"Torpedo Away!" A 1/48 VT-2 TBD-1 Flies At Coral Sea By John Lester

Overview

Sixteen years ago, I picked up the then-new Monogram 1/48 TBD-1. Why, I no longer remember, though I suspect the teenage me wanted the figures that came with the kit. For at least a dozen years it sat in the attic over my parents' garage, through the saunas that are Michigan summers and the arctic Michigan winters, waiting to be rediscovered. When the box finally did make it to my model closet, it doggedly pushed its way to the top of the unbuilt pile. One day, fresh off the successful completion of the ProModeler 1/48 Catalina and on a early-WW2 USN kick, I pulled it out.

To my surprise, this kit does not stink. While not up to today's standards, it is pretty decent (it was state of the art when first

released). You can't bang this one together in a weekend - not if you want it to look good next to your Tamiya and Hasegawa kits! - but it can reward the diligent modeler with a nice looking, mostly accurate model. Even more surprisingly, my particular kit held up very well - even the decals survived their long hibernation intact.

Call me crazy, but I like my models to be doing something: not just sitting, gear down and canopy open, on a shelf. Usually this means impaling the plane on a clear stand for an in-flight pose, but this time I decided to go a bit further. The Devastator's finest hour (in combat anyway) was probably at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the raids that preceded it in early 1942. This narrowed my choices to aircraft of VT-6 (USS Enterprise: Wake, Marcus and New Guinea raids), VT-5 (USS Yorktown: Jaluit, New Guinea and Coral Sea) or VT-2 (USS Lexington: New Guinea and Coral Sea).

After taking a good, hard look at the kit I decided on a torpedo armament, which pretty much pointed to Coral Sea, though torpedos were used elsewhere. Monogram included 100 lb bombs for the wings, but no 500-pounders or sway braces, and the interior just isn't up to snuff if one opens the bomb aimer's doors (the Norden bombsight, part 24, is just a shapeless blob!).

I decided to model the aircraft in the split second after releasing the torpedo, when the torpedo enters the water and the pilot is yanking the aircraft off the long, straight path he's followed up to the release point. The Bliss-Levitt Mk XIII torpedo in service at the outbreak of the war was prone to problems and often failed in combat. It had to be released from under 100 feet and less than 120mph airspeed - and even then was as likely to disintegrate or dive to the bottom as it was to go where aimed. This meant the airplane could be close enough to the water that I could have the weapon and airplane in the same 'frame'.

The pilot estimated the target's size, speed and distance and 'entered' this information into the Mk XXIV torpedo director (next to the telescopic sight used to aim the forward firing machine gun) by setting knobs and dials and looking through a leaf sight. Imagine trying to do this while being shot at and closing on a ship at 100 mph! I figured that in combat the pilot would be yanking and banking away from his previous course as soon as that torpedo was away. This meant cutting off control surfaces and moving them. I decided to go whole hog: the end result has ailerons, rudder and elevators moved. I probably sacrificed a good bit of realism for dramatic effect, but I have to look at this on my shelf every day and I'm happy with the result.

To do this right I needed references. Unfortunately, there's not a lot out there. The best source for photos is Squadron/Signal's "TBD Devastator in Action." Additional photos can be found in various books, including a nice color picture of a pre-war VS-42 aircraft from USS Ranger in Lawson & Tillman's "Carrier Air War in Original WWII Color". TBDs are also prominent in the 1940 movie "Dive Bomber", which is worth renting if you can find it. (Editor's note: this is available in VHS from Warner Home Video) As usual, the good folks on rec.models.scale came to my rescue with lots of info and even a few scans. Chris Hawkinson's Battle of Midway website was also invaluable. There are many pictures of VT-8 TBDs from June 4, 1942, in color.

Step 1: The Interior

Monogram's interior is...well, it's spartan. Sidewalls have a raised grid pattern representing the plane's structure, with a few bumps for the various switch boxes and canopy 'window cranks'. Instruments, especially in the navigator/bombardier and radio operator/gunner areas, are blobs representing equipment. The seats and gunners ring are also simplified. Most noticeably, the seats are too small - there is no possible way a 5'0 or taller man - even in 1:48 scale - could fit in any of them.

