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I believe this is my first airplane post here and definitely my first WWII build.  I am researching the needed items for a build of Richard Best's SBD-3 from the Battle of Midway.  I have the Accurate Miniatures SBD-3 kit on the way.  I know it includes the early, single rear gun and by Midway, most if not all -3's were changed over to the dual rear guns, including Best's.  Is there a source for the dual gun setup for an accurate build that is reasonably easy to find and afford?  I also need a set of decals if anyone has some to sell.  Thanks!

 

Rob

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Hi Rob,  I wish there were better news but no one offers 'just' a replacement, I wish Eduard would make the resin gem from their SBD-5 reboxing of the AM kit available separately, it looks wonderful.  You'd need to make some minor edits for a mount from earlier in the war but its a moot point without being available.  Short of obtaining a scrap/donor kit from another modeler and salvaging the .30s I think your out of luck.  Of course should you be OK with a change of gears your kits single gun mount is correct for the USMC SBD-2s operating from Midway during the battle, provided you want to do that.    Good luck

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You could, but you may want to first check period photos comparing 'midway' era SBD gun mounts vs later war SBD mounts since small details such as armor plate, sights, feed boxes -could- be different, depends on how much that matters as you could just pop it on and call it done.   Detail & Scale makes a wonderful reference for the SBD I highly recommend.  There's one other tip I will pass on to consider:  obtain the metal gun barrels from Master Detail®, they have a .30 set which include the barrel and cooling jackets (the set contains a pair).  Cut off the kit injection plastic gun barrels and add these, they make an ENORMOUS improvement to this focal area of the plane.   Go one step further and get the resin replacement .30 receiver portion from Ultracast® to mate with the metal barrels, Yowsa that would be snappy.    Cheers

 

BTW, Here's my Great Wall TBD-1 with a replacement .30 barrel from Master Detail, I added an old Eduard ring sight and ammo carrier, close enough for me (but slap my face it looks like I forgot to paint the carrier!)

small gun.jpg

Edited by metroman
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That looks great. I will definitely get the metal barrels as they are too prominent to have clunky plastic in my opinion. I would actually be ok with small inaccuaracies such as the mount and armor. This will be a shelfer and as long as I get the twin guns, I think I will be happy.  Finding my decals will also be a bit of a challenegs I believe. 

 

Rob

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6 hours ago, Rob T said:

So if I were to get an AM SBD-5 kit or the guns from it would that work?

 

Rob

 

 

 Yes, because then you'll have the correct fuselage halves too. The single gun stowage doors are different than the double .30 and Accurate Miniatures molded the differences on the fuselage halves. The ring is the same in both single and twin gun AM kits.

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3 hours ago, WymanV said:

 

 

 Yes, because then you'll have the correct fuselage halves too. The single gun stowage doors are different than the double .30 and Accurate Miniatures molded the differences on the fuselage halves. The ring is the same in both single and twin gun AM kits.

Thanks for that info. 

 

Rob

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