TBM-3 Avenger Conversion to TBF-1C. On to the Cockpit

[hendie]

you're doing a grand job there George.  That is looking mighty impressive from where I'm sitting

[georgeusa]

39 minutes ago, hendie said:

you're doing a grand job there George.  That is looking mighty impressive from where I'm sitting

You are more than kind sir!  This really is a great kit. It fits well, is quite detailed, and seems fairly accurate for the make it portrays. Too bad I need to back date it for my decal option.  So,far all fit problems are due to my ineptness, not the kit's layout. 

[georgeusa]

Absolutely massive update here.  I connected the engine to the pilot's seat.

 

 

There is a bit of a tilt in the engine bulkhead that shouldn't be there.  However, when I place it in the fuselage, I should be able to correct if easily.  (Or that is my optimistic plan right now!)  I would have gotten further, but I got distracted by this IdolM@ster Rafale M.  I swear, sometimes I have a very limited attention span.  That's all for right now, as always, all comments are welcome.

[georgeusa]

Okay, another Herculean effort on my part to make significant progress on this kit.  I had set aside a good, solid 3 hours of modeling time.  There was so much I was going to accomplish.  In a fit of optimism, I decided to put together the Eduard seatbelts. Get those out of the way, and then do the seatbelts for the Rall 109.  Two and a half hours later, this is my progress with the Eduard set.

 

 

Deftness of touch is what is needed for miniscule PE parts.  Deftness of touch is something I no longer have.  See how this is going to work out well!  Some observations about the Eduard PE set: (1) The Eduard belts are way more detailed than the kit set and there is no way I could replicate the look of the Eduard belts with the kit PE no matter how talented I was as a painter; (2) I think the construction is over engineered in that some parts need to be bent around others when it would be far easier to just glue them into place.  The same look would be achieved; (3) Where does loose PE go?  I am holding small pieces literally an inch or two over an instruction sheet while I try to assemble them in place.  I drop them, hear them hit the paper of the instructions, but the PE parts are nowhere to be found.  Does the PE take on the characteristics of Flubber when dropped?  (There’s a reference that you youngsters on this forum will not get!)  Seriously, into what dimension does the PE go; and (4) What metal does Eduard use for its PE that totally rejects cryo and will refuse to bind unless the part is misaligned, then an instant bind, or the PE is set on a surface to dry and the only thing that it bonds with is the surface the PE is set upon, the parts will still not stick to each other.

Anyway, the hardest part of this PE set is done, the pilot’s seatbelts.  I still have 3 more sets to do to complete the kit.  And, I didn’t even touch the RB seatbelts for the Rall 109.  Oh well, as always, all comments are welcome.

[Pete in Lincs]

And that is why I try to avoid PE whenever possible!

 

Nice work, George. Compared to something

like a Spitfire that cockpit looks huge.

(But awfully well painted).

[georgeusa]

14 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

And that is why I try to avoid PE whenever possible!

 

Nice work, George. Compared to something

like a Spitfire that cockpit looks huge.

(But awfully well painted).

I personally don't like PE that much, but trying to expand my modeling skills and this is just one step in a direction; whether it is the right or wrong direction, who knows?  The Avenger cockpit holds a minimum of 3 people, but there is room for 4 easily.  And thanks for the kind comment about the painting, it was appreciated.

[georgeusa]

Got a few minutes to play update.  Got a break in between life and its obligations.  I decided to see if I should have fitted the seat belts prior to installing the seat.  Probably should have waited for the seat belts prior to installing the seat.  Anyway, after some prodding, bending, pleading, and face making, I got the seat belts into some sort of applicable shape inside of the seat.

 

 

 

I just can’t wait to start on the RB belts for the Rall 109.   It should be an interesting comparison between constructing fabric belts versus PE belts.  As always, all comments are welcome.

