Grumman TBM-3 Avenger, 1/48, Acc. Min.

[Stuart]

Cracking progress thus far Lyle!

That does look like a big beast!

[LyleW]

Tank you, Stuart. I did manage to muck up one of the small windows by the lower entry hatch. hope I can sand it out with zillion grit paper.

I also smeared some additional filler on the nose of the Victor. Yep, it took another dive off the work bench.

[LyleW]

The small, clear parts are really quite nice. Good clarity, thin enough, but sturdy. Fit took a small amount of fiddle work with a sanding stick. Nothing too serious. Anyway, I managed to get a big ol' finger mark on this window. The Tamiiya Extra Thin bled up under my finger. I sanded it with a very fine grit, buffed it with a wet sanding of 2500 grit and then thought I'd dab on some of the Gauzy Glass Coat Agent. Pretty good results. I do have a small blob that I'll deal with using Windex and a cotton bud.

[LyleW]

Well, maybe not this bad, but these guys always make me smile.



Just a hunch, but I am thinking the canopy should be wide enough to span the entire opening of the cockpit width? Or, am I mistaken.....?

Flush,



Not flush.



Does anyone have the Tool Time Canopy Spreader 9000 I could borrow?

[Floki]

O wow I'm not sure what advice to give you. Except maybe steam the canopy to try and get it flexible enough to spread without snapping. Doing that will cause your masks to fall off so I would wait to see if anyone has a better idea. Did you say that this was one of the prerelease kits with no box art or anything on it?

[LyleW]

I had not thought of it being a pre-release, but yes it was in a plain white box. Now that you mention it, that makes perfect sense and could explain some of the fit issues. I never gave that a thought.

[LyleW]

The obvious things, even for me, is to spread the canopy by some means. As Clint suggested, some form of heat would do it, but I melted a large hole in a fuselage with heat Tom a light bulb. Boiling water and/or steam will, again as Clint mentioned, destroy the masks. So, one possible solution is to add a cross brace that sticks up just enough to give a "cleat" for the canopy edges to drop over.



I may be able to leave them in place. This is just a trial and dry fitted. There needs to be a tiny bit of beveling done to the corners of the brace.



Time to go eat frozen pizza.

[Stuart]

Just make sure you cook it first - frozen Pizza is mighty chewy otherwise.

That cross brace was a neat idea - it seems to have worked well.

[LyleW]

You are supposed to cook it! but, it was still crunchy!

It was an evolution if thinking about trying to spread the canopy, itself. Still wary of of the stress on the canopy.

[BlackSheep214]

Yeah, I hear ya. I’d be worried hearing the snap of clear canopy pushed beyond its limits.Try heating under hot water perhaps? I don’t know. It is strange the canopy is smaller than where it’s suppose to be flushed to the fuselage.