There are no aftermarket interior sets for this kit, so you're on your own if you want to tart it up. I started by scratchbuilding seats for the pilot and navigator from 15 thou sheet, using the Eduard SBD-5 photo etch set (for the Accurate Miniatures kit) as a template. The gunner's swivel seat was scratchbuilt using the upper portion of the kit part and a seat copied from the Accurate Miniatures SBD-3 kit. The ring is a thin section of plastic tubing, slightly wider than the kit part. The perforated gun mount is the brass part from the Eduard sheet. The kit's gunner's chair faces aft; I used bits snipped from a pin to mount the assembly so I could swivel the chair a bit. Photos in the Squadron booklet were invaluable for getting all this to look right.

The Crew

Next, I added the crew. TBDs normally carried only pilot and gunner for combat torpedo missions, so I left the middle seat empty. The kit figures depict a deck scene, so I picked up the Verlinden US Navy

WW2 Pilots Multi-pose set (#1298) for the crew figures. These depict naval aviators from late '42 to the end of the war, but can be back dated relatively easily. Pilots - usually Ensigns and jg's - wore khakis, Mae West and web belt with canteen, pistol and maybe a knife. Gunners, normally junior enlisted folk, would have worn dungarees: light blue shirts and dark blue trousers. In May and June, the South Pacific is awful hot; all the pictures I've found of pilots and crew from that time and place do not show them wearing leather jackets. They should have their goggles over their eyes, no doubt, but my skills are not yet up to that level of detail. I left the goggles as Verlinden had molded them. After painting the figures I added a drop of Krystal Kleer to each eyepiece.

Pilot and gunner figures were carefully cut apart and repositioned to fit their respective seats. It took an awful lot of fiddling, superglue and putty to get the pilot to fit his seat and keep his hands and feet on the controls. The gunner's arms were left off until the end when I glued on the gun and mount, so things wouldn't break off. Pilot and gunner were painted with a mix of Tamiya acrylics and Model Master enamels, then carefully slipped into position and glued in. Seatbelts were made from masking tape (using the Eduard photoetch again as a template) with buckles salvaged from a couple of photoetch bits used on models in the 'bone yard'. (Never throw out unused decals, and never, ever throw away models that no longer 'make the grade.' You never know when you'll need to cannibalize 'em!).

The Interior Completed

I finished detailing the interior. I briefly toyed with the idea of using bits from the Eduard sheet to liven up the cockpit walls and areas around the crew. My plans were continually scaled back as tiny bit after tiny bit either broke or disappeared into the carpet under the workbench (good thing I got that set for $2 instead of the normal $19.95 or I'd have been livid!). In the end, the only parts I used were the rudder pedals, which I placed in the navigator's area (he had a set of controls to fly the plane if the pilot was incapacitated). With the pilot and gunner in position, not a whole lot of detail could be seen anyway, so I contented myself with various cables and rods made from thin wire, stretched sprue and cut up shirt pins. The Mk XXIV torpedo director (next to the pilot's telescopic gun sight) was made from bits of extremely fine craft wire, with knobs and dials from PE disks stolen from Monogram's OSU2 Kingfisher. The instrument panel was painted Testor's Model Master (TMM) Aircraft Interior Black (FS 37031), with dials picked out in Flat White and other details picked out in Aluminum. Instrument 'lenses' then got a drop of Krystal Kleer. Again, the Squadron book was an immense help with detailed pictures of the various areas.

TBD interiors were originally painted aluminum, but overpainted with Zinc Chromate when the Navy decided to camouflage in 1939-40. I airbrushed with Testors MM Zinc Chromate Green faded with Pale Green. It looks ok for a newly painted or restored airframe. I should have cut it with a healthy dose of yellow for a properly faded look - especially for the upper surfaces directly under that greenhouse canopy.

Step 2: Fuselage, Wings, and Stabs

Interior done, it was time to start putting the big parts together. My fuselage was a bit warped - thanks, no doubt, to over a decade in my parents non-climate controlled garage. I used a scribing tool to remove the rudder halves and aileron halves, as well as the elevators. The ailerons were a bit of a problem - the two halves are not identical, the lower part being wider than the top out at the wing tip. I then ground off the molded in control wires on the ailerons, along with the hinges on all the pieces. Control wires were replaced later with very thin craft wire; hinges were replaced with carefully shaped bits of 40 thou strip styrene. The gaping holes in the interior of the rudder and vertical stabilizer were filled with putty and sanded smooth. Joining the control surfaces later was a challenge I did not meet with complete success; pictures of the real aircraft show a very noticeable gap between the rudder and vertical tail, and the ailerons and wing, except around the hinges. I had to fill most of these gaps with superglue to get the pieces attached and keep them that way.

