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My Hurricane is entering a painting and decalling phase and I want to take my time letting each step cure because I am using Vallejo acrylics. So I'm considering my next project... inspired by @Brigbeale's restorations, and @rob Lyttle's Lockheed Ventura/Lodestar masterpieces. Gentlemen, any tips, tricks, and input most welcome. I will also be reviewing builds from @Ed Russell and some articles. Tony O'T was the king of the venturas. I now have four 1/72 minicraft Venturas that I have picked up second hand. This one is a partly-built 1/72 minicraft Ventura I got at a show for $5. The vendor tried to sell me on the fact that a "museum-quality" modeller had done most of the work for me but I told him I was going to take it apart anyway. The paint and seams look good but I want a 1942-era Ventura, freshly built, wearing TLS cammo, and turretless and gunless, snatched away from RAF delivery for the purpose of RCAF training at 34 OTU Pennfield. So this fellow needs to come apart and come clean! I want to make this one into the Ventura coded FY-F AE728 crash that my great uncle experienced while training (described elsewhere on BM). I'll remove the turret and cover the turret and astrodome holes, collapse starboard landing gear, open the escape hatch in the cockpit roof, and open the passenger door on the port side. . In the pic below some more issues... two identical pilot seats? Each with an ejector pin seat cushion? And a giant full bulkhead with a space-age circle in the middle? Nope nope nope. My Ventura needs less than half a bulkhead behind the pilot only, and only one seat. And a better seat. And seatbelts! Behind that would be the radio op position. I'll add that too. I've read crash reports and it's interesting to read the radio op witness statements. They sometimes have no clue about what's going on because they are tied up in the wireless training exercises. I'll need to do something about the nose. I need the windowed version. For some bizarre reason all four of my minicrafts are the USA version of the plane. Same with other ones I've seen in stores. All the RAF versions are being sold cheap down in America where shipping would cost me as much as all four kits together. Drives me crazy but there it is. I may try sawing off the noses and vacuforming new ones in clear. Unless there is a source of noses somewhere? Ah but shipping! I dunno. Does minicraft sell replacement noses I wonder? (for their alternative RAF / B34 Lexington versions) I sent Academy an email. We'll see what happens! Bomb bay is buttoned up. That's fine but it'll come apart anyway probably. In the background you see the tailplane pieces. I would like to cut out the rudders and elevators. I probably need to check on @rob Lyttle's work. Finally, what's this? Some creepy psychopath modeller trophy? No, it's phase 1. Soaking the pieces in water. Then I'll drain them and freeze them for a few days. If CA was used to glue them, supposedly this should help expand and break the bonds. Phase 2 will be handing the pieces over to my wife. She soaks 3d prints in IPA at work and she's due to replace the liquid soon. She'll toss the pieces into the stuff for a week maybe before sending the liquid on to be properly disposed of. I'll clean the stuff off at that point and see what's what. So why start with this one instead of the pristine ones? Something to learn on and just try everything without worrying about it. When my wife bought me the Revell Ventura last xmas (first kit in 40 years) I got so tensed up with perfectionism it really surprised me. Having extra copies helps! This one will proceed slowly as I need to see how well I can break apart and clean his thing first.

So I thought I’d start one from my stash and as I had picked up the unknown (to me anyway) ARK Ventura PV-1 relatively cheaply so I wasn’t expecting great things. straight out the box there is some burrs, flashing and poor mould marks to work on. There’s also some misaligned parts that need trimming to fit flush. This is going to be a challenge to make it look half decent!

