The Atom Furnace: Nostalgia On The Bench - 1/48 Classic Monogram TBF-1 Avenger

This is the 1958 Avenger kit that our Father built. Bob and I recall that it was a pretty Cool model because you could fold back the wings like the real thing. Neither one of us could recall what happened to it, but there were many things that did not make the move from Lindenhurst Il, to Bella Vista Arkansas when Dad retired. If you have reviewed this Blog you will see that there were a couple of Dad's build that survived, thanks to my brother. I rehabbed Dad's "Bald Eagle P-51B" and his Lindberg B-17G, but with the COVID lockdown I was searching for another project. I searched the internet and found that Revell/Monogram re-started the line back in 1999 and the "original" tooled kits are still out there.

The instructions are a re-print of the original just as the kit itself.

Looking at the parts on the tree it was easy to see it was the detail of the 1950s - aka Not much, but to its credit the kit does have all those cool moving features and those aspects were pretty well thought out, so let's get started!

I began at the beginning with step one and inserted the small crew windows - an easy way to check how things were going to fit.

Step two was to put together the interior platform which consisted of three pieces. This is where my following the instructions stopped. The pilot/seat combo needed sculpting and painting, so he was laid aside for the time being. I attacked the pilot platform with fiddly bits from reserve parts and other "crafty" items from my wife's leftovers. Looking at pictures of the TBF interior and considering how much of it could be seen upon project completion, lead me to the following additions to the platform.

Some heavy stock

to form platforms, plus some resin and PE "greeblies". I cut the window openings from the heavy stock - this is between the pilot and ball turret gunner. The TBFs initially had crews of three. The Pilot, the turret gunner and the radio man/ventral gunner. The TBF had massive radio equipment which was located behind the pilot and below (which is why I added all the little bits). Although the pilot could not be reached by the other two crew, there was space in the fuselage to reach and maintain the radio - Good Thing!

This is where I am at with this assembly. The pilot and other crew need to be painted before progressing any further here. So let's move on!

Note the miss-aligned molding of the wheels. This needed filing and sanding. The result of the file work to the right of the wheel as it came off the sprue.

1000 grit sanding and painting should make this look better. Let's proceed to some fun stuff!

GUNS!

The ball turret employs the big Browning 50Cal. I wanted a good representation, in which I found the kit part lacking so I ordered 1/48 scale brass barrels.

I snipped off the plain plastic and drilled out a hole to receive the brass when it arrives.

One other addition is the resin block you see. The 50cal gun case fits over a small pin and the instructions then call for heating a knife and touching it to the end of the pin! I recall this technique as not only dangerous but pretty crappy looking no matter how good you are at it. I chose to glue this block to the end of the pin. It is a left over ammo can from previously purchased resin guns - a good stash of reserve parts and bits is the savior of many scratch built details. A few parts and a little imagination goes a long way as you will now observe.....

......here we have a 1/72, 50 Cal brass barrel left over from my B-17 rehab. At 1/48, it is a very close approximation of a 30Cal!! And where to use this? Why for the ventral-mounted 7.62mmM1919 Browning. The Monogram kit does not included anything for this mount so I am on my own. I fabricated a case/receiver from three little resin bits and drilled through the corresponding window like so....

It's painted and ready for installation later on.

This is as far as I have gotten and it is Dec, 28. I have applied some interior green in the fuselage, added some bits for either side of the cockpit(?), trimmed, glued, and sanded the torpedo halves to prep for paint. I also show the tail wheel/arresting hook laying in the fuselage half. This is a clever feature. I dry fit the fuselage halves together with this "linkage" so I could try it out. It works nicely - you pull the arresting hook from the tail and it lowers and locks the tail wheel in place. Push the hook back in and the tail wheel retracts - Nice! Stay tuned.

Now that I look at this it reminds me of a wooly caterpillar. Of course it is a masked canopy with Tamiya tape. A bit different technique as in the past since there were many "straight" lines I did not mask the entire canopy such that all the framing could be painted at one time. I am masking and painting in sections - same with the ball turret.