The wings were glued starting from the underside and working up. Monogram meant for you to be able to position the darn things, which made the gap at the folding part rather sloppy. Puttying the gaps was an exercise in frustration - even more so since a large slice of the trailing edge was gone with the ailerons. I discovered too late that 15-20 lb test fishing line is almost exactly the same size as the raised corrugation on the kit's wings. I could have saved myself a lot of tedious sanding, puttying and re-sanding by shaving off the corrugations , plugging gaps and replacing corrugations with strips of fishing line or stretched sprue, which would take the same amount of time as meticulous sanding trying to keep the kit's surface features intact.

I also sanded the corrugations off the four panels outboard of the undercarriage where the 100lb bombs were mounted. The kit represents this wrong; each should be a smooth panel with 3 equally spaced slots in the center and two rows of six "prongs" (3 pairs each) at the front and back of the panel.

Bomb racks were made from the thinnest sheet styrene I could find, cut to fit over the outlines on the wing. Slots were cut in each and the 12 "prongs" added to each from bits of Evergreen 5-thou strip. I think I must have cut 700 of these tiny pieces just to get the 48 that didn't end up stuck to me, the tweezers, the bench, or lost in the carpet.

I affixed the torpedo mount in the center and boxed off the open rear portion with sheet styrene (since the torpedo would be in the water and this area visible). Unfortunately, I never did find a good, detailed photo of this part of the airplane so it wasn't detailed further except for a pair of wires representing the cables that held the torpedo to the plane, referenced from pictures in the Squadron booklet. There was a huge step between the bomb aimer's doors and the wing that required a pint of filler and a belt sander to smooth out.

Once the wings were assembled and cleaned up, I affixed them to the fuselage. There's a huge gap between the upper wing and fuselage, at least 1/8" (real measurement, not scale). If you glue this directly to the wing fillet on the fuselage you end up with a wing dihedral of almost 20° - way too much. I slipped sheet styrene in the gap, cut and sanded to shape, to reduce the dihedral to an acceptable amount; it was quite noticeable on the real aircraft, but not quite as bad as the kit. The horizontal stabilizers were glued on at this point as well, using a jig to keep them level and aligned.

None of these parts fit particularly well, and I needed to put a lot of effort into cleaning up seams. The fuselage detail consists of fine raised lines which looks surprisingly accurate under a layer of paint. The real aircraft had closely spaced rivets tacking the skin to the frame; from a distance they look like raised weld lines. Several of these were sanded clean off to get the seams smooth. I replaced them with 1 lb test Trilene fishing line superglued on to the surface.

Once all this was complete I superglued the control surfaces in position. The leading edges of all pieces were rounded to give the proper airfoil shape (all were filed and sanded while stuck in traffic on our way to downtown Chicago - a great way to make rush hour useful time! My wife was driving, which is why this was possible). Hinges were cut, shaped, dropped into place and gently sanded smooth.

Step 3: Engine, Torpedo, Canopy and other Sub Assemblies

One of the more noticeable things on the real aircraft was the cowl flaps; even at rest these were usually wide open. The entire engine was visible from behind as well as from the font. The kit engine is actually well detailed - from the front - but once you sand down the cowl flaps, cut them apart and open them up, it's unacceptable. Engines & Things makes a decent Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp; you can get it from Aviation Usk. Their 'early' model (the one intended for the PBY, P-35, etc.) is not a perfect match for the R1830-64 used in the TBD, but I dare any contest judge to know the differences! However, it doesn't fit the cowling. I had to carefully sand down the tops of each cylinder, and couldn't mount it as far forward in the cowl as pictures show it should be, nor could I model the exhaust collector ring and engine stand correctly; not that you can see that area all that well after the cowl is installed. My engine had some ugly mold mismatches, but since these were hidden inside the cowl I didn't bother to fix them.