With a couple of almost dones waiting for the last few tweaks, I'm casting around for a new building adventure, and I'm drawn back to these Lockheed Twins. I love 'em ‼️😍 I spent some time last year doing several in 1.72,:- Academy Ventura, MPM Lodestar and Hudson, and even the ancient Airfix Hudson which became an L14 Super Electra. A lot of information gathered along the way, and plenty of input and refs from the BM community 👍 What I also have in this style is a couple of the big Revell 1.48 PV1 Ventura kits. They're a great big box of modelling joy, and for some reason they don't seem to have taken the kit scene by storm. They turn up in toy shop chains and online for "cheap-as-chips" money. Well, suits me ‼️ I've started into the first one and then left it in limbo while I cracked on with the little ones, and drifted on to other things. It's going to be a fairly straightforward Ventura build. If you think of all the warsurplus airframes flooding onto the civil scene and becoming available at a bargain price, plus all the vast aviation and maintenance expertise looking for a job, it must have been a remarkable time. (I suppose I'm thinking about the Americas now, and Australia and New Zealand. Africa and Asia too. Everywhere really except for the UK, which seems to have crushed almost all opportunities, either to make them or fly them ‼️😶) A lot of the PV1 Venturas were civilised by specialist companies and made over into executive and private aircraft, and their products often had many changes. Howard Venturas in particular featured basically a new fuselage, and some have ended up with tricycle undercarriage. Some were altered much less however, and still had features like the ventral gun bulge and top turret Reinforcement plates, and the bomb bay doors. And that's the kind of Ventura I'm having a go at. My 1.72 Academy PV1 got done in the same style - I even left the long-range tanks on. So, I'm going to do a bit more on the big one in the same way, get those big Fowler flaps going, and bare metal finish. I'll dig out some pictures from the Flickr archives to show what I've done so far, And then I'll outline what I have in mind for the second kit. Still only a pipe dream 🌄🎠🎠🎠

Place holder. I've just won a Ventura 1/72 Seafire Mk.XV on that well-known internet auction site, and it will make up my fourth (and last!) project for this Group Build. As far as I know, Ventura's Seafires are accurate and well-designed kits, so I'm looking forward to it's arrival. In the meantime, if anyone is interested, the Scalemates page is here. Cheers, Mark

Greetings from Toronto. My great uncle trained in Venturas as part of the first class of Wireless Operator / Air Gunners (WOAGs) at 34 OTU Pennfield Ridge, New Brunswick, Canada in 1942. I have his class photo and records of two of his training crashes in Venturas. My wife surprised me with the Revell 1/48 Ventura Mk II kit for Xmas and I am searching for info. I ordered the decal kit from Aviaeology for OTU34 and found the article from 2018 in Airfix Model World about building a variant using those decals. Would love to have more info... including the RT magazine series from vol 35/36 etc. I've looked through aftermarket parts from Quickboost and Eduard and while they seem very nice I don't think they are worth the cost for me. I haven't built models since I was too young and impatient to do them properly so I don't have any materials. Trying to get up to speed on everything re cement, paints, masking, brushes, etc.

WIP can be found here... As I said, many days and nights I thought I would never be making this finished Ventura post, this was a real mojo test. And as I also said, if you want an enjoyable, care free build as FROG would have wanted you to, build the Academy/Minicraft kit, they started with these unfinished molds. Only aftermarket used were the Print-Scale decals. My own vac canopies, scratched cockpit and turret, I used original kit plastic whenever possible. Kit propellers reduced in chord and reshaped. All surface detail removed and replaced with .005 pen lines. I followed technical drawings to replicate the wing panel lines but when I saw what was ahead for me with the fuselage I said "not happening.." Fuselage lines are totally fictitious, I was just trying to get the feel of the real thing. Scratched together a Martin 250CE-13 turret with twin .50's. I used small plastic wire-ties for the twin ammo feeds. I'm glad I spent the time on the cockpit, I hadn't realized how much would be seen under the vac canopy. Brush painted canopy frames this time. Would I do it again? Probably. I didn't realize the full scope of this build when I started, I usually don't let plastic win or get the better of me and this one almost got binned a couple of times but I'm pleased with this finished build. Thanks all for struggling along with me. I think a nice little Me-163 with a parts count of 5 is in order for a little therapy.

