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TBM-3 Avenger 1/48 Accurate Miniatures: an account.


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hello gentlepeople.
i am regaining the long time of absence from our forum.
so please let me present to you a piece of work, a real piece of work.
i mean the kit that accurate miniatures made in a very...accurate way. and eventually the outcome, which is something i would call brazenfacedly, a bit of a masterpiece.

 

you will see some of the subassemblies before they're mated together.
the mating of subassemblies was a piece of cake as compared to decryptation of the instructions to build them, where a simplified sketch of the parts depicted them vaguely connected by lines or arrows, a generic point to no particular place or detail.

so you just had to sort out or guess where the parts would actually join in the end.

i have belted quite something more than a few kits, but never found such fancy instructions, also because on the parts themselves in general you can't find tabs or pins or holes that an experienced modeler could read as "well, this and that must join here and there".

 

just to figure it out, think of a drawing with an engine drawn aside a cowling, and a curved line going from the very body of the engine to the inside of the cowling: no pins or details depicted in order to understand where and how to mate the engine and the cowling.

as another real example, i had planned to display the torpedo below the opened bomb bays doors. well, i had to give up the idea because there wasn't a cue as to where the torp bracings would have to be placed into he bomb bay.

so i pragmatically glued the torpedo to its bracings and eventualy found out where these bracings would encounter the ceiling of the bomb bay, try-and-error dry-testing. but alas, the torpedo was now glued for good.

 

although there are important hints in the accompaning text, one has to guess at his/her best how some subassemblies have to be built. a dramatic example for all, the ball turret, i assembled and disassembled it several times never finding the correct way to have all the parts mating. eventually i used tamiya extra thin cement as a sort of blowtorch in order to modify, bend, cut and eventually re-mold the parts until they did fit making sense.

i succeeded by chance, but the work came near to ending in tears!

 

well, this is the dark side of this kit; as i said before, accuracy and detail are matchless; perhaps i did find a comparable fine detail and fine molding in the tamiya's f4-u cockpit.
this was a hiccups build because i had to put the works in stand by first waiting for the british airscale (u.s. navy) dials decal sheet, which i recommend to all. awesome!
then i changed my mind about the markings, so i had to wait for the new set to be delivered.

 

in the meantime, i started as a week-end build a minicraft  1/144 "a bit o'lace" b-17g.
w-end build my pants! with all the colors, and framings and windows to be painted i ended up with an amount of masking tape and paper greater that the one i had to use for the 1/48 TBM!

the new tbm decals were late in delivery, so i was about to start working on the outer half-left wing weathering when they arrived!

then i packed-up the fortress with reverence and took up again on the avenger.

 

i believe that thanks to the contribution of some of our members, i did overcome each and every secret color on the tbm; still, there's a light bulge on the top of the canopy i was unabe to find the color of.

some said it was painted the same color of the canopy, and i have found a modeler who made a very precise job on this a/c and painted it red.

nevertheless, i wasn't able to find a single pic of this lamp on the web. if anybody had a suggestion, it will be most welcome also because it would be no sweat to paint it any color.

 

much talk for (almost) nothing, as i could paraphrase ole bill shakespeare...
so here is the link to the google photo album of my TBM: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Y6MBnLbfUIx663P93
if somebody would have a look i will be happy and grateful.
thanks to all anyway, and happy modeling.
best ciaos, bobo.

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  • 2 weeks later...

thank you very much melk.

actually this model  has so much stuff locked inside that it's difficult to appreciate the great detail of this very "accurate" miniature!

to be frank, thinking of having three of those "monsters" to build would scare me a bit, but perhaps it's just that i'm still a tad fatigued by the recent build.

the most fatiguing thing was the instructions which leave a lot to be desired as...accuracy: one has to follow his/her own nose at some points, and a lot of experience and imagination!

then, good luck with your TBMs and enjoy!

again thanks, and ciao!

happy modeling. bobo.

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