Brewster Buffalo 239 (Finnish) - Special Hobby 1/32 + some AM

[Peterpools]

1 hour ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Thanks Peter for sharing your techniques and consumables.  I'll have to look into trying those.  Really appreciate it!

And really sweet Ford!!  Love it!  As an FYI, I saw that some people go with MCW Finishes for paints - they have lots that match specific car colors.  I think they may be lacquers and enamels.

https://mcwfinishes.com/

Mike

Absolutely, as there are quite a few awesome model lacquer paints for specific cars and makes:

Gravity Paints of Spain

Gravity USA

Zero from Japan 

MCW.

For my car builds, I use mostly Gravity of Spain and Zero. I've kept my distance Urethane clears as they are very toxic from what I've read and just too risky for me.

.

[npb748r]

3 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Hey Neil, I hadn't looked at the wings until I saw your post.  Arghhh!!!  🤬  Why would they do the wings that way??  In the minute I've had to think about it, I'll probably epoxy brass rod to help give a little more stability to the bond.  I tend to be a lap modeler, and drop or bang into things all the time.  I'd be really concerned with just gluing with cement or CA.  Ugh, ruined my afternoon, thanks!  😆

Oh, one thing while I'm thinking about the wings.  On the 1/48 kit, they had a divot on the underside of each wing for lights.  In the 339-23 that I built in 1/48, only one wing should have had a light so I filled the other in.  I believe that my current instructions say to fill one of them, but in case yours doesn't, you might want to look into it if you're into accuracy.

Hi Mike, I thought of doing similar but because of that window in the belly of the plane anything that goes into the fuselage will be seen. I'm still scratching my head how best to approach this minor problem, interweb searching is underway as others must have dealt with this, we can't be the first builders of this kit.  I'm guessing that the cockpit floor in the real plane is the main wing spar, otherwise I have no idea how the wings stayed on the aircraft !   Regarding the underwing lights, my instructions show both remain in place, I'm also off to hunt down some photos of RAF buffalo's.   I've just glued the fuselage together, starting at the front and worked backwards. Not the prettiest of joins and filler required but most of the bigger gap is now at the back and underneath of the plane. It's almost as if the fuselage halves are banana shaped but your trick of installing the sub-components on one side first worked a treat - thank you.

neil    

[Landlubber Mike]

6 hours ago, npb748r said:

Hi Mike, I thought of doing similar but because of that window in the belly of the plane anything that goes into the fuselage will be seen. I'm still scratching my head how best to approach this minor problem, interweb searching is underway as others must have dealt with this, we can't be the first builders of this kit.  I'm guessing that the cockpit floor in the real plane is the main wing spar, otherwise I have no idea how the wings stayed on the aircraft !   Regarding the underwing lights, my instructions show both remain in place, I'm also off to hunt down some photos of RAF buffalo's.   I've just glued the fuselage together, starting at the front and worked backwards. Not the prettiest of joins and filler required but most of the bigger gap is now at the back and underneath of the plane. It's almost as if the fuselage halves are banana shaped but your trick of installing the sub-components on one side first worked a treat - thank you.

neil    

I just looked at the wings and fuselage halves and you're totally right.  Ugh.  I didn't read anyone having a problem.  Here are four logs I have bookmarked that I check along the way:

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235066413-‘taivaan-helmi’-brewster-buffalo-132-special-hobby/&

https://modelingmadness.com/review/allies/us/usn/reybuff.htm

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235002982-special-hobby-132-buffalo-mk-1/

https://www.modelforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=125858&hilit=Brewster+buffalo

 

The last one of the four took an approach that I probably will do - scuff up the mating surfaces, and insert a small rod or two, epoxy, and hope for the best.  See page 2 of his log.  Though, he might have broken the wings off which is why the mating surfaces look scuffed - a little hard to understand even with the translation.

 

[npb748r]

22 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

On my 1/48 build, looking at the right fuselage half, the area between the end of the cockpit and the tail fin had a flatter profile than the left half.  I don't think it was that my kit part was warped, I think it's just how the mold was as I believe I found another 1/48 log that mentioned the same issue.  I ended up building that area back up by using Tamiya 2-part epoxy putty which surprisingly worked really well given it was my first time using it.