The FROG Ventura, kit F240. This was one of the last ever kits but didn't make it out except for 100 kits, see below. I know one lucky guy in North Carolina has an original FROG boxing of the kit, his boxing is shown below. I hope he builds it. My kit is the Eastern Express issue, still has the F240 imprint on the sprues. Armed with a Squadron Signal and aftermarket decals, I jumped in. Airfix should spend a couple of bucks on these, would save them a lot of headaches.... Since I'm changing over to acrylics, kicking and screaming, this build will be a good test mule for these. Major components fit together well. It does seem as though they rushed the molds. Poor detail and panel lines. I will sand all those off and do pencil or pen. Biggest problem are the engine nacelles. The crude engines don't fit into the cowling and the opening is too small and off-set to one side. This is what I have, and this is where I need to get. Um........cowling flaps?........ I have some Hercules engines I might try and use or re-create the cowling flaps from sheet styrene and enlarge the cowling opening. I will use the quartz parts as masters and vac my own canopy. If I can wrestle the engines and cowlings together the rest should go well. If that's the case I want to end up here with this a/c. So, the biggest part of this build was always going to be the the engines. If I can get past those, I figure I'm good. Starting with nasty out of round cowlings, I started carving with a #11, actually easier than I thought it was gong to be. Next, the engines were not even close. Then to get those to fit, A level of plastic on the cowlings had to be removed. And even then, when eveything was together, it sucked. That morning, I whacked the coffee filter too hard and broke it which gave me this screening that allowed me these niffty oil cooler intake screens. I'm pretty sure this is the most putty I have ever used on any one model. Worked out well, not perfect but good enough. Next was tackling the cooling flaps. 10thou. sheet styrene. I wanted something better but these will do. Never in my entire model building life have I spent so much time and so much effort just getting a model to the point I can close the fuselage halves. If you want to build the FROG Ventura the way FROG intended you to with all the warmth, joy and pleasure building we've enjoyed from FROG, get the Academy/Minicraft kit. I absolutely know this is in no way FROG's fault, just unfortunate timing. If they could have finished the molds they would have. The cockpit fit has all the same issues as the engine nacelles. Generic parts thrown on the parts sprues that don't fit together at all. Since these Venturas were originally built to RAF specs with only one pilot seat, when diverted to the US Navy on Attu, an island off Alaska, they were field modified with a second seat for the co-pilot. A second seat was sourced and second control column made. Throttle quadrant made from stretched sprue, seatbelts from yogurt foil and an instrument panel decal pinched from the Airfix Hudson. The main canopy got 10thou strip added for better fit and I will vac this for the finish. The rear gunner position was fixed with more 10thou plastic and lots of putty. I will use this quartz example on the finish build as it's hardly seen. I will vac and detail my own upper turret but now, finally, we are here... The only drama I know still waiting for me are the wheels/tires as they are badly misaligned. Honestly, there were days and nights that I thought this build would never, ever get to this point. My kicking and screaming journey from enamels to acrylics was abated a bit. I picked up this Vallejo set to try out on the Ventura. No color corrections or youtube tricks, just a straight out-of-box test. (...bottle) As I said, I really didn't think I had a chance of posting these pics but here they are... I'm pleased with the colors, easy to use, dries nice and smooth. They also passed the tape test as I masked off and sprayed the de-icer boots with no lifting problems at all. A coat of Future over all this. The a/c I'm doing is from VB-135, serial number 48891 as shown below. The markings for this a/c often included in kits show decorations on the rudder. I have found no photos of any 135 squadron a/c with these decorations. There was a photo shoot of 135 and 139 crews all posed in front of this one aircrafts tail. The a/c is from 139 squadron. So hear we are tonight with a coat of Future drying over the PrintScale decals. Grunge oil wash tomorrow.

Hi, To complete items of my archive Lockheed shelf (after L9 Orion, L10 Electra, L12 Electra Junior, L14 Super Electra, P38 Lightning and YP80A Shooting Star) - the last but the least - PV1 Ventura. Kit from Academy, 1/72 not corrected by shape (I've learnt later, that something is wrong with tail in this kit...) . Age of model? - a teenager or even 20. Following my records or notes the markings are are of VPB 133 (ex VPB 150). I am not sure if "Octopus" was not a hallmark of VPB 155 - perhaps not. Machine based on Tinan and then Iwo Jima, March-April 1945. Octopus painted, individual markings (not "nose art" but "side art") - painted on decal. Comments welcome Regards Jerzy-Wojtek

Claiming a spot. I'll be doing the classic/ancient/old (you decide) Minicraft Ventura Mk.II, with help from the DK Decal Ventura sheet. And the subject as the title says: Leonard Trent's AJ209 on the ill-fated Ramrod 16 raid.

Hello All! At the moment, I am building a 1:48 Revell PV-1 Ventura. She will be one of planes located in Attu. So, will be in 2 tone blue+ white undersurfaces. Revell suggests that wheelbays and bomb bay should be be zinc chromate. But somewhere I had read NAVY never used zincc chromate on wheelbays and bomb bays on 3 tone camos. I will be very happy if someone enlights me. Best wishes, Flogger.

