xtradecal markings, with no problems.

After sealing everything up with a coat of Model Master semigloss clear lacquer, I used a dirty wash from Promodeller (in the UK) for the panel lines. Lots of sooty gunk shows on the undersurface silver in photos of in-service Hunters and this captured the effect nicely. I was dismayed to find that some of the wash, that was invisible when dry on the grey uppersurfaces, was outside the panel lines and reappeared as broad dark smudges with my final sealing coast of semigloss. Oh well, I guess the maintenance officer or the plane captain is going to have explaining to do at the next inspection...

I unmasked the canopy and was overjoyed to find no "surprises;" there was; however, the usual and troublesome tape gunk left behind. I tried a new approach to that with great success. Remembering Silly Putty's abilities to lift comics from the Sunday paper as a kid. I rolled a small ball of Blu-Tak and rolled it over the canopy. Voila, the gunk was gone and the canopy shone like a freshly Futured floor! I added the pitot tube and called her done, sending out the final official portraits just before noon on December 31.

Final conclusion: This is a great kit, easily built, with almost no tricky parts. It captures the long, graceful look of the Hunter beautifully. I can recommend it without reservation.

Dr. David's Photo Hunter Update #3

OK, since the last update I've been able to make a small amount of progress, albeit in tiny steps. Three half day conferences/meetings last week and two major deadlines over the weekend certainly slowed things down. On the flip side, horrendous weather in Annapolis led me to skip the Navy (US Naval Academy) football game and gave me back a full day to handle the other stuff and a little modeling. (The Mids won a nail-biter even without my on-scene exhortations).

The little steps of progress included securing the seat and control stick in the cockpit, getting the windscreen and canopy affixed with white glue (remembering to paint a small area under the rear of the canopy in interior black), and completing the final dressing of the wing to fuselage joints.

The next bigger, and more tedious step, involved masking the canopy with strips and rectangles of Tamiya masking tape. Once that was done, I applied a quick shot of interior black to the canopy to provide the color for the "inside" framing, followed by an overall topsurface coat of Model Master Dark Sea Gray.

After that dried overnight, the camouflage pattern was delineated with very thin strips cut from Tamiya tape. The inside edges of the areas to remain gray were defined with small squares cut from the same tape. Yes, it's tedious, but I find its the best way to secure the complex curves with minimal overspray and bleedthrough errors. The photo shows the outlining and the first few squares of tape on the nose.

The gray areas were then filled in with larger squares of 3M blue tape.


Once the camo pattern was defined and masked, I carefully inspected for gaps in the tape under a bright light. A quick rub with a Polly Scale Plastic Prep impregnated cloth prepared me to spray the ModelMaster RAF Dark Green. Depite thorough stirring, this had a distinctive gloss finish on application. Though not a problem in light of the upcoming gloss coat for decaling, I worry a little about its drying time with that sheen, but I used lacquer thinner to dilute it and I have a two-and-a-half day business trip to let it cure. I'm a little concerned about leaving the masking in place that long, but any handling now would be a disaster.


Undersurface colored applied with Tamiya Silver Leaf - as anticipated, a dream to work with. Perhaps a tad bright, but I will be dulling it down.


The topside camo unmasked beautifully.

Dr. David's Photo Hunter Update #2

Progress report 10/16/09.

Not a lot accomplished this week due to professional and family demands, but I have been able to accomplish a little bit on each of several nights. The epoxy putty was added around the nose extension, with masking tape at the panel line to restrict where excess putty ended up.


After sanding roughly to shape, the camera ports were located based on published drawings, then drawn on with a fine pencil and a Verlinden scribing template, drilled out with an appropriate size bit, and shaped to size with small files. These will be filled with white (PVA) glue after painting.

The Quickboost resin Mk. 9 style jetpipe and parabrake housing pieces were primed with Tamiya spray and attached. The aft fuselage interior required a swipe of two of a file around the inner lip to allow the resin to slide in, but otherwise the fit was nearly flawless. Most of the primer was sanded away as I dressed the seam.

After smearing the inside ofthe nose cone with black paint, I cut a 1/8 oz lead fishing weight into several pieces and hammered it into shapes to fit in the nose cone and above the landing gear bay. There is another full weight just behind the cockpit tub. The photo also shows the Mr. Surfacer I used on the wing-to-fuselage joints and especially the dogtooth and wingtip seams.

Subsequently I attached the nose to the fuselage and dressed the seam with Mr. Surfacer. The Sabrinas (shell casing collectors) and the airbrake went onto the underside. The Sabrinas are nicely engineered for a perfect fit. The airbrake required a couple of swipes with a sanding stick along the sides to lie flat to the fuselage.