[Grey Beema]

Seat belts look,good to me @georgeusa.  I would fit the lap belts before mounting the seats but you can't do the shoulder straps until the seat is mounted and they are the ones you really notice. 

 

Quick question, should the shoulder belts pass over and down behind the tubular seat mounting bar?

Edited June 16, 2017 by Grey Beema

[georgeusa]

4 hours ago, Grey Beema said:

Seat belts look,good to me @georgeusa.  I would fit the lap belts before mounting the seats but you can't do the shoulder straps until the seat is mounted and they are the ones you really notice. 

 

Quick question, should the shoulder belts pass over and down behind the tubular seat mounting bar?

Good question. I am not sure now that you mention it. This may be another of my goofs. Need to look at it again and see. Thanks. 

[georgeusa]

Until I can figure out what to do with the photobucket fiasco, no updates. Plus, was have some personal matters that must be attended to that take priority. 

[Biggles87]

Hope to see you back soon George.

 

John

[georgeusa]

Well, I am beginning the slow process of updating this thread.  It took almost 5 hours to upload all of the photos to the new service (Flickr).  What a beating.  Apart from losing all of my photos, I had some personal matters to attend to.  If you have been following my Gunthar Rall 109 build, you are aware of what happened to Mattie, whom I call "My Favorite".  To sum it up, a little over two months ago, on a Saturday night, at midnight, I was trying to make it back home in time to meet my “favorite”, my sweet Mattie, who was coming home from a date.  About 2 miles from the house, I came across an overturned pickup truck that had just rolled across the highway.  When I got next to the truck and saw the front, black brush bumper, my stomach sickened as I knew it was Mattie’s truck.  As I approached the truck, I was trying to think of how to tell her mother her little girl had died in a traffic accident as the cab was partially crushed, the front windshield was gone, one of the wheels had broken off and the frame was twisted.  To my great delight and joy, I saw Mattie’s face looking up at me, panic stricken of course, as she was going into shock, complaining about her leg hurting.  She was alive, coherent, and had feeling in her legs; all positive signs.  I knew her mental facilities were okay as the first words out of her mouth was it wasn’t her fault!  She was twisted in her seat belt and her left leg was obviously broken.  A county sheriff appeared on the scene and called in an ambulance and firetruck as she needed to be cut out of the cab.  People make fun of me because all my vehicles are quite large; the smallest being a Ford F150 pickup truck.  Mattie was in a F250 diesel truck and because of its size and the fact it was old, I feel that is the only thing that saved her from being crushed and killed.  She had a compound fracture in her lower leg as both bones were through the skin, a complete break in her upper thigh region and another complete break in her arm.  Three operations later, and looking at a nice long recovery period, Mattie should be back to her old self with maybe a limp and a lot of metal fittings inside of her.  I have modeled some as when I came home from the hospital I could not sleep; just couldn’t take the time to post, nor did I feel like doing so.

What is so ironic is I have a reconstructed right inner ankle joint from a motorcycle accident 40 some years ago.  The accident she had was also to her right leg.  So, I can sympathize with her concerning the pain she is experiencing due to the reconstructive surgery and can help her with her recovery/rehabilitation process.  She still is not able to use crutches as her arm cannot bear the weight yet, and her leg cannot have any weight placed upon it for at least another 2 months.  Anyway, very thankful for her recovery and her doctors.  So, now that my pressing personal trauma is now not so pressing, and I have learned a new photo posting program, some updates are due on this build. 

So, what did I do on this kit, I forced myself to finish the remaining seat belts for the observer, turret gunner and ventral gun station.

 

 

 

In all, I made 5 seat belts over the course of about 2 ½ hours.  I am abysmally slow at this PE stuff.  But, at least they are completed and I can begin to finish up the interior work and close the fuselage halves.  As always, all comments are welcome.

[hendie]

George,

sorry to hear of your troubles, but good news that

is on the mend.