Here is my RFI of the Moebius 1/25 scale 1961 Pontiac Ventura. This is my forth Moebius car kit and, unlike the previous three which fell together ('55 Chrysler 300, '54 Hudson couple and '65 Plymouth), this one exhibited some pretty challenging fit issues on the front bumper and both front and rear windscreens. The rear window upper frame is still not quite flush with the roof but I'm afraid I'll ruin the paint if I tried to do any additional tuning (I'm still learning the fine art of knowing when to stop particularly near the end of a build). Despite these challenges, this was a fun one to paint and assemble. This two-tone green color scheme, Jadestone metallic green with Seacrest green top, was inspired by a beautiful build of this same kit I saw posted on another auto modeling forum last year. Basecoat paints for these original factory colors were ordered from Scalefinishes.com and the finished body clear coated with Tamiya TS-13. Tamiya acrylics and Alclad polished aluminum were used for other painted surfaces. I've always thought that these early sixties "bubble top" coupe designs from Bill Mitchell's years running GM styling were/still are very futuristic looking. I have the Catalina version of this kit which I hope to build as an early super stock drag car. Thanks for looking. Cheers, John

I have a bit of an enthusiasm at the moment for these twin - tailed, twin - engined planes from the Lockheed Co. They played a major role in taking the makers from the brink of collapse and closure right up to the top of the global plane - making industry. The more I find out about them, the more I like them. I've got a collection of kits to work on, and I don't think it's all going to be in one nonstop frenzy of plastic bashing. But there could be a fair bit of Lockheed ahead for me and my tube of glue. Here's what I've got, so far... (I know...!) And I got 2 of these boxes of joy... So, the idea is to put anything I do in this ongoing project on here, and thus keep it all in one place. I'm not visualising anything military with these, apart possibly from the 2nd Ventura, maybe... This sums up the vision I have of what I'm trying to achieve... Silver Birds! I've made a start on the Airfix Hudson kit (!) to be an L14, and I've been knocking 7 bells out of a PV1 to civilian-ise it without trying to make a fancy Howard 500 conversion. I took a few pictures on the way, and I'll get the progress so far on here as time permits. There's a Curtiss C46 on the bench right now, waiting patiently for progress and completion, and she's put up with quite a lot of me fooling around with the Lockheeds already!

I started this one as part of the Maritime Patrol and Coastal Command Group Build earlier this year, but was unable to finish in time due to lack of enough free time. I did however push on to eventually finish it. The WIP thread is here. Cheers Jimmy

I'd like to join this GB with this kit. I intend to build a WWII SAAF Ventura with it. I have only done about 45 mins of research so far, but I think that I should be able build a SAAF Ventura from this kit, with relatively minor modifications. I do believe it was used for maritime patrol, so should fit nicely into the criteria of this GB. I'll post the mandatory sprue shots as well as some reference photos later. Cheers Jimmy

I have decided to complete the 1/72 Academy Lockheed Ventura II using the new DK decals for RAF/RNZAF/RAAF examples as operated in NW Europe. One example appears on DKD 72030, AE660, with the port wing and port side of the fuselage painted black (possibly for Operation Starkey), as an aircraft of 487 (New Zealand) Squadron with the code EG-Y (and the letter 'H' blacked out) in 1943. This seemed an interesting choice. However, the Imperial War Museum website has a photo of this aircraft (with port side painted black) but they say it was with 21 Squadron with the code YH-Y (and a blacked out letter 'H'), though the codes cannot be seen given the angle of the photo. Of course it's possible that AE660 was transferred between the two squadrons and 21 and 487 both were stationed at Methwold at this time - but the possibility that this happened with the port side painted black seems remote. My instincts are to follow the IWM website and complete the model as YH-Y of 21 Squadron but wondered whether anyone might have any other information to confirm one way or the other.

Revell-USA is to release in first quarter 2014 a 1/48th Lockheed Ventura Mk.II RAF "Promodeller" kit - ref. 85-5533 Source: https://www.facebook.com/RevellUSA/photos_stream#!/photo.php?fbid=671343499564587&set=pb.105923262773283.-2207520000.1383675581.&type=3&theater V.P.