Next steps: smooth the nose joint, adjust the flaps from Mk.6 to Mk.9 standards and close up the cockpit. If I'm both lucky and productive, I could have a primer coat on by the end of Sunday.

Progress report 10/18/09.

I have been mulling over the best way to manage my color scheme. Normally, I more-or-less use the undersurface color as an overall primer, then add to topside colors. However, in this case I am concerned that applying the underside silver first would lead to adherence problems when masking for the camo colors. I was so troubled by this that, in an almost unfathomable occurrence of turnabout-is-fair-play, I actually got two lectures assembled and a research paper re-submitted for work this weekend before I got up the nerve to tackle the problem.

I was also deciding how to manage the underwing fairing for the flap cut-outs, and got some very quick and useful help from the folks on the Britmodeller forums. In the end, I scribed the line for the cut-out in the flaps until the quarter-circle cut-out piece separated. After cleaning up the piece, I cemented it in place in the flap well, using the rest of the flap as a guide.

I masked off the cockpit, got a coffee stir stick wrapped with the right amount of tape to hold firm in the jet pipe, and shot the whole bird with Tamiya fine surface primer from a rattle can. Since the undersurface will represent a painted aluminum finish rather than natural metal, I felt that a well polished primer would be a better base than bare plastic.

Next steps: address flaws made evident by the primer, add underwing pylons, finish cockpit and add/mask canopy, and prep/mask for uppersurface gray.

The Halloween deadline is looming in a very scary way...

Dr. David's Photo Hunter

David Geldmacher has decided to attempt to support my Revell Hunter build by doing on of his own. David is a huge reconnaissance fan, so he will be converting his Hunter into a FR.10. I'll let David take it from here.

Previously in the one month Hunter build:

I will be building Hunter FR.10 XJ633/S of 2 Sqn RAF, Gutersloh, Germany, ca.1960, as depicted on Xtradecal sheet number 72047. The aircraft was painted in RAF standard Dark Green, Dark Sea Grey and Aluminum/High Speed Silver camouflage.

The kit seat was assembled and a white metal aftermarket Martin Baker Mk.2 from A+V Models was cleaned up and primed. The cockpit interior had a large sinkhole on the port side ejection seat rail covered with a scrap of thin sheet plastic. The fuselage interior, cockpit tub, instrument panel, and both seats were sprayed in a very dark gray (scale black)

Progress report 10/5/09.

Monticello High School volleyball beats Grace Christian 3-0
Swim Team breakfast for 10/6/09 prep work complete

Then:

After looking at the painted pieces I chose the white metal version of the MB Mk.2. It is now done except for the lower ejection handle and the face curtain handles; I will wind the handles from fine yellow and black wire. The seat harness and leg straps are made from wine-bottle lead foil. Although the Revell seat is fine, an added harness would help give some depth to otherwise flat detail. The face curtain handles in the kit seat are a nice touch, but overscale. (photo). The A+V metal seat had better back cushion detail and adds easy nose weight, both of which influenced me to go that way. The Revell seat is certainly good enough to go to the spares box for that day in some distant post-apocalyptic period when I run out of white metal early British ejection seats and can't restock.


In addition to the kit's 100 gal drop tanks, a pair of 230 gal tanks was pilfered from an Airfix Hunter FGA.9. These were poorly cast with deep sink holes and had some retraction around the edges. Automotive putty filled the sink holes and Mr. Surfacer 500 was used all the way around the seam. The Airfix tanks lack the "trough" evident at the pylon attachment of the real thing, but only a Hunter expert with too much time on his hands would notice the difference in a 1/72 display-shelf model. The Revell kit tanks are fine. They await their fins, but otherwise I got a jump start on underwing stores for this compressed-time build.

Finally, the camera nose for the FR.10 must be addressed. There is a minimal addition of length, but the nose profile is altered by the addition of the forward facing camera. The Quickboost replacement piece is expedient, but inaccurate. It lacks the subtle profile change to accommodate the forward facing camera, and it inaccurately represents the location of the side facing cameras of the British photo-Hunter. Therefore, the kit nose was first sanded back to create a flat mating surface; this reduced the length by about 3-6 scale inches. The flat spot was painted black. then a piece of cylindrical clear sprue was cut ~9 scale inches long and cemented to the front of the nose (photo). I will fair this in with 2 part epoxy to create the subtly different nose profile of the FR.10. I have not yet decided how to handle the "eyelid" shutter that covered the forward facing camera when it was not active, but I will probably just sand the sprue the shape with the nose, scribe the horizontal shutter line and paint the new tip a brighter silver than the underside.

Progress report 10/6/09.

Fuselage closed, with a 1/8 oz. weight behind the cockpit. Not an easy fit to get the tub in place. I went with the instrument decals over the raised detail, using your recommendation of Future as setting agent. Things settled down reasonably well, so now there is color, fine detail, and texture on the panels.