 

11 hours ago, georgeusa said:

In all, I made 5 seat belts over the course of about 2 ½ hours.  I am abysmally slow at this PE stuff.  But, at least they are completed and I can begin to finish up the interior work and close the fuselage halves.

 

WOW !!! those seat belts look great, sorry... fantastic.  I'd be exceedingly happy if I'd made something that looks that good. Given the issues you're having with your hands - those results are nothing short of marvelous 

 

 

[georgeusa]

10 hours ago, hendie said:

George,

sorry to hear of your troubles, but good news that

is on the mend.

 

 

WOW !!! those seat belts look great, sorry... fantastic.  I'd be exceedingly happy if I'd made something that looks that good. Given the issues you're having with your hands - those results are nothing short of marvelous 

 

 

You are more than kind sir.  Most of the credit has to be given to Eduard and how well they do their PE.  The kit seat belts are so shoddy compared to the Eduard.

 

 

[John Laidlaw]

George - very, very glad to hear that Mattie's going to be OK.

 

As for the seatbelts... I would have taken twice as long, and they would have been covered in glue fingerprints. Excellent work.

[georgeusa]

1 hour ago, John Laidlaw said:

George - very, very glad to hear that Mattie's going to be OK.

 

As for the seatbelts... I would have taken twice as long, and they would have been covered in glue fingerprints. Excellent work.

I don't think so as I have seen your work and usually am very envious of how good it is!  Thanks for the thoughts about Mattie.  

[georgeusa]

Cockpit innards update.  With the pilot’s section of the aircraft done, construction now moves to the rest of the aircraft with some work on additions to the side walls and different electronic equipment.  A section of the side wall with a control column and leather pouch is to be attached to the starboard wall.  I attempted to glue it together, but a slight mishap occurred.  What I built was this . . .

 

 

All well and good, but some parts are missing.  A rather small part shown in this diagram is supposed to be glued to the top of the part sticking away from the wall.

 

 

To that small part, 3 photo-etch levers are to be attached.  Problem is I pinged the part off into another dimension as I don’t have carpeting in my modeling room, I have tile.  The part is nowhere to be found, and I can’t locate the PE levers either.  So, the missing part and levers will have to be scratched, but I’m not quite sure how I’m going to do that.  While I ponder this situation, I painted the base colors for the sidewall parts.

 

 

After the paint dries, some weathering, highlighting and detail painting will be done.  Oh yeah, and some sort of ingenious solution to the missing parts will be put into effect.  (Anyone feel ingenious?) 

The topside of the bomb bay is the crew’s floor.  I had given it a base coat of the interior color and was taken aback by the number of injector pin marks.  I thought they would not bother me, as I doubt not much of the floor will be seen and there will be other items in the way of directly viewing the floor from the canopy glazing.  However, I kept staring at the floor and just couldn’t stand it.  Out came the correction fluid and the injector pin marks were filled.

 

 

While that dries, along with the side wall base colors, I move on to the some of the electrical/radio equipment that will be installed, along with some of the pieces to complete the bomb bay interior.  The various pieces that make up the electrical equipment are put together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This set of electrical equipment gets its base interior coat prior to joining it to the equipment bulkhead.

 

 

It is then joined to the equipment bulkhead

 

 

Another set of electrical equipment fits under the top shelf and it will be left off to allow easier painting.

 

 

Now looking at the top shelf of electrical equipment, the part has notches where the wiring should go from the electrical equipment to below the shelf.  There just isn’t any wire.  This must be rectified.  Holes are drilled into the backs of each electronic box so some suitable wire can be inserted.

 

 

Then the boxes and wire receive their base coat of black.

 

 

While that dries, I flip the crew floor and glue these posts to the bomb bay ceiling.

 

 

And finally, the last step in this update was to fill the wonderful injection pin marks in the bomb bay bulkheads

 

 

 

Detail painting, weathering and some scratch building will be next on the agenda.  As always, all comments are welcome.