I thought mine looked ok visually but just offered up the rear canopy and you are right, the right fuselage doesn't match the canopy . It's not out by much but it's really noticeable. I'm thinking I might try and reduce the canopy framework at the bottom to bring it down to the fuselage rather than build up the fuselage. Will be interesting to see if you have the same issue. I'm still working my way along the banana halves gluing the seam's where they popped undone as I remove the tap. Whilst extra work, it's not too hard to sort out and it's all part of the modelling experience. I will go for a shake and bake build after this one though (I need a simple 70's hasegawa kit but have none in my stash so will go searching for a cheap purchase !). Looking forward to your next steps !

neil 

[Landlubber Mike]

2 hours ago, npb748r said:

I thought mine looked ok visually but just offered up the rear canopy and you are right, the right fuselage doesn't match the canopy . It's not out by much but it's really noticeable. I'm thinking I might try and reduce the canopy framework at the bottom to bring it down to the fuselage rather than build up the fuselage. Will be interesting to see if you have the same issue. I'm still working my way along the banana halves gluing the seam's where they popped undone as I remove the tap. Whilst extra work, it's not too hard to sort out and it's all part of the modelling experience. I will go for a shake and bake build after this one though (I need a simple 70's hasegawa kit but have none in my stash so will go searching for a cheap purchase !). Looking forward to your next steps !

neil 

Well that sucks - was hoping that the rear canopy issue was only on the 1/48 kits.  It wasn't quite as noticeable to me on the last kit until I started looking at fitting the canopy.  Sorry also about the fuselage halves.  The back half seems to fit fairly well, so what I might do is start by gluing the back half and maybe the bottom on the front halves, then work out what to do on the top of the front half.  I'm worried that if I try to force the top half, I might have seams popping elsewhere as it looks like I could have a 2-3mm gap.  Might be a better idea for me to close the gap with a piece of styrene.

I might put this one to the side for a bit, as I think I might attempt to do a diorama recreating one of the pictures I posted earlier (see my next post below), and I really need to get moving on my Walrus/Albatross group build project.  So, you might end up passing me pretty quickly.  I'm always happy to take a look at things if you have any questions and want to bounce things off someone.

[Landlubber Mike]

After some noodling, I think I'm going to try to recreate this picture in a model diorama:

 

Sorry for using this log to record my thoughts, but I think I've worked through some of the trickier parts, which are:

1.  Representing the BW-378 - fortunately, the kit includes decals for BW-378 (Camo C).  The picture above suggests that the plane was re-painted/painted over in a winter camo scheme that looks very similar to the kit's scheme in Camo A, so I'll use A as the model with C's markings.  Super lucky here, as not having the numbers would have probably made me scrap this whole crazy idea.  The one thing I'm not sure about is whether in adding white for winter camo, the tail would have been repainted from white to blue - my guess is not since it seems like typical practice was to apply white paint over existing paint - here the olive and black areas of the plane - rather than repaint sections like the tail.  Too bad though, as I think the blue tail looks pretty sharp.

 

2.  Engine - with the panels open, I'll need to have a more detailed engine than the kit engine.  The B-239 used a 950HP Wright R-1820-G5 Cyclone.  Looking around, there are a few mid-late R-1820 aftermarket engines out there.  Fortunately I already have a Vector engine (32-005) that looks like it might fit the bill.  I had bought it for the Dauntless kit I won in the Christmas raffle here on LSM a few years ago, so I might try and use that one and see if it fits.  

3.  Cowl interior parts - on my 1/48 kit, I had opened similar panels using a CMK engine set which included the engine mounting pieces.  For this 1/32 kit, it looks like things will be much simpler.  I won't have to cut the access panels from the fuselage halves (as in step 1 on the 1/48 build) because the halves end in the right place since the 1/32 kit includes separate parts for the access panels.  Plus, I believe that the 'curved-in' shape of the ends of the fuselage halves, together with the engine mounting pieces in the kit, get you PUR9 and PP1 and PP2 from the 1/48 kit (see instructions below).  So, I think that all I will need to do is modify the kits access panels to show the one on the ground and the one held by the mechanic on top of the nose of the plane (which incudes the air vent, which should be fairly easy to replicate).  Lucked out here (I hope) as replicating PUR9 wouldn't be easy.

4.  Figures.  Ultimately, these might be the trickiest parts of the diorama.  I'll probably find figures that most closely match the poses of the three in the picture, and Frankenstein them with other parts like "winter heads with hats", gloves, and boots, and probably add or modify details using Milliput or similar materials.

5.  Other diorama items.  The ladder and wheel chocks should be fairly easy to replicate.  The tarps will be tricky - I might use something like Modelspan, which I think I would be able to wet, fold and drape.  If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.  There are a few products to replicate snow, so hopefully that won't be an issue.  I'd really like to replicate that birch tree in the background if I can - it adds a nice touch to the scene!

