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

[Guest]

Here are the wing undersides masked as well, using the same technique: a rectangle of masking tape the right size (22 mm by 12 mm) and then apply tape around it before removing the one in the middle and repeating on the other side:

[ATTACH]366627[/ATTACH]

I also added a bit more masking to the tail, to prevent overspray. Then I loaded Vallejo Model Air Insignia White into my airbrush and painted all of the necessary areas:

[ATTACH]366632[/ATTACH]

Next, I added a strip of tape down the centre of the flags:

[ATTACH]366628[/ATTACH]

Plus a bit more masking tape to protect the white stripe on the fuselage, of course. And sprayed the red and blue, using Tamiya acrylics — just their basic Flat Red and Flat Blue, because the colours of the Dutch flag are pretty much primary ones. This took some effort, especially the blue, because I didn’t think the Tamiya blue I had was sprayable anymore, so I initially tried with Revell blue instead. That, though, didn’t want to be thinned to the right consistency: either too thick to spray or so thin it looked like I was spraying blue ink. I tried the Tamiya after all, then, and it came out well enough.

[ATTACH]366629[/ATTACH]

Then finally, the big unveiling

[ATTACH]366630[/ATTACH][ATTACH]366631[/ATTACH]

[Steven000]

Nice progress, looks good :thumb2:

[Guest]

Flags came out great, well worth the effort I'd say.

[Guest]

Cheers I’m pretty happy with the result myself. Now to add the decals, shading the panel lines, weathering, etc. Not far to go anymore until this one is finally finished and I can get on with my two Crabs (I hope ).

[Guest]

Now all marked up:

[ATTACH]366660[/ATTACH][ATTACH]366661[/ATTACH]

That wasn’t all that much work, as there are only four markings (but five decals) on each side of the plane: the big serial number on the side, the unit emblem on the forward fuselage, the pilot’s name right behind it and the serial (minus the “B-”) repeated much smaller on the front edge of the wing. All of these came straight from the kit’s decal sheet, and work very well. Thinner than many Tamiya decals I’ve seen, and they stuck down well with Micro Set and Sol. (Oh yeah, five decals for four markings? The unit emblem is in two parts: a white backing and the coloured emblem that you need to apply one on top of the other. I’m guessing they did it like this because the yellow would else be very transparent.)

The model is marked as that of luitenant (lieutenant, duh ) August Deibel, who flew with 2-VLG-V (2e Afdeeling, 5e Vliegtuiggroep, approx. “2nd Unit, 5th Aeroplane Group”; in British terms, I suppose this would be 2nd Squadron, 5th Wing) of the ML-KNIL (Militaire Luchtvaart van het Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger, “Military Aviation of the Royal Netherlands-Indian Army”), whose emblem was a Javanese rhinoceros:

[ATTACH]366662[/ATTACH] (Wikipedia)

On 7 March 1942, he was part of the very last flight of KNIL Brewsters that took off from Andir airfield on a mission against the Japanese, near Lembang, but was forced to turn back when a Japanese aircraft put bullets through his oil tank. He did manage to shoot down a Ki-43 on his way back (putting him on three kills) but crashed on landing due to his undercarriage failing to deploy properly. After the war, he was awarded the Military Order of William for this mission.

[colin m]

Looking nice. The Buffalo, it looks like someone was given an engine and told 'make it fly'.

[adt70hk]

Jakko

Looking really good. The markings came out great.

Well done.

Andrew

[Guest]

Thanks It is a short and stubby plane for sure, but I guess that’s its main visual appeal As for the decals, I was a bit afraid they’d silver against the fairly rough Tamiya dark green, but they worked very well. Must have recognised the paint it was being applied on.

[flyjoe180]

Nice work Jakko, the national insignia looks great

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
That does look good with the markings. Masking the markings has been a real success. Certainly been a build with its problems.
Jim

[Guest]

Thanks, though I don’t think this was a particularly troublesome model — aside from having knocked the antenna cable off the front mast often enough by now that I’ve worked out the best way to re-glue it is to push it against the mast with the brush from my glue bottle

[Si Benson]

Looking good Jakko....the markings have come out really well :thumb2:

[Neil Merryweather]

Nice job Jakko ,on a seldom-seen colour scheme :thumb2:

[Guest]

Thanks The colour scheme is seldom seen probably because most sources get it wrong If you just follow Tamiya’s instructions you’ll end up with colours that aren’t even the ones that people used to think KNIL planes were painted in — and in any case I suspect most modellers will build these as British Buffalos or Finnish B-339s.

I finished the model yesterday night, so I’ll post pictures of it later (still need to take them).

[Guest]

It’s now done!

On to the Crabs …