Midway Defender - Marine Buffalo ***Finished***

[Cookenbacher]

Very nice!

[Andwil]

Masked the under surface demarcation line with blue tack worms and sprayed the blue grey uppers:

 

 

During this process I noticed an ominous rattle from inside, something has come loose in the cockpit, hopefully not obvious to the eye, or relatively easy to get to and fix.

 

AW

[rob85]

So glad your back at this, and nice work in the paint!

 

Rob

[Andwil]

Forgot to take any pictures today, but attended to a little overspray under the fuselage and did some detail painting including the non slip walkways on the wings and sprayed the tires on the main wheels.

 

AW

[Andwil]

Glossed and ready for decals:

 

 

 

AW

[Andwil]

Decals on.  Special Hobby’s decals went on a treat, released quickly from the backing paper and went down nice and smooth.  Always a good milestone in a build, it’s when the model really comes to life IMO.

 

 

 

 

The kit had markings for MF-11 and MF-15.  The aircraft I want to depict is MF-17 flown by Lt Kurtz of VF 221. Luckily I had suitable 7s in the stash of spare decals so it was an easy job to make up the correct codes.  What I don’t have though are suitable serial nos, but as these are really tiny I have chosen to ignore them.

 

AW

[Andwil]

Matt coat on:

 

 

Nearly there.

 

AW

[rob85]

This if flying along now! Very handsome little buffalo you have there!

 

Rob

[Cookenbacher]

Yes, your perseverance has paid off AW.

[Andwil]

Canopy unmasked and it’s standing on its feet:

 

 

 

I cannot see what has broken off and is rattling around the cockpit.  I thought it may have been the pilot’s headrest which is attached to a small projection in front of the dinghy canister as the attachment point was a tiny butt joint, but it is still there.  Actually not much of the cockpit detail can be seen through the canopy which is a shame.

 

The undercarriage was tricky to get lined up and is flimsy, but I was able to cement it in place and then strengthen the joints with CA.  I realised I had forgotten the outer doors that are attached to the main UC legs, so these were added and primed.

 

I also attached the exhausts and the telescopic sight and touched up with a few spots of paint.  Special Hobby provide a small hole in the windscreen for the sight, but it is so high the sight will not contact the fuselage and remain parallel.  So I drilled a new hole in the windscreen and filled the existing one with Testors transparency glue.

 

AW

 

 

 

[Andwil]

OK, I don’t what happened, I wrote a long post but it vanished into the ether before I could submit it, so I’ll try again.

 

Did some light weathering today, I kept it minimal as 1) these machines only had a short active service before being replaced by Wildcats, and 2) I’m not very good at it!  Some chipping on the walkways and leading edges of the wing and a light dry brushing of dust consistent with operations on a Pacific atoll and some black wash oil staining behind the cowling which is evident in most photos of F2As.

 

Wheels and prop attached and a radio aerial from Uschi rigging line added and I’m calling it done.

 

 

 

 

I will put some more photos in the gallery, probably tomorrow.

 

Not my best work, but I am reasonably happy with the result.

 

Thanks to @rob85, @Cookenbacher and @Alan P for their support and encouragement during an at times challenging build and to @Pierpaolo and @LDSModeller for their help early on.

 

AW

[Cookenbacher]

Well, not many have completed this kit from what I can tell, so you've joined a rather elite group (and after seeing the trouble you and Navy Bird had on this one, I'm not keen on joining those ranks any time soon!)

That's a fine Buffalo AW.

[Pierpaolo]

Nice work, congrats 

[rob85]

I think you have done a fantastic job battling this one into submission. Excellent finish, well done.

 

Rob