All in all, I think this might be a lot easier to accomplish than I first feared.  Thanks for bearing with me on my little build treatise!

[HubertB]

42 minutes ago, Landlubber Mike said:

After some noodling, I think I'm going to try to recreate this picture in a model diorama:

 

Sorry for using this log to record my thoughts, but I think I've worked through some of the trickier parts, which are:

1.  Representing the BW-378 - fortunately, the kit includes decals for BW-378 (Camo C).  The picture above suggests that the plane was re-painted/painted over in a winter camo scheme that looks very similar to the kit's scheme in Camo A, so I'll use A as the model with C's markings.  Super lucky here, as not having the numbers would have probably made me scrap this whole crazy idea.  The one thing I'm not sure about is whether in adding white for winter camo, the tail would have been repainted from white to blue - my guess is not since it seems like typical practice was to apply white paint over existing paint - here the olive and black areas of the plane - rather than repaint sections like the tail.  Too bad though, as I think the blue tail looks pretty sharp.

 

2.  Engine - with the panels open, I'll need to have a more detailed engine than the kit engine.  The B-239 used a 950HP Wright R-1820-G5 Cyclone.  Looking around, there are a few mid-late R-1820 aftermarket engines out there.  Fortunately I already have a Vector engine (32-005) that looks like it might fit the bill.  I had bought it for the Dauntless kit I won in the Christmas raffle here on LSM a few years ago, so I might try and use that one and see if it fits.  

[•••]

FYI, the Vector R-1820 is one that threw me into fits: because they did not understand the shape of the oil sump between the two lower cylinders (which, to simplify, looks like a fat « T » with rounded corners when viewed from above, with the vertical bar of the « T » between the two said cylinders), and to make space for it, they decided to widen the space between these two cylinders. Thus the 9 cylinders are not evenly distributed, with a 40° angle between each  …

I found a FPW model 1/32 R-1820 recently :

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/285150116289

Mine is on its way home from Poland, but it really looks promising, and much better than the wobbly Vector offering …

Hubert

PS: whilst the uneven polar distribution of the cylinders may not be an issue in the Buffalo cowling  - although for me « once seen, never unseen » - it is one when you try to fit it into a cowling of the Grumman Gulfhawk with its bossings above the cylinder heads …

[Landlubber Mike]

41 minutes ago, HubertB said:

FYI, the Vector R-1820 is one that threw me into fits: because they did not understand the shape of the oil sump between the two lower cylinders (which, to simplify, looks like a fat « T » with rounded corners when viewed from above, with the vertical bar of the « T » between the two said cylinders), and to make space for it, they decided to widen the space between these two cylinders. Thus the 9 cylinders are not evenly distributed, with a 40° angle between each  …

I found a FPW model 1/32 R-1820 recently :

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/285150116289

Mine is on its way home from Poland, but it really looks promising, and much better than the wobbly Vector offering …

Hubert

PS: whilst the uneven polar distribution of the cylinders may not be an issue in the Buffalo cowling  - although for me « once seen, never unseen » - it is one when you try to fit it into a cowling of the Grumman Gulfhawk with its bossings above the cylinder heads …

Thanks Hubert, that's very helpful to know.  Maybe I'll skip the Vector and look elsewhere then.  When looking for alternative R-1820s, I found the one you ordered:

Also found this one from PrintScale which looks promising:

 

 

The PrintScale one looks closer to the R-1820-G5 that my B-239 had (round ignition ring versus the more horseshoe-shaped one), though it looks like they have the ignition wiring opposite - the wire on the left side of the cylinder is wired into the front of the cylinder according to the picture below (from Naval Fighters Number 104), while PrintScale has the wire coming from the right side.  

 

Ugh, never easy is it?  Maybe I'll take a look at the Vector one and see what is going on with it.

 

[Landlubber Mike]

21 hours ago, npb748r said:

Hi Mike, I thought of doing similar but because of that window in the belly of the plane anything that goes into the fuselage will be seen. I'm still scratching my head how best to approach this minor problem, interweb searching is underway as others must have dealt with this, we can't be the first builders of this kit.  I'm guessing that the cockpit floor in the real plane is the main wing spar, otherwise I have no idea how the wings stayed on the aircraft !   Regarding the underwing lights, my instructions show both remain in place, I'm also off to hunt down some photos of RAF buffalo's.   I've just glued the fuselage together, starting at the front and worked backwards. Not the prettiest of joins and filler required but most of the bigger gap is now at the back and underneath of the plane. It's almost as if the fuselage halves are banana shaped but your trick of installing the sub-components on one side first worked a treat - thank you.

neil    

Neil, just remembered that our resident experts @Clunkmeister and @Martinnfb are building our kits.  Ernie and Martin, did you guys do anything special to attach the wings on your Buffalos?  Neil and I are getting close to that stage on our builds and are a bit disappointed in the kits' lack of anchor points for the wings.

