1/48 Brewster Buffalo RNEIAF Finished!!!

[modelling minion]

Well with all these Zero's being built I thought I might as well build something for them to shoot at, and what better or more iconic target from the beginning of the war in the Pacific than the Brewster Buffalo. Now don't get me wrong I really like the Buffalo and believe that it has been made the scapegoat of early Allied losses as if the kill to loss figures for it are studied it actually scored more victories than it had losses, and lets not forget what the Finn's were able to do with them.

I will be using the classic Tamiya kit which whilst not as detailed as more modern kits has good outlines and should build quite easily, and it certainly looks like a Buffalo to me. Lets start as usual with the box top and contents pictures.

 

 

As you can see it has been slightly started (by me a few years ago) but has been given the go ahead by our host as it is less than the 25% threshold, here is a closer look at the insides of the fuselage which is most of whats been done.

 

Apart from the kit parts I will be using a few extras, namely a replacement engine from Quickboost ( a necessity as the kit one was missing) and some aftermarket decals from Aeromaster which have been in the stash for a while.

 

 

As you can see the replacement decals are in much better condition than the original kit ones. And that brings me to the choice of scheme. Rather than go with the often built RAF/RAAF/RNZAF options I'm going to build an aircraft operated by the Royal Netherlands East Indies Air Force which were used both the defence of their own territory and also in the defence of Singapore, and they have the interesting orange triangle markings, which were later replaced with the Dutch flag. the pictures below show the aircraft on the decal sheet I will be building and give it's pilots potted history.

 

 

I have the use of a couple of reference books for this build.

 

I hope to be making a start on this one over the weekend as I believe it should be a relatively quick build, which will let me get back to the builds that I've already started and should really be working on.

 

Thanks for looking in.

 

Craig.

Edited September 24, 2018 by modelling minion

[Rabbit Leader]

Excellent choice Craig and I'm glad that you've mentioned that it wasn't quite the 'sitting duck' that is often quoted in history books. I've got this same kit (I think I've said that before) so will look on with keen interest. Actually that Quickboost engine does look the goods and although your kit part was missing, the one supplied in the box is pretty naff anyway. I like the idea of NEIAF as well, should be a nice addition to the as yet empty gallery. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[Hewy]

Great little plane, i really like these, top choice

[modelling minion]

15 minutes ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Excellent choice Craig and I'm glad that you've mentioned that it wasn't quite the 'sitting duck' that is often quoted in history books. I've got this same kit (I think I've said that before) so will look on with keen interest. Actually that Quickboost engine does look the goods and although your kit part was missing, the one supplied in the box is pretty naff anyway. I like the idea of NEIAF as well, should be a nice addition to the as yet empty gallery. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

Thanks Dave, I think you're right about the engine, I doubt the kit engine would get anywhere near the detail on the Quickboost one.

6 minutes ago, Hewy said:

Great little plane, i really like these, top choice

Cheers Glynn, they are a great and underrated aircraft.

[LDSModeller]

Hi Craig,

 

Cool build, I have quite the soft soft for the Brewster Buffalo.

488 Squadron, who also flew the 339E version, was the RNZAF's first fighter Squadron.

 

Unfortunately misinformed people have maligned this aircraft.

RAF/Commonwealth/Dutch pilots achieved Acedom in this aircraft.

The Dutch 339D has the advantage of a higher HP engine than their British counterpart, and

as you have alluded to, achieved a 2:1 kill ratio.

 

Look forward to see what you do with this kit - I have  slightly larger example (1/32)

as an 488 (NZ) Squadron Aircraft (not part of this GB).

 

Regards

 

Alan

[trickyrich]

welcome aboard Graig and I think it's a great choice for the GB.

 

I have one in my stash which I forgot about, I'm planning an RAAF version....one day. Judging by the box it looks to be a very early release, and with what you've done a fairly quick build, so I'll mark you down for a second build huh?? 

 

Good luck with the build, it's always great to follow one of your builds.

 

 

[PlaStix]

Great choice Craig. Looking forward to seeing this in progress.

Kind regards,

Stix

[Greg Law]

That looks like a really old kit. I had mine for years and it had a different box. Good choice of decals.

I will be interested how you get on with it. I don't remember any issues with the kit. 

[modelling minion]

19 hours ago, LDSModeller said:

Hi Craig,

 

Cool build, I have quite the soft soft for the Brewster Buffalo.

488 Squadron, who also flew the 339E version, was the RNZAF's first fighter Squadron.

 

Unfortunately misinformed people have maligned this aircraft.

RAF/Commonwealth/Dutch pilots achieved Acedom in this aircraft.

