Hasegawa 1/72 SBD-3 and Special Hobby 1/72 D 558 I

[jeaton01]

Another two of a series in 1/72 I am doing on Ed Heinemann's designs. The SBD was fun except for shoehorning in a True Details resin interior which is for the most part invisible, though if you look real hard you might see the much nicer gunner's twin mount machine guns under the closed rear canopy. Hasegawa did not provide for that to open though the pilot's can be posed open. Floquil and Pollyscale paints were used, and the decals are from an extensive Starfighter set. The markings are for a VB-6 SBD-3 that was one of the two that did the damage to Saburo Sakai and led to his epic flight back to Rabaul from Guadalcanal.

The D 558 I was not a bad build for a limited run kit. There was a lot of photoetch including those weird main gear doors. The decals were touch and go, some breaking up. The stars and bars were from my decal stash as the kit decals for those were never going to work. The last photo is with a P-51 and a D-7 to show how small the airplane was.

[LyleW]

John, those are wonderful pieces!

[Medicman71]

Great work John!!

[BlackSheep214]

[Stuart]

Very nicely done John!

[cbaltrin]

Nice SBD John. I can see where your interior detailing efforts would have benefitted from an opened vac canopy.

[cbaltrin]

Nice SBD John. I can see where your interior detailing efforts would have benefitted from an opened vac canopy.

[jeaton01]

Thanks, everyone. Yes, it would, Chris but with the Zvezda 109 and also a new mold Tamiya Zero in the works I just wanted to keep this one simple. Sort of.