Here is the progress. Now I can move on to the remaining masking - the circles are always a challenge. I have a circle template, but cutting out circles in masking tape is a fiddly operation.

Well, the canopy is certainly not perfect, but I don't wish to mess up what I have put down, so I consider it done. I give myself a 7 out of 10. It would have been nice if the kit provided for the pilot canopy to slide back, but the clear mold does not lend itself well to modification so I decided to let it be and not saw it apart.

It's New Year's Eve and yesterday I finished masking the turret framing - those curves are a bugger!

I also finished painting the crew - sorry Mr. Gunner for showing your best side. I mixed a bit of white into yellow for the Mae Wests and the flag man pull over. I need to work more on the faces and paint the bases, but other than that the crew is done and I can actually progress with some assembly!

This is a photo of a Mark 13 Torpedo at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy. I like the colors and will try and paint my Avenger torpedo like this one. The kit instructions included paint color and for the torpedo, white with a red nose - BORING! I have a can of copper spray that will be perfect.....

.....see what I mean 👀?

I sprayed on the copper, then masked and hand painted the yellow. I does look like the one in the Navy museum! Not bad👍

OK, back to the Avenger. I added to the pilot platform/cockpit and "radio" with greeblie parts, mounted the pilot/seat and fixed it to the center wing section as STEP 2 of the instructions calls for!

Now comes something funky and rebellious (for me, anyway). The kit calls for the crew door to be glued open or shut. I don't like the choices so I picked "Door Number Three". Let's see if we can, at least temporarily, make the door open and close. I use masking tape and cyano cement and will paint the inside of the door. It is delicate but it will work for a while until I will (most likely) close it permanently.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!👶

Before closing up the fuselage I decided to try and create a look of framing that you can see when the crew door is open. Just some snips of cardboard and PE glued in the fuselage half. This will be mostly lost but it gets painted green and you will see it (sort of) later.

You can't see in this photo, but the tail wheel/arrester hook assembly is installed and the fuselage halves have been fused with the thin cement.

A difficult pic, but you can see the scratch framing through the opening. The inside of the crew door is now also "interior green".

This shows the ball turret in place, but at this point (before the canopy is glued down) it is easily removed. Besides some seam sanding the true purpose of the photo is to show the instrument panel decal - except I did not soak and slide. I trimmed the decal except for a nub at the top to see how it would fit. In my opinion sliding the decal in place would be a problem, so I put some glue down on the panel, bent one edge slightly so I could insert the decal into the cockpit and pressed it in place. I touched up the edges with flat black. There is still not enough "Radio", I will have to work on that.

Ok, let's move on to the "scary" wings. I say scary because they have to fit properly so that they can operate as "Sto-Wings", but these old molds need a lot of trimming. Every edge has to be inspected and scraped and trimmed and dry fit over and over and even then there are some things that will be difficult to overcome....

.....See what I mean!

When I get all the arms and pins, doors and landing gear in place so that I can close up the wing there will be some effort involved to mate the halves properly. This is the challenge of these old kits.

History research verifies that the Monogram kit is a TBF-1. This photo is from 1942 prior to the Battle of Midway where the Avenger was first used. Although 5 out of 6 were lost it still proved to be a vast improvement in torpedo bombers. The TBF cyclone motor had a single intake and not the full surround of cowl flaps of the later updated cyclone (which had two intakes). The TBF was then designated the TBM after General Motors took over production. What it means for me is that I don't have many panel lines to etch in for cowl flaps - YIPPEE!

This dry fit photo confirms my discussion above. The painting of the molded motor will be interesting😬, but the scary part for me is the next STEP in the instructions and I have to face it.

I have painted in some detail. The surfaces you see are recessed in the real plane and have wiring tracks and hydraulics and such for operating the "Sto-Wing". All I can do to simulate that is a bit of paint - just enough to give an idea of what is there. Hey, I try!

