Here is my 1/48 Brewster
Buffalo Mk.I. which was flown by pilot officer Noel C. Sharp. This
Buffalo was assigned to 488th squadron of the Royal New Zealand Air Force
and was located in Kallang Singapore in late 1941.
Tamiya's 61094 box numbered Brewster B-339 Buffalo
"Pacific Theater" kit was used for this build. Model is basically
the old Tamiya Buffalo moulding supplemented with some new pieces to be
able to build a land based Buffalo B-339. Overall the kit shows its
age in terms of detail and fit. But it still looks nice when
finished. I have completed this model out of the box, and
I am happy with the result. But if you are a modeller who wants to build a
detailed Buffalo, I strongly recommend you supplement this kit with some
aftermarket products, especially for the cockpit and the landing gear
bays.
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images below to see larger images
Construction and interior painting
was done according to the guide. Canopy masks included in the kit
were used. Although these seems nice, it is hard to cut these properly. I
think I will keep using Bare Metal Foil as my masking material for
the future models.
For the upper surfaces H-72 RAF Dark Earth and H-73 RAF Dark
Green from Gunze Sangyo Acrylics was used. For the lower
surfaces, H-74 SKY (duck egg green) from Gunze Sangyo and X-18
Semi-Gloss Black from Tamiya acrylics were used. These were
then covered with X-22 gloss coat from Tamiya Acrylics.
Although the markings I
applied are also included in the box, I didn't use those since they were
in usual Tamiya thickness. Rather, I used "Buffalo's Over South East
Asia Part II" decal set from Aeromaster. These decals are great in
quality, very nice colors, and much thinner than the box
counterparts.
After the decal application, another coat of X-22 was
applied. Then local washes were applied with burnt-umber oil paint
thinned with turpentine. This was followed by a flat cote with micro-flat.
At last a
highly thinned XF-1 (flat black) and X-19 (smoke) mixture was
applied very lightly on the decals and the panel lines for a final
weathering effect. This mixture was also airbrushed to the overall aircraft
in flight
direction.
Happy Modelling Everyone !
Ceki
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images below to see larger images
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