Venturas in Canada 4 1:48 & 1:72 Aviaeology by Skygrid Studio This decal set is for post war Venturas used in Canada for Bombing & gunnery training, as well as Target Tugs. The sheet features marking for two B&G trainers, and two Target Tugs. As usual with sets from Aviaeology there are copious instructions. To be honest for me they are in very small print on photocopied pages which are not the best to read. Different styles of national markings are provided given the changes at this time in the RCAF. Full details of these are provided in the text. The decals are printed on a pale blue background with a slightly mottled patina, and are of good quality as you'd expect. Registration, colour density and sharpness are up to snuff, just as you'd expect and the clear carrier film is pretty tight to the edges of the printing. Conclusion If you are a fan of all aviation things Canadian, want something a little different, or you are a big fan of stripes then these decals are for you. Recommended. 1:72 1:72 Review sample courtesy of

Hallo to all! I'm glad to present you my last work: a Lockheed PV-1 Ventura in the RNZAF colors. The base kit is the Revell in the 1/48 scale... but I made some modification. The engine nacelles and propellers were wrong in the kit, so I corrected it with the Vector resin set. I also used the following aftermarkets... Ventura001 by valerio, su Flickr Ventura002 by valerio, su Flickr And following... the result after 7 months of work! VenturaEnd05 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd04 by valerio, su Flickr DSC_0544 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd03 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd01 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd02 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd12 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd11 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd10 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd09 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd08 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd07 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd13 by valerio, su Flickr VenturaEnd06 by valerio, su Flickr Hoper you enjoy. Thank you for the attention! Ciao! Valerio from Rome, Italy.

Finished today, the nice Tamiya F4U-1D Corsair built as an RNZAF example using Ventura Decals, otherwise OOB with just a couple of bits of wire on the engine. Painted with Gunze,then weathered with True-Earth products, Mig Oil washes, AK Interactive potions and Mig and AK Pigments to try and get the 'i've lived in the Solomon Islands' look. I like how it's turned out, as the Ventura decal instructions state that the dark blue had faded to very close to the intermediate blue and to my eye that's how it's turned out. Build thread is available here Peter

To have a nice simple kit after the fun and games with the Lightning, i've chosen a Tamiya F4U-1 Corsair. But to have some difference i'll be using the Ventura decals so that I can do it as an RNZAF aircraft Today was mainly making the engine, adding some wiring I've also primed and sprayed the interior green areas, and started work on the cockpit. Peter

PV-1 Ventura Wheels (for Revell) 1:48 Eduard Brassin (648068) The wheels on the new Revell kit aren't exactly a tour-de-force, so this set will be most welcome in order to spruce that area up a little. The set arrives in Eduard's familiar clamshell box, and contains two wheels, two hubs, a small Photo-Etch (PE) fret and a set of Kabuki tape masks. The first thing you notice when the wheels drop out of their packaging into your hand is their weight - They really are quite heavy for their size. A quick look at the tyres and the impressive diamond tread leaps out, and the hub detail is very crisp. The maker's mark is reproduced in raised detail, but whether it is my eyes, the moulding process or Eduard not wishing to breach copyright, the tyres appear to be made by GOOB YBAR? The casting block is positioned at the bottom of the tyre, and consists of a flimsy outrigger, and a main tube that will of course result in missing detail. As this will be on the ground however, don't worry about it, and either sand the stub to the shape of the tyre, or sand a flat spot where it touches the ground to give the tyres the appearance of realistic sag without overdoing it. Detail on the brake hub is very good, and the outer spoked hub is a separate part, fitting snugly into the hollow hub and resulting in some very realistic detail. Remember to punch through the flash over the triangular gaps between spokes before you glue the part in, as it will ease clean-up at the rear if you leave it loose during this process. A PE hubcap is supplied for realism, but to me it would be a shame to cover over those lovely hubs. PE brake-lines are also included on the sheet, and a pair of scrap drawings show the position of the lines as well as the correct mounting of the wheel and the corresponding position of the brake assembly with the gear leg and ground. The masks are die-cut from the usual flexible Kabuki tape that Eduard use, which has been compared with Tamiya's tape on many an occasion. The masks are doughnut shaped, and allow for painting of the hub after the tyre has been painted. You will have to mask the remainder of the tyre as well if you are spraying the hubs if you are worried about over-spray. Conclusion A complete package that is a drop-in replacement for the rather lacklustre kit tyres, and adds plenty of value in the process. The inclusion of masks for the fiddly process of painting the tyres, and a PE fret of detail parts is very helpful, and all adds to the detail, and it is these small details that make our models look more realistic. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of