The engine was painted according to the guide in the kit, with the exception of the ignition wires, which were painted Insignia Red. I based this on a color picture of a PBY engine; maybe not the exact same, but it looks good. I had planned to slide a length of .30 cal machinegun barrel from the Verlinden 'USN WW2 Aircraft Machineguns' set in place inside the cowl on the starboard side - but I forgot until after everything was glued together! Finally, the various intakes and exhausts were drilled out and painted; I painted the exhaust Metalizer "Burnt Iron."

The Torpedo

The kit's torpedo is almost worthless. The Mk 13 didn't work all that well at the start of the war, and the Navy was always tinkering to fix it up. The cruciform box-like arrangement the kit represents can be seen in pictures of VT-6 aircraft from 1941; I found several pictures dated 1937 - 1941 showing the small, rounded fins used originally. Later in the war performance was improved by adding a specially designed metal ring to the back of the fins. More important, I found a good picture of armorers rolling a modified torpedo across USS Lexington's flight deck prior to Coral Sea. The fins were encased in a plywood box that disintegrated when the weapon hit the water.

I found the KMC Mk13 resin torpedo at a convention for dirt cheap. It has the original style fins and the plywood box. Wartime torpedoes were painted a medium grey (close to Gull Grey) with a dark grey warhead, not white/red as Monogram's instructions would have you paint - that was used pre-war. The KMC props look much better than Monogram's caricature, but they were much more fragile. I painted them brass and carefully glued on to the torpedo's rear. Pictures of VT-8 on USS Hornet's deck show cartoon faces drawn in white chalk on the front of the warheads, so mine also got one.

The Canopy

The canopy pieces had survived the years unscratched. They're reasonably thin, and can be made to represent the front and rear sections either opened or closed, though the separate rear sliding pieces are significantly too small so they can fit under the main canopy. TBDs often had the center section open on take off and landing, especially if the third crewman was aboard, to facilitate egress if the plane went in the water. Unfortunately, Monogram's canopy does not allow that, and my clear plastic was rather brittle with age, so I dared not cut the center section open. Every picture I found showed all the canopy sections in use, in contrast to the Dauntless, where the rear section was often removed. If you want to rearrange the canopy, get the Falcon vacuform replacement set; it includes canopies from a number of additional USN aircraft and is worth the investment.

The clear pieces were dipped in a bath of Future acrylic floor covering. Once dry, canopy framing was added by using strips of clear decal sheet sprayed first with Testor's Model Master "Zinc Chromate," then Model Master "Intermediate Blue."

Landing Gear and Other Details

Detail on the landing gear is soft but acceptable, if you're building the kit "wheels down". I discovered the gear is too short if you're building "wheels up". I ended up scratch building gear from two different sizes of styrene and aluminum tubing. Only the part near the wheel hubs is from the original kit. The brake line tubing is overdone; it should run straight up the gear leg with a small loop at the bottom, instead of the way the kit has it separated. I cut the tubing off so the gear would fit in the wing well since it wouldn't be seen anyway. True Details makes a grotesquely bulged set of resin main wheels, which I used, hiding the bulged part inside the wing, since they look better than the kit parts.

The pitot tube included with the kit is wrong. It should be a long thin tube with three prongs sticking out. I made the tube from a length of hypodermic tubing, and the probes from fine craft wire bent to shape. Unfortunately, I could only get the center section in - I gave up on the two side probes after a frustrating hour trying to get the right shapes to fit in my needle. I also added a temperature gauge made from a triangle of styrene and a PE disk swiped from the Kingfisher sheet.

Gear, canopy, antennas, bomb racks and pitot tube were left off until painting and decalling were complete.

Step 4: Painting

I masked off the cockpit and fuselage windows and painted the entire model Testors Flat Light Aircraft Grey, a close-enough match for non-specular grey, according to the pictures I had. I then masked off the bottom parts and sprayed the top surfaces Model Master "Intermediate Blue." I probably should have lightened it; it appears too dark straight from the bottle.

After the base coats had dried I started with Phase I of weathering. I lightened the Intermediate blue with a dab of Duck Egg Blue and loaded up an old, junky brush as if I was going to drybrush. Instead, I ground the paint into the surface in small circles (just like polishing brass ...) and streaks. This gives a more controlled effect of fading paint than I've been able to achieve with an airbrush, and you can make a surface look patchier this way. I did the same - to a much lesser extent - underneath, using Camouflage Grey. I did the wing walks in Model Master Interior Aircraft Black, which is a dirty dark, dark grey that doesn't look as cartoony as straight Flat Black, even though the Aeromaster decal sheet has them. Finally, I dry brushed steel and aluminum scrapes around access panels, along the leading edges and the torpedo warhead - anywhere photos showed such weathering.