I forge ahead with the hairy step of construction - the hinge pins that will allow the wing to fold back. Pin bracket is the first to be glued in place.......

......followed by slipping the remaining hinge brackets over the pin,, after which the other wing half is glued in place and hinge arms fixed to it.

The wing halves are together and the connecting inner wing has been attached by the remaining two hinges. So let's see if this thing works!

EUREKA!

Recall back when I discussed attaching the 50cal gun in the ball turret and the instructions called for the old "heat the knife" technique? The same thing is called for when attaching the wheels. At least the machine gun is hidden in the turret, but the wheels are out in the open and that heated knife blob will be unsightly obvious! So, what can I do? I filed and trimmed down the end of the axel creating a smaller diameter nub. I then trimmed the end of a sprue (bigger diameter than the axel nub) and drilled out a depression to fit over the nub. Once I slip the wheel on the axel I can put a drop of glue on the nub and add the "hub". If I don't get messy I should have a wheel that still rotates but looks better than an axel end that looks like it was smashed by a hammer🙏

The hub idea seems to work fairly well. The wheel is painted along with the gear leg and door. I have also added a hydraulic line (thread) for extra detail. My brother has offered to fabricate a folding strut to add to the main gear strut (not included in the kit but present on actual Avenger landing gear). We will see how that works out later - But now - Woo Hoo - the 50Cal barrels arrived!

I had to upsize the drill hole a little but then the barrel slipped right in.

The cooling jacket followed - the detail is excellent. However; that was the good. Now comes some not so good. Not real bad, but something one must always be aware of when working with kits made from old molds.

Here is a prime example. I worked for 45 minutes trimming and fitting and this is the best I could do to get the Bombay doors to close. At least the torpedo drops clean when you pop them open!

Back to painting - propeller......

.......double row Cyclone

Even the instructions called for Silver for the push rods, but I was able to get in some copper fuel lines.

I have finally gotten to the point of masking in order to spray the underside with the aircraft light gray. I taped on the engine cowl so it too could receive the Gray Spray. I want to state emphatically here that adding the brass 50Cal barrel in the turret is the only way to go. I can't count how many times already I might have broken off the plastic original with with my clumsy big thumbs!!

Now that the underside is sprayed gray it's time to scribe out the paint from the aileron panel lines etc. No need to try washing in a dark color since the molds are dark blue. The next step in the instructions would be to attach the wings, but that means installing the landing gear. I don't want to do that until we find out the result of my brothers attempt at building the folding strut. What I can do is fit the canopy, mask off the underside and apply a coat of Navy Blue.

Another activity while waiting from my brother's strut fabrication is some weathering/detail such as the exhaust and bottom cowl flap. I also started decal work - Uh Oh!

20 year old decals can be tricky so beware if you are not already. In this case both horizontals came off the backing separated from the star. Setting solution is critical in cases like this and allowed me to move things around. I waited......

......while doing so I filled in the wheel well with the interior green, but looking close the setting solution has softened the decal sufficiently such that it adheres to the rivet detail. Now I have to hit with a dullcoat spray to look everything down. Oh, I also have attached the canopy!

I know that this is a long post, but the number of steps I am taking to upgrade the details, making sure everything works and memorializing this build is not a proficient process but a labor of love for me in remembering Dad. He was a high school coach and teacher and had always built models when he was growing up. We did not have a lot of money back then in the 60s, but we never knew it! In grade school when I had a good report card I was rewarded with a model he had built. It was wonderful!

The wings are in the spray booth getting their dullcoat on the bottom surfaces, after which they will get a coat of the Rust-Oleum Ultra Matte, Everything Navy (blue) just as the fuselage has. It took an hour to do all the masking required and I still didn't cover everything I needed to, so there will be a lot of touch up necessary underneath (I actually ran out of masking tape). The Blue; however, turned out satisfactorily. I also attached the prop to the engine cowl and gave her a dry fit spin.