The Dutch 339D has the advantage of a higher HP engine than their British counterpart, and

as you have alluded to, achieved a 2:1 kill ratio.

 

Look forward to see what you do with this kit - I have  slightly larger example (1/32)

as an 488 (NZ) Squadron Aircraft (not part of this GB).

 

Regards

 

Alan

Hi Alan, glad to have your interest.

Yes the Buffalo has long been an aircraft that I'm interested in and as you say has wrongly been maligned as the cause of early Allied defeats in the region, in fact on the few occasions when they were employed properly they more than held their own against the Japanese. Changing peoples misconceptions on the performance of certain aircraft has never been easy, a good case being the "fact" that the Spitfire won the Battle of Britain despite the fact that the Hurricane accounted for 2/3 of all aircraft brought down by all the defences combined.

I would like to do a 1/32 Buffalo one day and would like to see what you do with yours.

17 hours ago, trickyrich said:

welcome aboard Graig and I think it's a great choice for the GB.

 

I have one in my stash which I forgot about, I'm planning an RAAF version....one day. Judging by the box it looks to be a very early release, and with what you've done a fairly quick build, so I'll mark you down for a second build huh?? 

 

Good luck with the build, it's always great to follow one of your builds.

 

 

Cheers Rich, you should see the amount of builds that I want to do "one day"!

I might well do a second build for this GB if I get time, not sure what but it might be something from the other side.

Thanks for the kind comments, I shall try to live up to your expectations.

13 hours ago, PlaStix said:

Great choice Craig. Looking forward to seeing this in progress.

Kind regards,

Stix

Cheers Stix, great to have you aboard.

Hopefully there will be some progress soon.

3 hours ago, Greg Law said:

That looks like a really old kit. I had mine for years and it had a different box. Good choice of decals.

I will be interested how you get on with it. I don't remember any issues with the kit. 

Hi Greg, yes it is an old boxing of the kit, it's nearly as old as me! It was released in 1974, I was let out on the world 4 years earlier.

I'm keen to get properly started on the kit, and even older Tamiya kits have good fit and are easy to build.

[Arniec]

Great choice Craig. You are just before me to put this in the GB. 

I will watch this one with interest. I will be building the same model, but I will go with some Dutch flag decals for it. 

Good luck with your build. 

 

Cheers,

[modelling minion]

6 minutes ago, Arniec said:

Great choice Craig. You are just before me to put this in the GB. 

I will watch this one with interest. I will be building the same model, but I will go with some Dutch flag decals for it. 

Good luck with your build. 

 

Cheers,

Cheers Arnie,

I had a feeling my Buffalo wouldn't be the only one.

It will be nice to have two Dutch ones, especially with the different markings.

Good luck with yours too mate.

[modelling minion]

Well its only day 2 and I've actually made a proper start on the Buffalo!

I tried to use the kit supplied decals for the instrument panels but they were simply pants so I had a root through kits which have both decal and etched IP's supplied and found some nice ones in an Eduard Bf-110 which I cut up into the individual dials and added to the panels in a (not 100% accurate) attempt to provide something close to how they should look, and they at least look better than the kit ones, have a look at the pictures below and let me know what you think;

 

 

 

There is an identical panel to the one above on the opposite fuselage side.

The seat comes with a moulded on harness and as I don't have any etch for this kit I decided to paint it and see how it looks, again not perfect but beneath the big greenhouse it will sit under I'm sure it will look fine. I then added the seat to the back panel for the cockpit and fitted it in place, as you can see below.

 

Here's one of the seat and instrument panel added to the port fuselage before the fuselage halves were glued together.

 

As i said above it was then time to close up the fuselage (moving at a frightening pace isn't it!) which went together very well with only a couple of smears of filler required, mostly at the joint under the fuselage, and here are some pics of the closed up fuselage and filler where required.

 

 

 

Shouldn't take too long to sort out.

Next job was to spray the interior centre section of the wing in aluminium and whilst I was at it I did the entirety of the wing as it is the correct colour for the undersides and will be good to weather back to for the top surfaces, I then added the control column to the centre section;

 

Here is one of the undersides of the wing;

 

I even did a little bit of a wash on the gear bays;

 

It will need more work later. With the wing and fuselage parts assembled I couldn't resist a trial fit of the major components of the build and I'm impressed with how well they will fit together;

 

 

Not much in the way of gaps to deal with there so hopefully when I get them fixed in place it won't take too long to get the areas sorted.

 

Well that's it for now, thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

[trickyrich]

you're off to a great start, clever use of the Bf-110 IP decals, have done similar before.

