Jakko’s 1:48 Tamiya Brewster B-339 Buffalo

[Guest]

IMHO I might have done them al little more neatly, but the real mistake I made is that I put the lead to the top of the cylinder on the right when it should have been on the left See the photo here and compare it to my model part to see what I mean. This happened because I didn’t have the photo at hand and thought I knew which way round they had to go.

Oh well, too late to fix that now. I could, but I’m not going to bother because it looks convincing enough as it is, and I don’t feel like doing all that fiddly work again

[rtfoe]

IMHO I might have done them al little more neatly, but the real mistake I made is that I put the lead to the top of the cylinder on the right when it should have been on the left :smiling3: See the photo here and compare it to my model part to see what I mean. This happened because I didn’t have the photo at hand and thought I knew which way round they had to go.

Oh well, too late to fix that now. I could, but I’m not going to bother because it looks convincing enough as it is, and I don’t feel like doing all that fiddly work again :smiling3:

Hi Jakko, what a lot of issues to solve...all good btw. Now, with the wiring in reverse the worse that can happen is the plane flying backwards :smiling6: Doesn't matter as its a static kit. As for the cockpit color I made the same mistake with my SBC Helldiver.

Cheers,
Richard

[Guest]

These are all the kinds of mistakes that generally only the builder will know, plus the very small number of people you’ll ever show it to who have actual, detailed knowledge of the machine — so I’m not worried that this one might go backwards on my shelf

[Guest]

The painted engine:

[ATTACH]362540[/ATTACH]

It’s just a coat of aluminium paint plus thinned black ink (very old Games Workshop). Tamiya says to paint the engine aluminium and the sparkplug leads silver, but I don’t really see how to make much of a difference in colour between them here, so I just left it all the same.

With the addition of the engine and cowling, plus the pitot tube, antenna mast and antenna wire (stretched sprue), I think the model is mostly finished:

[ATTACH]362541[/ATTACH][ATTACH]362542[/ATTACH][ATTACH]362543[/ATTACH][ATTACH]362544[/ATTACH]

I’m still debating whether to add the bombs or not. The kit provides two American M30 100-pound bombs, but I’m not sure if the ML-KNIL used this type or some other, and also, as I intend to finish the model as one of those in the last sortie against the Japanese on 7 March 1942, I’m not sure those planes carried bombs at all on that mission.

[SimonT]

Engine detail looks the part Jakko :thumb2:

Canopy replacement - I have had some success in the past using plug moulding

Similar to what you tried but you get a piece of wood/mdf and cut a hole in the middle roughly the same shape as the thing you want to mould but a bit wider all round so there will be room for the master and plastic to push through without fouling on the sides.

Stick your master shape on a stick of some kind.

Tape your clear plastic sheet to the wood/mdf.

Heat the clear plastic until it just starts to go wobbly - I used a candle

Plunge your master shape through the hole from the plastic sheet side and if the plastic was soft enough you should get a thin representation of the shape that can be cut out of the resulting stretched plastic. May take a few attempts to get the temperature right

You could also build a simple vac-forming machine - box with a platform with the master shape stuck to it. Holes drilled around the perimeter of the master through the platform. A connection for the Hoover/Dyson etc on one side or below the platform. You stick the plastic over the top and seal all the edges, heat it up then switch on the vacuum and it pulls the soggy plastic down for you
Only tried this once - stupidly made the box out of thick plastic sheet as didn't have any wood to hand. It kind of imploded and destroyed itself when I turned on the vacuum as the box had got a bit warm, but it worked, once anyway

[Guest]

I’ve never tried plug-moulding mainly because I think it’s too much of a hassle and I’d waste far too much material until I finally get it right (I have an aversion to wastage ), but otherwise I agree it would probably be a good technique for more complicated canopies than this one

[Fernando N]

Looking good Jakko, too bad about the office colour but it seems possible to me too:thinking:.
Sadly de Tamiya research was lacking here..
Have fun with the camo:thumb2:

[SimonT]

Food packaging or cd cases are a cheap source of clear plastic for doing things such as this :thumb2:

[Guest]

Looking good Jakko, too bad about the office colour but it seems possible to me too:thinking:.

You mean it seems possible that it was green? Could be, but from the reading I did, it seems more likely to me that it should really be aluminium.

Have fun with the camo:thumb2:

I did a little research on that too, and discovered that what I need is the same USAF Vietnam colours that BarryW used recently on his F-5E on here

[Guest]

First paint is on on the outside:

[ATTACH]362783[/ATTACH][ATTACH]362782[/ATTACH]

A layer of Vallejo Model Air aluminium on the underside and the cockpit frame. ML-KNIL Brewsters were painted in aluminium colour underneath, so I won’t try to make the underside look like bare metal — this even coat will do nicely

Now I need to go through my paint collection to find two suitable shades of green for the uppers.

[Fernando N]

Neat start at the paintwork Jakko and thanks for the link, very useful info in there :thumb2: .

As for the remark about the office colour, many contemporary aircraft have a green office but as Brewster was a small firm that they used a different finish for different customers seems plausible to me too.

[Guest]

Neat start at the paintwork

Now to not screw up the spraying on top … Especially masking off the flags later on.

thanks for the link, very useful info in there :thumb2: .

It appears to at least solve the question of whether these planes were painted with American paints that happened to look right or to actual KNIL specifications, certainly. I had suspected the latter already, but this is good confirmation and a decent guide to the kinds of colours I need. Still haven’t looked if I actually have any suitable ones, though.

[Guest]

Damn, has it been this long since I did any real work on this model?!

I had sprayed the underside aluminium, as shown earlier, and then masked the underside a few days ago:

[ATTACH]366243[/ATTACH]

It’s mostly Tamiya tape plus a few bits cut from a plastic bag normally used for wrapping sandwiches. This afternoon I then got round to spraying the KNIL camouflagegroen (“camouflage green”, commonly called jongblad, “young leaf”), for which I used MIG-065 Forest Green:

[ATTACH]366244[/ATTACH]

As you can see, though, the paint didn’t really like the surface, especially not the parts where the aluminium went earlier:

[ATTACH]366245[/ATTACH]

Maybe I should have used a primer first, but I don’t normally for all-plastic models so I also didn’t bother with one here. I’ll just give it a second coat and see if that helps.

[Guest]

Right, 20 minutes later and the second coat is on

[ATTACH]366248[/ATTACH]

Generally speaking it’s much better now, but some areas are very rough Especially underneath the right tailplane, but a few other spots as well:

[ATTACH]366249[/ATTACH]

I’m now debating whether to sand it down or to try and get the paint off with a cotton swab and methanol.

[Guest]

There's definitely something on that surface the paint doesn't like!

My first choice would be sanding as it's more controllable and you might get away with keeping it localised. Stripping will probably just keep on spreading and also risks creeping under the tape.