The smooth spin will come in handy when it's time for glamor shots!

Back to the decals - this one came off the backing in five pieces!!! If the things would not curl in the water perhaps they would not break up the way they do - I don't know - but without the setting solution it would be a disaster.

The fuselage insignia was only in four pieces and the number came off the backing clean, so there was some welcomed improvement. Note I am already masking windows for the necessary dullcoat.

The dullcoat has taken the shine off of the insignia and "locked" it down.

I dry fit the wing folded back and I think this will be an acceptable TBF.

Back to the decal challenge - the Port side insignia broke apart at first into three, but then other pieces started braking off, turning upside down, you name it. I kept slopping on the setting solution so I could move things around, but the more movement, the more it tends to disintegrate. I did get it put together as best I could. It's spacing is not identical to the Starboard side, but I did not want to fiddle with it, so I call it done - It will need paint touch-up!!!! Another screw up is not being careful with masking tape such that it pulled the small number 16 from the Port side engine cowl - D'oh! I have looked through my stash of extra decals and think I can replace the numbers but it will not be identical to the nose or Starboard side, c'est la vie.

Port side is done. Look closely and you can see the replacement number 16 at the far lower left. Also you can see the areas of the insignia that need touch up paint. At least the white numeral decals went on without a hitch😅

Look what I found in my stash. An extra teeny decal appropriate to add. Can you read it? For those who can't it is "First Aid Inside Door". I am really close now to completion as brother Bob tried his best to create a collapsing strut for the landing gear but attempts failed to hold together so for the time being we go strictly with the Kit! That is OK by me as I will most likely at some point fix the gear in the down position and I can add a solid strut at that point. I have sprayed all parts now with the dullcoat since painting on the walking strips and fuel ports as seen below.

The ventral mount/window has been glued in place along with the engine and we are finally ready to attached the wings. Hallelujah!

My trepidation about attaching the wings was unwarranted as I studied the instructions, cleaned off accumulated sprayed on paint with the xacto, put some cyano on the attachment points. I put the landing gear in place in the up position in the wing and pressed the wing in place and held tight for about 60 seconds. As an extra measure I ran thin cement along the back and front wing edges. I waited about ten minutes and extended the landing gear. They locked neatly into position. As you view this initial set of pics you will notice the tabs on the wings which hold them in place until you want to fold them back.

The gear fold up into the wings and the torpedo drops when you pop open the bomb bay. Along with attaching radio wire I will have to build a torpedo cart!

I did mention radio wire - my standard monofilament -very fiddly using cyano. All I have to do is keep from touching it!😱

Here is an attempt at staging. I took a foam board and drew thick Sharpie lines and punch holes along every other line to simulate tie downs. I used Testors Dark Tan and layered down a light coat, followed by a very light overlay of my Rust-oleum Navy. I then went back with a fine Sharpie to add deck plank lines. The board is laid on a 12 inch shelf in my garage with a cloudy sky and ocean background painted on the garage wall.

A note on the crew figures included with the kit. I use both in the above photos even though the two crew are in conflict. You have the remaining crew (ventral gun/radio man) running for the open crew door but then you have the Landing Officer (with the paddles) in front of the plane. I suppose I will have to remove the third crewman and extend the tail hook in a landed position to use the landing officer correctly. The other thing I want to do is make a cart for the torpedo (shown on the box cover), of course there is no crew included for that - c'est la vie.

So I thought I was done until I told myself - Self, you need a torpedo cart. Of course no such thing is included in the kit, despite the box cover picture. I had to make something totally scratch. I turned to my 22 and 26 gauge wire. Cut up pieces and did my best to straighten them out and started gluing with the Loctite Gel. Hard to describe what I was thinking as I proceeded so I will let the pictures tell the story.

I was fortunate to find two retainer rings in my spare parts box to simulate cart wheel tires, and some left over PE to cover the holes like a wheel hub.