I added the ejection handles, but I'm not real happy with the sit of the metal seat in the tub. It seems too low to me; I may go back to the kit seat. Plenty of time to decide that before adding the canopy.

Next steps will include finishing the inside of the intakes and the wings, as well as adding the Quickboost tail feathers.

Progress report 10/7/09.

Nose gear well installed in fuselage.

Intake interiors and ramps brushed with aluminum and ramps glued in place. Wings constructed. I recommend adding the dogtooth leading edge before the tips, and using conventional cement rather than CA to allow for the necessary alignments. Very nice engineering.

I also worked on the kit seat. Face curtain handles were painted yellow and, when dry, given black stripes with a Gundam marker. Cushions were painted with various flavors of Citadel Miniatures browns. I also added a wine bottle foil upper back "cushion" to replicate my metal seat and photos.

Progress report 10/8/09.

High school volleyball again tonight. (Monticello loses 3 games to 1)

The wings are now attached to the fuselage. No further progress to report.

A word to the wise: do NOT fret about anything with the consoles or panels . They are utterly invisible once the fuselage halves are together. They will be even more invisible once the canopy is sealed up.

Progress report 10/9/09.

Mr. Surfacer added to gaps at wingtip and dogtooth extensions, as well as around nose gear insert (probably not needed at the latter.

True Details belts added to kit seat and painted (forgot I had these), also a random photo-etch lower ejection handle added.

A+B epoxy putty added around nose extension.

Sea Blue... International Orange... Over A Prairie State?

Last year at the Region 4 convention I was had lunch with modeling friend, and fellow DSSer, Dr. David Geldmacher of Virginia Commonwealth fame. Of course discussion turned to kits and he mentioned he wanted to build a ECM varient of the AM-1 Maluer. I just happened to have a Siga AM-1 I knew I was never going to build, so I sent it off to him. In exchange he agreed to write a review for the blog. I do have to admit it is nice to see a finished model emerge from my collection...even if I didn't build it... So take it away David...

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For those of you who felt that my resin Grumman AF-2W Guardian wasn't quite esoteric enough (no pun intended, Rick and Doc) because nearly 200 were built and they had nearly 3 years in active duty service, I present to you my AM-1Q Mauler built from a kit Jim Bates sent me (prior to this gift I, I had long considered Jim a friend).

AM-1 Mauler History

The Mauler was part of the design competition that lead to the development of the AD (A-1) Skyraider. Overengineered, overweight, overpowered for its role, one of them actually tore off its own tail during carrier qualifications. It suffered from the further misfortunes of coming from a company with no modern carrier-based design experience and facing off against an Ed Heinemann design in head to head competition. The first flight was in 1944, as the XBTM-1. The designation was changed to AM-1 in 1946 and first active duty squadron received delivery in 1948. Only about 150 AM-1s were built; they never entered full-fledged fleet service and were out of the regular Navy by 1950. (Given their protracted development, they actually served longer with the Naval Aviation Test Center at Pax River than they did in active duty squadrons!).

Eighteen were built as AM-1Q electronic countermeasures planes, meant to provide direct ECM support to attack missions. A second crewman operated the ECM equipment from a dungeon-like hole behind the pilot, where the main fuel tank was located in the attack birds. Reports suggest that NATC found the ECM suite nearly useless. The failure might in part stem from the fact the human factors (now known as ergonomics) for the ECM crewman were horrible. There was one side window, temperatures on the ground were excessive, and even at 25,000 feet (where external temperatures were -50° F) an ordinary flight suit was sufficiently warm. Oh, and egress in an emergency! Well, let's not think about that.

Building the Siga Kit

The kit is molded typically for a limited run eastern European model. The parts are soft, detail mushy, and casting gates substantial. The soft plastic proved problematic. I ended up with deep gashes from using a too-coarse sanding stick that worked just fine on Esci and Revell-Germany plastic.

Scott Van Aken describes the kit in some detail on Modeling Madness. His build-up is here. Others have raised concerns about the accuracy of the landing gear layout, but Google is blacking the SMAKR site right now so be careful.

One important omission is the Mauler's distinctive and complicated "finger" dive brake system. I attempted to scribe the dive brake apparatus, but was unable to get the 15 lines evenly spaced and parallel on any one of the 4 surfaces where I attempted it. After filling the failed attempts with Mr. Surfacer, let's just say the dive brakes fit *very* well on the Mauler I've modeled.


Overall fuselage fit is not too bad, though the carburetor scoop and wing to fuselage joints are rough. Wings are too thick and seem not to sit quite square. There were no wing pylons were included in my sample (nor called for in the instructions). The pylons were apparently part of a separate weapons set, but the large pylons just outboard of the main gear are structural elements of the wing and not detachable. I scratchbuilt mine from laminated sheets of .030 styrene, based on photo references.