[Martinnfb]

Hi Mike, what a great choice of marking and super fast progress..,  Regarding the wings, nothing is needed just proper preparation, I sanded the mating surface flat and glue them to the fuselage half beforehand. really , no drama there. Now, I am trying to figure out how to secure the undercarriage  

[npb748r]

52 minutes ago, Martinnfb said:

Now, I am trying to figure out how to secure the undercarriage  

I am planning of great globs of CA glue at all attachment points !

[Landlubber Mike]

2 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

Hi Mike, what a great choice of marking and super fast progress..,  Regarding the wings, nothing is needed just proper preparation, I sanded the mating surface flat and glue them to the fuselage half beforehand. really , no drama there. Now, I am trying to figure out how to secure the undercarriage  

Thanks Martin!  Good to know on the wings.  For the undercarriage, I believe I used CA - glued the pieces in, let it set, then flooded the non-visible area with more CA for added strength.  The attachment points are a bit weak, at least they were on the 1/48 kit.  Come to think of it, I might have also used some epoxy for the LG, but can't recall.

[Peterpools]

Mike

Going to be a fantastic thread and diorama to follow. Can't wait for the journey to begin.

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Peter!  I was going to build just the plane and not include it in a diorama, but after coming across that picture, I don't think I can pass up the opportunity.  It tells a cool story, and has just enough details in the picture to make it interesting - at least to me!  

I'm itching to start working on it, but I really need to make some progress on the Walrus and Albatross to make the GB deadline.  This time of year for me is usually pretty busy and modelling time is sparse 😬

[Peterpools]

Mike

Agreed, first finish up the GB entries and then dive into the Buffalo.

 

 

[HubertB]

This is what the FPW models R-1820 looks like. Definitely far far far far superior to Vector’s offering, although painting it might prove somewhat of a challenge…

 

 

 

HTH

Hubert

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Wow, that is really nice Hubert thanks for posting the pictures.  Unfortunately the ignition harness is the wrong style (horseshoe versus circular for my engine) or I would have went for that one.  I ended up ordering the PrintScale engine which I should hopefully receive soon.

Speaking of Vector, I have spent the last two nights putting together a Vector Pegasus engine for my Walrus.  Must be nice to just take the engine out of the box and you're ready to go!

[npb748r]

Mike, when you get the the tail cone check the fit with the fuselage - I just had to take my tail cone apart and add plastic to increase the size as it was narrower than the fuselage. No big issue but check before gluing.

neil

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks for passing that along Neil.  Now that you mention it, I remember having an odd fit issue with the tail on my 1/48 build.  I think I ended up sanding the main fuselage halves and then using filler here and there to make the transition to the tail seamless.  I had done exactly what you did and put the tail halves together first, then tried adding it to the fuselage.  I was pretty miffed, and I just tried to do the best I could with what I had.  Thankfully, it's not a very obvious or eye drawing part section of the plane.

One question for you if you don't mind - to do the cockpit instrument panels using that film part and then the PE on top, did you first paint the plastic background piece white or silver before putting the film on top?  I had painted the background black, but when i test fit the film on top it seemed way too dark and you couldn't see the dials.  

[npb748r]

13 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

One question for you if you don't mind - to do the cockpit instrument panels using that film part and then the PE on top, did you first paint the plastic background piece white or silver before putting the film on top?  I had painted the background black, but when i test fit the film on top it seemed way too dark and you couldn't see the dials.  

I painted it white and they really stand out. I'm on grandkids care duty today, I'll take a picture and post it when I get chance. 

[npb748r]

not a brilliant picture but you can see the effect of painting the backplate white. Just found another fit issue which you may not have a problem with if you plan on building with the engine panels off. The engine and panels is much bigger than the fuselage by almost the width of the plastic of the panel in some places. I'm going to live with it and pretend it's not there ! 

[Landlubber Mike]

1 hour ago, npb748r said:

not a brilliant picture but you can see the effect of painting the backplate white. 

Oh wow, that looks fantastic!  I'll paint mine the same way.  Thanks for the pictures.  Did you install the three IP panels after putting the fuselage halves together?  I was thinking of doing it that way, rather than the kit approach of adding them to the fuselage halves and then putting the halves together.