[hendie]

coming along nicely George.

 

Can't you cut the heads off some pins to make the missing control levers ?

[georgeusa]

2 hours ago, hendie said:

coming along nicely George.

 

Can't you cut the heads off some pins to make the missing control levers ?

That is an novel idea. You are brilliant!  

[georgeusa]

Further work update on bomb bay/cockpit floor.  Some of the various parts of the bomb bay received detail and weathering.

 

 

 

 

 

After the weathering and detail painting, some placards and dials were added for a bit more interest.

 

 

 

 

 

Regarding the effects used on the leather pouch attached to the cockpit wall, I think I may have goofed it up.  I like the way it looks, but I think I reversed the colors.  The lightened highlights are along the top of the pouch following the closure strap as this is the area that would get the most wear.  That is fine for painted metal parts, but for leather I think the most used parts would be darker due to the oils in hands, etc. with the lighter sections being the least handled parts.  I’m going to have to debate this with myself a bit more before I repaint the pouch.

To one of the bomb bay bulkheads, a window was added.  In this picture, I am not sure the use of a window is noticeable, nor needed.

 

 

More on this later.  The posts installed in the bomb bay get their initial base coat to prepare for some weathering to match the rest of the bomb bay floor.

 

 

The two end bulkheads were added to the bomb bay floor.

 

 

 

Now in these pictures, the window that was installed does feature prominently, so maybe it is best I did install what I originally thought was a useless part.

While waiting for the glue in all the above assemblies to dry, I assembled the torpedo.

 

 

 

There are very prominent seams where the two halves joined.  Mostly, I think, my part in alignment of the halves.  So, these seams were filled and set aside to dry.  Trumpeter gives you the choice of a torpedo, bombs, or an auxiliary fuel tank to place in the bomb bay.  I decided a torpedo would be best for this model, but any of the options would work as the other two options are very well made and detailed.

The last bit of work done for this session was to prepare the parts for the tail wheel assembly.  Guess what, the bulkhead for the tail wheel has injection marks that show; what a shock.

 

 

Those are filled and I still need to clean up the rest of the tail wheel parts.  As always, all comments are welcome.

[Biggles87]

I think this kit would probably win a prize if there was a contest for the most ejection pin marks, but you're doing a great job with the correction fluid.

There is an amazing amount of interior detail there, it reminds me of the Accurate Miniatures 1/48 kit.

 

Cheers

 

John

Edited September 6, 2017 by Biggles87

[(ex)Sgtrafman]

Morning George

 

You doing a cracking job mate - fair play to you! She really is coming along very nicely indeed 

 

Iain

[georgeusa]

17 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

I think this kit would probably win a prize if there was a contest for the most ejection pin marks, but you're doing a great job with the correction fluid.

There is an amazing amount of interior detail there, it reminds me of the Accurate Miniatures 1/48 kit.

 

Cheers

 

John

I don't know if this kit would win or the Airfix 1/24 Mosquito.  I was amazed at how many ejection marks were on the rather new Airfix kit.  If it wasn't ejection marks, it was mold seam lines.  Of course, this kit has a few of the mold seam lines too.  I have been comparing the AM Avenger kit to this one as I am working on it and I just think the level of detail out of the box on this kit is astounding.  Why this kit isn't a bigger hit with the modeling community, I don't know.  And, most of the time, the fit of parts and the way they are engineered to go together cannon be faulted; just the oaf that is putting this kit together causes most of the fill and sand problems!

[georgeusa]

17 hours ago, (ex)Sgtrafman said:

Morning George

 

You doing a cracking job mate - fair play to you! She really is coming along very nicely indeed 

 

Iain

Thanks Iain.  I am really enjoying this kit.  I have had it for a number of years, probably the year it came out!  I have just never gotten around to putting it together.  It has just set under my workbench in the next in line to build for a very long time.  Now, I am sad I didn't start it sooner.