 

The joins look pretty good, there shouldn't be too much trouble to tidy up.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Hello Craig ... Since youre doing a Buffalo i thought id post this photo. Its a USN Buffalo from the early war. 

Take note that the rear glazing is layered not mounted on a metal frame. There is a seperate rollover frame underneath (the angled bars attached to the armor). Im not sure if exports were like this but it would be good to check on. I found this photo online about two years ago so im not sure where i found it. 

 

Dennis

[modelling minion]

6 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Hello Craig ... Since youre doing a Buffalo i thought id post this photo. Its a USN Buffalo from the early war. 

Take note that the rear glazing is layered not mounted on a metal frame. There is a seperate rollover frame underneath (the angled bars attached to the armor). Im not sure if exports were like this but it would be good to check on. I found this photo online about two years ago so im not sure where i found it. 

 

Dennis

Thanks Dennis that's a nice clear picture and shows what you mean about the canopy, I shall have a good look at the canopies of Dutch Buffaloes.

[Hewy]

This ones batting along at a fair old pace. And looking good to boot. You'll have to build something else in this gb by the weekend at this rate.

 

[PlaStix]

Hi Craig. Great to see this one underway and I like they way you have done the decals - and the seatbelt looks fine BTW! 

Kind regards,

Stix

[modelling minion]

Well the Buffalo build has been progressing quite rapidly, in fact it's the fastest I've built a kit in years!

The wing assembly has been fixed in pace onto the fuselage and it went together with no problems at all with only a smear of plastic putty at the wing roots and a small amount of green stuff at the rear joint, as you can see in the pictures below.

 

 

Which left the airframe looking like this;

 

As you can see there is a hole in the rear decking behind the pilots seat, this would be for the pod which contains the dinghy for the US Navy version in the kit so this has since been filled in and smoothed over.

The next job to tackle has been the engine which is a replacement by Quickboost. To get this to fit in the cowling and at the right orientation meant that I had to remove a lot of excess resin to get it to sit right, basically I had to remove everything up to the circular ridge around the circumference of the engine and also back to the bulkhead behind the engine. Once this was done I painted it and added some extra detailing and it looked like this;

 

Now the "lump" that you can see coming from the crankcase almost vertically should go at approximately 1 to 2 o'clock when fitted to the aircraft, Quickboost give you no help with this at all and you need to study your references to make sure you have it at the right angle.

With the engine done I could add it to the fuselage and then fit the remaining piece of the cowling, which needed a little filler but not much. Once the filler was dry it was sanded down and I have given the whole airframe a coat of aluminium which will serve as an undercoat for weathering on the top surfaces and is the actual colour of the undersides and the rear decking of the cockpit, here are a couple of pics of how she looks at the minute;

 

 

I have a couple of very minor bits to touch up filler wise around the cowling and then I can get on to fitting the cockpit canopy and the glazing for the lower fuselage, if I could get my hands on the designer at Brewster responsible for these areas I would have some serious words with him as they are a PITA to mask, and when I build another I will invest in an Eduard pre-cut mask set to save both my eyesight and sanity! I also need to remember to fit the roll bar and rear armour plate to the cockpit decking area before the canopy is fitted.

That's it for today, thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

[trickyrich]

gee you have made quick progress, and have done a nice job while you were at it.   You were really lucky with those joins and silver would have shown up any for sure.

 

At the rate you're going 3 builds will be easy! 

[Hewy]

That engine does look good, you going to paint chip it a bit craig? 

[modelling minion]

8 hours ago, trickyrich said:

gee you have made quick progress, and have done a nice job while you were at it.   You were really lucky with those joins and silver would have shown up any for sure.

 

At the rate you're going 3 builds will be easy! 

Cheers Rich, yes the good thing about using aluminium as an undercoat is that it really does show up any flaws that need sorting.

3 Builds! You forget that I've already got another 2 on the go as it is! I do have a  couple of others that might make it to the GB, but not at the same time.

1 hour ago, Hewy said:

That engine does look good, you going to paint chip it a bit craig? 

Thanks Glynn, yes I will be chipping the Buffalo a bit but not too much.

[trickyrich]

at last count I have 7 on the go at the moment! least 2 of them are pretty much finished.

[modelling minion]

That's just showing off!

[trickyrich]

...more like completely bonkers! 

 

ask Enzo how many he has on the go at the moment?

[Greg Law]

I'm getting myself backed into a corner at the moment. I had a nice three projects to do when I joined BM. I thought I can add a test one. Then Dave suggested I join the group build. Now I have six on the go. All waiting for something to arrive.

Edited September 14, 2018 by Greg Law