1 hour ago, npb748r said:

The engine and panels is much bigger than the fuselage by almost the width of the plastic of the panel in some places. I'm going to live with it and pretend it's not there ! 

I'm probably not completely following you, but I think the engine and cowl area is supposed to be wider than where the fuselage halves end - in part, because I believe the aft part of the cowl is supposed to fit over the end of the fuselage halves rounded end, and line up close to what looks like the dotted lines along the halves.  I think that the fuselage of the Buffalo generally stayed fairly consistent over time across the later variants, except to lengthen/widen the cowl and nose as the engines got bigger (looks like the B-239 reoriented the exhausts downward from along the sides of the cowl).

Here are some pictures from Naval Fighters Number 104.  You can see the cowl is wider by about what you are describing, but maybe your kit is even wider than expected.  First is of the F2A-3, the second two are of my variant, the B-239.  Let me know if you are building a different variant and would like to see pictures.  You can see that the bulge with the F2A-3 is considerably wider than the B-239, which is probably to be expected as the F2A-3 had a Wright 1820-40 Cylone of 1100HP, while the B-239 had a Wright 1820-G5 Cyclone of 950HP.

 

[Peterpools]

Mike

Surely some very delicate work and lots of test fitting needed to get the parts to join together correctly. Looking mighty good

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Well since I can't seem to decide on what materials to use to rig my Walrus, I dusted this one off the shelf.  I first started with the wings, gluing in the ribs into the landing gear area, filling the extra landing light hole on the right wing, and added the Brengun flaps PE set.  All went together fairly well.  As I noted in my 1/48 B339-23 build, Brengun had the triangular pieces in the upper part of the wing, while the 1/32 set has them correctly in the flap itself.  I thought about removing the ailerons, but given that they are angular where they insert into the wing (the top half and the bottom half are different widths), I thought it safer to just deepen the lines so they look like they are moveable parts of the wing.

The kit's wing guns looked too large and out of scale, so I decided to go with Master brass barrels.  Because the barrels are slightly smaller in diameter relative to the gun opening in the wings, I used my RP Toolz punch set to create small rings that I could inset into the opening to close the gap around the Master barrels.  I also added a Master shark fin pitot tube which is more in scale and I think the proper shape on the B239.  I epoxied it into the wing, but left off the delicate shark fin end which I will add at the end of the build since it's easy to break off.  Learned that lesson on my 1/48 build and had to buy another pitot set to replace the end which broke off and cracked.

Next I worked on the edge of the fuselage halves before the cowl.  With the cowl panels open, I need to replicate part PUR9 in the picture below - the part that goes at the end of the fuselage just before the cowling:

I thought I could work with the kit fuselage halves, but the just don't go far enough forward (see below).  So I'll have to scratch build something like PUR9 or just figure a way to add extra material to the end of the fuselage halves to extend another 2-3mm out and cover up/extend past the exhausts.  Still working on a solution for this, but I think I have a game plan.

Next I worked on closing up the fuselage.  Like other builds I came across online, this was certainly a battle.  The fit is poor to say the least, particularly at the front end of the fuselage halves and where the tail is attached.  I started by gluing the middle of the halves from the rear of the ventral window towards the back of the plane.  Then I worked on the front end, which just wouldn't close.  I found the cleanest approach was to first glue the bottom parts together, then when set, add a strip of styrene about 1.25mm across the top in between the two halves.  Both sections were glued using two-part epoxy, and three clamps were used for the top to keep the halves not only together, but to push the right side back and in place because it kept having a tendency to slide forward.  Was a real pain to say the least!

Then when I went to attach the tail, things were a total mess.  The two halves of the tail just don't fit properly against the joined fuselage halves.  In particular, the flat section at the tops of the tail halves are wider than the fuselage halves by a good 2mm.  So I ended up opening up the gap at the top of the fuselage halves where the rudder sits and adding thin sheets of plasticard until I got the proper width to match the tail halves.  Then I glued the tail halves on, connecting them at the top and running them along the fuselage halves sides to follow the fuselage lines.  That left a 1mm gap at the bottom of the tail halves which was also filled with plasticard.  Thank you Neil @npb748r for the heads up!

 So, a lot of work, but the fuselage looks pretty good now I think.  Hope these steps help others that might be building this in 1/32.

Thanks for looking in!

 

 

[PanzerWomble]

Glad you picked this one back up , I love the Finnish approach to war ....take any old crap no one else wants  , and then beat the living devil out of the Russians with it !!