The prop is a build it yourself deal, but it did not go well for me. I struggled with it throughout the build and lost most of the detail of the blade cuff through repeated sanding.


The interior is acceptable, with nice decals for the panel and consoles. I added decal and wine-foil belts and scratchbuilt the stick to replace the kit-supplied tree trunk.


Assembly was otherwise straightforward. The main wheels were utterly atrocious, with the hub standing proud of the tire by a scale 6 inches or so. At first I tried filling the gap with Mr. Surfacer and putty, which would have also brought the tire width closer to scale, but in the end robbed an old (rather brightly colored) Novo/Frog Beaufort of its wheels. They were the only 36 inch wheels with a reasonably correct hub in my spares box.

The canopy fit was poor due to the thickness of the plastic and the absence of a significant bevel on its mating surface. I addressed that by wrapping the fuselage with 320 grit sandpaper facing out, and running the canopy back and forth along the fuselage spine. Along with being thick, the clear plastic was also quite hazy. It cleared considerably after a Future dip.

Electronics bulges were carved from sprue scraps and added to the belly, along with a blade antenna and its housing. I left off the tail hook since these were not apparently fitted to the reserve birds. Hypodermic tubes replaced the kits molded 20mm cannons.

Finishing

After the canopy was masked and lightly hit with black from a Tamiya rattlecan, Xtracolor International Orange, lightened slightly with Testors (square bottle) flat yellow was sprayed on the rear fuselage for the "Reserve" band. Even with a lacquer thinner accelerator, I gave the Xtracolor 2 weeks to dry before masking out the band. Then trusty Modelmaster Gloss Sea Blue went on everything. (I probably have more experience with this one paint and shade than any other in my shop.). The prop started with Testors rattle can white which was then masked for the spinner. Testors yellow went on the tips. After masking those, Tamiya rattlecan black was next for the blades. Once the blades were masked Gloss Sea Blue went on the spinner base.

Conjoint disaster followed. The white spinner mask had failed. I lack the skill to spot paint white over sea blue, so I tried to mask in reverse. This caused one of the prop blades to part company with the hub. Eventually, after reattaching the blade, I had to do a complete repaint of the prop. (Maybe now I know why those pointy gray jets are calling me.)

Scratchbuilt radio altimeter antennae were added to the tailplane, new auxiliary gear doors and retraction links replaced the kit ones (which were thick enough to represent battleship armor), and the pitot arm was thinned by 50% and sanded to an airfoil profile. (photo). These were hand painted with GSB, and the ECM bulges were also hand done with Citadel Miniatures Rotting Flesh.

The decals were a special treat for me on this one. The AM-1Q's fleet service was very brief, and I could find no photos of active duty Q-birds. Ginter's AM-1 book has numerous shots of Maulers in the reserves. My first goal was to try to do one from Columbus because they carried yellow spinners and had that Ohio link, but I could neither confirm that they operated the AM-1Q there, nor come up with a source for a spelled-out Columbus. Even I, who regularly bangs together parts of Bureau Numbers from individual digits wasn't going to try for C-O-L-U-M-B-U-S by placing single letters in four places.

As I was going through my NAVAIR decals for ideas, I found my answer in an unexpected place. Two-Bobs decals did an IPMS Nats 2001 (Chicago) sheet that included an Orange-banded FG-1D from nearby NAS Glenview. The Ginter book has clear photos of AM-1Q 22351 serving at Glenview, and shots of other AM-1's illustrating all angles for markings except the wing upper surface. The lettering sizes for the FG-1D and the AM-1 were the same. I also had the appropriate Aeromaster plain white numbers. We were golden! Very nice kit decals provided basic insigniae and LSO angle markings for the tail. I did have to construct the BuNo from the kit decals and even found a tiny (scale 3 inch) O to serve as the Q in the model identifier above the BuNo.

After decaling, I added heavier exhaust staining than is my habit, but I wanted to come close to the photos. The overall finish was toned down by adding a few drops of Tamiya Smoke to Testor's SemiGloss clear lacquer. (Yes! They are compatible, a fact I learned in the ARC forums).

The End

The canopy was unmasked (no disasters, Yay!) and buffed with an old T-shirt rag. The radio aerial at the windscreen was sliced from .010 plastic, painted GSB, and attached. For ease of handling and storage, I did not rig the antenna lines.



After a long, and mostly fruitful journey, I was done. Though it photographs nicely, there are errors in abundance including residual sanding gouges, significant malalignments, and even some open seams. Much like its 1:1 scale ancestor, it serves best toward the back of the shelf.