From out of the Vault (Again) - SBD Dauntless - August 21, 2020

 When Bob and I started rehabbing old models from the 60's the first attempt out of his storage box was the afore mentioned Dive Bomber.  Bob had built an early "Battle of the Coral Sea" model, the theme of which was kept (I had some left over decals from my Sparrowhawk project).

Initially I cleaned it up, repainted the rudder and repainted the belly.

Note that i started to "clean out" the air brakes with my pin vise drill for some needed detail.

Not a bad result, but I also sealed up the flight stand slot and added some more color to try and even things out.

Here you can see the paint condition of the rudder prior to repaint, but the point here is that the roundel on this side of the fuselage was not salvageable so I scraped it off and painted in a patch.

This photo does not show exactly how rough the old finish was, but you can see my attempt to clean up the canopy moldings (with a lighter color).  I have also removed the rear machine guns in order to repair them and "clean" them up.

The guns reinstalled, radio wire mast added and wire (monofilament) installed.  Note that the new paint has been applied and the starboard fuselage roundel added.

I went back to my initial refurbishment, since it was the first one attempted, to further clean things up.  I learned a lot about detailing things as I took on additional rehab projects "from out of the storage box" as is documented throughout "The Atom Furnace"  For example I could see that the lead edge of the wing needed evening out, plus I was not now happy with the canopy either.

I cleaned up the edge, of course this resulted in me having to repaint (again) the entire topside.  I did have another motive for this which you will see soon.

The canopy now matches  the rest of the paint job.  I also have washed over the wings and elevators with a black acrylic to give some emphasis to the ailerons and the upper airbrakes!

Top view showing the result of the black wash.

I did a bit of touch up on the underside - bombs, wheels etc., but how will that be appreciated??

With a new custom Flight Stand, of course, by Vadim Bocharov, Moscow!  I found him on Etsy,  and had him customize his 01 flight stand (he also has 02 and 03 sizes for bombers and larger scale aircraft).  He sent this picture letting me know it has shipped!