I originally painted the propeller Aluminum, according to instructions in both the kit and Aeromaster decal sheet. However, every blue/grey TBD photograph I found showed the propellers as black (makes sense, as a silver prop would reflect light for miles), so I ended up using the TMMM Aircraft Interior Black for the blades, with the hub and weathering along the forward edge in Aluminum.

Once all that was done, I sprayed several thin coats of Future over the entire model as preparation for decals.

Step 5: Decals

Aeromaster makes a decal sheet that includes a VT-2 aircraft from Coral Sea; if you get it, note that the markings for George Gay's VT-8/Midway airplane are wrong: the "8-" was not painted on the planes at that point. Generic markings came from the Monogram sheet while specific markings came from the Aeromaster. Both types accepted Micro-Sol/Micro-set quite well, and I had no problems with adhesion or silvering. Once the decals were dry, I gently washed down the surface to get rid of any residues and sealed them with a coat of Polly Scale Satin Finish.

Step 6: The Base

The base which supports all this action started out life as a 50 cent craft store plaque. I sanded it down, then stained and sealed it with polyurethane finishes. Normally, I'd just drill a hole for the support rod at that point, but not this time. This time I built up an irregular outline from 1/4" wide 40 thou strips. To round the corners, I scribed a series of shallow cuts perpendicular to the long axis of the strip, approximately 1 mm deep and spaced maybe 2mm apart. This allowed the strips to bend easily. Strips were superglued to the base and to each other, and the back of this 'wall' was reinforced with a liberal dose of superglue and accelerator. Next, I poured in plaster of paris to a point 2mm below the top of the wall. As it was setting I used a spoon to sculpt random waves, and pushed the nose of the Monogram torpedo in to make a depression in which the KMC torpedo could rest.

After this was dry, I painted the plaster with Krylon True Blue. When this had fully cured, I poured a layer of clear casting resin over the waves, which gives a nice three-D effect to the water. After this had fully cured (2 days) I airbrushed Future, tinted slightly with Tamiya Clear Green over the whole thing to give a uniform "wet" look to the base. I then drybrushed flat white across the tops of selected "whitecaps," and Model Master Chezoom Teal across their fronts to make the "ocean" look more real.

This mess dried for three days before I attempted to drill a hole for the clear rod that would later support the airplane. An appropriate length rod (1/8" found in the Plastruct catalog, to be replaced with 1/4" when I can get it ) was superglued to the base and the torpedo glued into position nose down, entering the water at an angle. Thinned white glue was used to fill in any gaps.

Step 7: Final Touches

Finally the end was in sight! I glued on all the bits I'd left off, including the gunner's arms, ring mount, and weapon - a .30 cal from the Verlinden USN WWII Machinegun set with photo etched ammo belt, and sights modified from the Kingfisher PE. I glued on the canopy parts with thinned white glue. The area behind the landing light on the port wing was painted silver, and the kit lens applied. The pitot tube and torpedo wires were installed and a trailing antenna weight made from a short length of pin glued just behind the wing on the plane's belly. Masks were removed from the fuselage windows, and the tailhook painted.

Exhaust streaks were airbrushed on using Polly Scale Grimy Black, and final weathering done to the wings and fuselage. The model was then impaled on the clear stand and placed on the base. Finally, the antenna was added, made from the 1lb test fishing line and CA, following diagrams in the Squadron publication.

Conclusions

I learned an awful lot on this project, and though it will never win any trophies (my basic skills are not contest ready!), I'm happy with it. One important tip: if you're going to do these extensive mods, start with a kit where all the parts line up. It's more enjoyable that way.

Would I build another Monogram TBD? Maybe, but I'd rather wait for the Accurate Miniatures release (I can dream, can't I?). I'd really like a Yellow Wings version in my collection, so unless AM does come out with a kit, I'm sure I'll do this one again. You can still find it at conventions for $5 to $10, so I recommend it to anyone who's willing to put some effort into making a fine looking model the old fashioned way.

Special thanks to John Eaton, William Reece, Tom Cleaver and Charles Metz for all their help.