French Curtiss SB2C-5 in Indochina
1
February 23, 2023The second part of my double French build: Special Hobby’s SB2C-5. Seems like a very nicely detailed kit, so this will be an OOB build.2
February 23, 2023The basic Special Hobby SB2C requires some mods to turn it into a -5, which are simple enough.3
February 23, 2023Test fitting the -5 bomb bay doors revealed I had to cut some more plastic away at the front end than indicated in the instructions.4
February 23, 2023Building up the nice if somewhat fiddly interior parts5
February 23, 2023Moving on with lightning speed (for my standards) and sprayed the interior parts6
February 23, 2023Detail painting and more build-up using the resin parts provided specifically for the SB2C-5. PE seatbelts went on easily and look nice.7
February 23, 2023Installed the interior. Out of the box it is very nice and more than good enough for me.8
February 23, 2023Closed up the fuselage and filling lower seam. Had some trouble getting rid of it.9
February 23, 2023Installed and masked the windscreen and fixed canopy parts.10
February 23, 2023Assembled bombs and crutches. Again a bit fiddly and a pain to install in the bomb bay. Decided to install them later using metal pins and CA.11
February 23, 2023Assembling the wings12
February 23, 2023First wing installed. Fit is very good after pushing a piece of sprue in each wing to bulge out the upper surface a bit.13
February 23, 2023Main assembly completed and transparencies masked, some more filling to do14
February 23, 2023Preparing the nice resin wheels, even managed to open up the area between the spokes without destroying them15
February 23, 2023Added the replacement resin rocket launcher rails provided in the kit, which was not nearly as difficult as expected16
February 23, 2023Masking canopies the classic way…17
February 23, 2023First paint on, sprayed the interior color of the canopy frames18
February 23, 2023Next the undercoat using a Tamiya AS-12 spray can for chipping later on19
February 23, 2023Main coat of Vallejo Air Sea Blue, went overboard in thickness a bit but came out OK, despite the darn splattering20
February 23, 2023Chipping with a hobby knife went easily21
February 23, 2023After the gloss coat I had a bit of a run-in with the decals. The first decal did not play nice and broke on application. Resorted to spraying the decal sheet with decal bonder, which helped.22
February 23, 2023All decals on, which took a few sessions. The decals are thin and fragile and I lost some of the smaller stencils.23
February 23, 2023For weathering I used pastel powder as usual24
February 23, 2023And here also a bit of a disaster with the final coat. I used an old 2/3 empty bottle of Micro flat, which in the past gave a nice semi-gloss. I shook the bottle very well and ended up with… an overly flat coat. I guess I did not mix it well enough in the past and now ended up with too much flattener. Darn. It did lighten the coat quite nicely though…25
February 23, 2023Installation of the landing gear and gear doors was a bit fiddly but I got things correctly aligned. Installing the bomb load also was also a bit of a struggle, despite my preparations.26
February 23, 2023And onto the final bits. Canopies posed open to show off the interior. Only gripe being that the aft canopy rides a bit high.27
February 23, 2023Et voila, la bête est finie! Another nice build with few issues except for the darned final coat. Highly recommended kit!28
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February 23, 2023
Comentarii
21 23 February 2023, 19:18
![](/profiles/img/14529-358-s.jpg)
Beautiful! Thanks for the detailed build and explanations.
Was that Vallejo Model Air Dark Sea Blue (ANA 607)? I want to use the same color for my F8F project.
4 April 2023, 13:00
Project info
57 imagini
Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver
![FR FR](/s/images/flags7/32/FR.png)
Flottille 3F 3.F-16/BuNo89357
1954 - Dien Bien Phu
![VN VN](/s/images/flags7/32/VN.png)
FS15042