Brewster Buffalo 239 (Finnish) by Landlubber Mike - Special Hobby - 1/32

[Landlubber Mike]

While waiting on parts to dry on my Walrus for otherwise just needing a break from it, I started the Buffalo 239 Finnish version from Special Hobby in 1/32.  Since I just finished their 1/48 Buffalo kit, I figured I might as well tackle this one given I know what to look out for.  Unlike the 1/48 kit I just finished, this one I will be building mostly out of the box with considerably less aftermarket. 

 

The kit is like the 1/48 kit (and probably most SH kits) in that in addition to the plastic, you get resin and PE details in the box.  It's been interesting comparing this to the Airfix Walrus that I'm working on.  The Airfix kit has great fit but a lot of flash and injector marks and other cleanup that you need to do.  This Special Hobby kit needs much less cleanup, but the fit is not the greatest.  I can tell already that I'll have a big gap closing up the fuselage forward of the cockpit 🤬  But, so far this has been an enjoyable build over the last week or so.

[Landlubber Mike]

With the fit issues on getting the fuselage closed up, I thought it would be better to add as much of the interior as possible to one of the fuselage halves, rather than trying to install what are three or four separate assemblies into the fuselage halves and then trying to get it closed up.  Taking this approach allows me to position the sub-assemblies on one half of the fuselage, and while the glue is drying, test the fit and get the final location by dry fitting the other fuselage half over it.  Takes quite a bit of time, but I think it will be less painful in the long run.

 

Instructions are ok I suppose - generally there are no locating marks, pins, etc., so you have to sorta guess where the instruction arrows point you.  Thankfully there are other builds out there on the web to doublecheck yourself.

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Here's where I am today.  Managed to get painted the interior of the fuselage halves and remaining interior items to install.  

I'm pretty happy with how things are looking.  I went ahead and used Vallejo's Metal Color Duraluminum.  It sprays very well.  After using mostly Mr. Color paints on my 1/48 Buffalo, it's been nice to go back to acrylics for ease of preparing the airbrush and cleaning.  I'll still use Mr. Surfacer for the exterior primer and either Mr. Color or Tamiya for some of the harder to paint colors like the yellow on the cowl and wing tips, but I might go back to using acrylic elsewhere.

Thanks for looking in!

Edited March 14, 2023 by Landlubber Mike

[AJohnson]

Great start Mike, looking forward to seeing the Finnish scheme for this, something different. 

[ccoyle]

4 hours ago, AJohnson said:

looking forward to seeing the Finnish scheme for this

 

There are certain camouflage schemes that look even more impressive if you ever happen to stumble across an aerial photograph of the local terrain over which the plane flew missions. Finnish winter camo is one such scheme. Italian desert camo was another.

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Andrew - I've always thought the Finnish scheme looked really cool.  Generally they are black and dark olive on the topside, but one of the three camo schemes includes white in it for a winter scheme, and I might try that one.  I've always liked winter schemes, though spraying that much white always scares me given how tough white can be to get the right coverage and opacity.

 

 

[CDW]

Definitely signing up for this ride. Great start Mike. Kinda like the old Classic Airframe kits but more detailed.

[Landlubber Mike]

18 minutes ago, CDW said:

Definitely signing up for this ride. Great start Mike. Kinda like the old Classic Airframe kits but more detailed.

Thanks Craig!  Glad to have you along keeping me honest.  I have a feeling that with a number of their kits, Special Hobby starts by taking old molds like from the Classic Airframes kits and then adds a bunch of resin and PE and new decals.  I could very well be wrong about this though.  The details on this and my last SH Buffalo in 1/48 are quite crisp and nicely done, which I'm not sure I'd expect from older molds, but maybe they clean them up or otherwise improve on older molds.

 

*EDIT* According to this site, the 1/48 kit was a limited release from SH originally back in 2005:

 

https://www.hyperscale.com/2017/reviews/kits/sh48180reviewbg_1.htm

 

What was interesting with this kit is that they give you a second set of fuselage halves, so you have to make sure you know which you need to use.  My guess is that they didn't want to create a new sprue of the fuselage and interior parts for this particular version of the Buffalo, but instead created a smaller sprue for the 239 Buffalo and you end up using the interior parts from the original sprue.  I was a bit confused at first, but at least now I have a good size paint mule to test paints and finishes on.

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Landlubber Mike

[CDW]

For 1:32 planes, a good source to check is Large Scale Planes. There are tons of build threads there that can help navigate our way through a difficult build. Hyper scale is good too. Those sites have been around a long time, decades.

[Landlubber Mike]

Yes, those sites usually come up when I google the kit I'm interested in.  Scalemates is another amazing resource - going to a particular kit (or aftermarket) page brings up build logs, reviews, instructions, related aftermarket, past and future iterations of the kit, sellers of the kit (or aftermarket), etc.  Incredibly helpful site if you are building plastic models.

