MM Aviation TBD Devastator

[cjwalas]

Wow. This looks like an absolutely new kit with the changes you've made. Beautiful! And the Devastator deserves it. Glad to see such a nice job being done on this!
Chris

[CMDRTED]

Because I'm buttoning up this bird and the unique way Maly has modeled the frames I had to glue them back to front....

[CMDRTED]

Thanks Chris. I have a small heap of interwar aircraft I want to redraw, and upgrade, the old Modelik Buffalo, the F3F, the older Halinski F4F Wildcat etc. Maybe someday! Anyways the last series is the final product installed. You can see all the little things that were modelled in the interior, and you have that little smug grin on your face that you made the canopy yourself!

[CMDRTED]

Before I closed up the canopy I installed the wing root. I had to do this because the wing root former kept getting bent with handling. It was pretty striaght forward but fitting like a glove was not the phrase or case on this kit. I wasn't sure of how the gray bottom piece was supposed to fit to the fuselage, was it supposed to conform to the aft curves or what? I elected the partial conformity and when I wrapped the topside pieces around they didn't fit very well. Luckily the wing root parts actually covered up some horrendously bad fitting root problems. I guess that's what our women mean when they are covering up thier roots. I scratchbuilt little wheel wells that had to be installed into the main wing spar. It was a lot of eyeballing and dry fitting to get them to fit right, but they made it.

[CMDRTED]

The rudder and tail was pretty straight forward. You can see the 3D effect painting at the control surface joints. I wanted to get this kit done before the original deadline so I didn't mess with separate surfaces. The effect looks ok to me for now maybe if I build it the next time....

[CMDRTED]

These bits were kinda fun, NOT! One of the big misfitting parts was the inner to outer wings. The outer parts of the wings are slighter less wide along the chord and have to be slipped and built onto more framing attached to the stubby former that the root is built on. I ended up cutting that piece off printed another chord former and spar then butt glued the mess to the root stubbs. I had to make a fairing to cover the slight stepoff but it came out ok. If I do this one again I'll have to think it thru a little better, but for now...

[CMDRTED]

The Mk13a was a miserable weapon forced upon the Navy. The exploders were aweful, the practice warheads were lighter than the loaded weapon and fowled up the release points when the planes actually had to attack something. They had to come in low and slow otherwise the fish would do some strange aquabatics, then there was that maybe if it hit it might explode thingy. The Japanese were terrified of torpedos because they thought ours were just as devastating as thiers, so they went out of thier way to avoid being hit, and consequently they slaughtered the devastators whenever they could be found. The model torpedo was repainted and cleaned up, it went together well and sits nicely in the recess on the bottom fuselage. I redid they release straps and installed it before the landing gear as I didn't want to mess up the seemingly fragile gear struts....

[Paperwarrior]

This is some amazing work! You are a true craftsman.
Thanks for your detailed thread and tips!

[GreMir]

Hi Ted,
You are entering the conest with a huge bang :D

[CMDRTED]

Thanks guys, as for bang Mike, I've seen some of the other builds and they are fantastic!
The landing gear is just a basic strut wrapped around a wire former. The wheels I cut out basic circles, drilled thru and chucked them in a dremel. If you have a set of wheels wider than the pinewood dirby wheel turning mandrel you can use some micro screws sandwhiched between some nuts and chucked into a dremel mandrel.