[realworkingsailor]

5 minutes ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Yes, those sites usually come up when I google the kit I'm interested in.  Scalemates is another amazing resource - going to a particular kit (or aftermarket) page brings up build logs, reviews, instructions, related aftermarket, past and future iterations of the kit, sellers of the kit (or aftermarket), etc.  Incredibly helpful site if you are building plastic models.

It can also be a bit of a torment. On more than a couple of occasions I’ve had a great idea for a project based on a model kit, hopped on to Scalemates, checked out all the aftermarket stuff I would have needed for said project, only to find out I’m already too late for the party and all those aftermarket parts and decals are sold out, no longer in production, or otherwise completely unavailable. 🙄

That winter scheme looks intriguing. I wouldn’t be too worried about the white, I’m sure in real life those planes got so thoroughly grunged up you could easily pass on any paint flaws as pre-weathering!

 

Andy

[Landlubber Mike]

49 minutes ago, realworkingsailor said:

It can also be a bit of a torment. On more than a couple of occasions I’ve had a great idea for a project based on a model kit, hopped on to Scalemates, checked out all the aftermarket stuff I would have needed for said project, only to find out I’m already too late for the party and all those aftermarket parts and decals are sold out, no longer in production, or otherwise completely unavailable. 🙄

That winter scheme looks intriguing. I wouldn’t be too worried about the white, I’m sure in real life those planes got so thoroughly grunged up you could easily pass on any paint flaws as pre-weathering!

 

Andy

I know what you mean Andy.  When that has happened, I set up saved searches on eBay for the aftermarket I'm looking for.  I've really lucked out on some impossible to find items that end up turning up in my feed.  More recently, I set up an account on Scalemates and put missing aftermarket on my wishlist, which showed me if other members on the site were offering it for sale.  Managed to get a few aftermarket pieces that way - some of which had been discontinued for a decade or more.  Nice feature of the site.

 

Good thing I'm not going to be buying any more kits so that should no longer be an issue...famous last words 🤥

[realworkingsailor]

34 minutes ago, Landlubber Mike said:

I'm not going to be buying any more kits

Say that ten times fast…… 😜

[CDW]

I have every intention of buying some more stuff this weekend at the model show. It will be very unusual if I don't. Got my eyes set for certain specific items.

[ccoyle]

53 minutes ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Good thing I'm not going to be buying any more kits

 

Must . . . resist . . . 

 

[Egilman]

1 hour ago, realworkingsailor said:

Say that ten times fast……

... and get us to believe it....

[Edwardkenway]

2 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Good thing I'm not going to be buying any more kits so that should no longer be an issue...famous last words 🤥

Resistance and futile come to mind🤔

 

26 minutes ago, Egilman said:

... and get us to believe it....

We all know....😁

[mtaylor]

2 hours ago, Egilman said:

... and get us to believe it....

I wonder if he has a bridge for sale?

[Jack12477]

3 hours ago, mtaylor said:

I wonder if he has a bridge for sale?

With Tower Rooms and fantastic harbor views 🤫

[Canute]

Mike, I'm in, too.

 

I'd expect the white paint was more of a whitewash over everything, so the underlying colors show through.

And I have some oceanfront property outside Phoenix AZ, if you're interested.🤣

[Old Collingwood]

I'm  in also Mike,   what a fascinating  plane  - almost looks  too  short  to fly.

 

OC.

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks guys!  Glad to have you along.

 

10 minutes ago, Old Collingwood said:

I'm  in also Mike,   what a fascinating  plane  - almost looks  too  short  to fly.

 

OC.

Agree OC.  Short squat little bulldog of a plane.  Reminds me a lot of the Soviet Polikarpov I-16.

[Landlubber Mike]

Some B-239 pics I found online.  I wasn't planning on putting this model in a diorama, but I think it would be pretty cool to diorama the first or third pictures below.  Unfortunately I'm not having luck with finding appropriate figures and numbering could be tricky.

 

BW-378:

 

 

Another of the BW-378:

 

 

BW-383:

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting camo scheme:

 

 

The famous Lt. Hans Wind (302 combat sorties, 75 confirmed kills, ranked second on Finnish aces list):

 

 

Of course, if the model ends up looking like a piece of crap, I could go for BW-372 which was pulled from a Russian lake in 1998:

 

https://www.warbirdforum.com/bw372.htm

 

Edited March 15, 2023 by Landlubber Mike

[CDW]

There’s a lot of figures available in 1:35, MiniArt in particular. Probably won’t notice the scale difference in a diorama. Sitting in the cockpit may look small but there are plenty of seated pilots available in 1:32. Have you checked ICM for mechanic figures in 1:32? Seems I recall they came out with some.

[Jack12477]

These look like a near perfect match to your photos WWII Aircraft Support Personnel

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Craig.  Funny, before seeing your post I found this set from MiniArt that could work, or at least give me models from which I can create the mechanics/air crew in winter gear.  I probably would do either the first or third picture, so wouldn't need a pilot figure.  It's a bit hard to find figures in 1/32 in winter gear, but there are some in 1/35.  I figure if 1/35 doesn't look right, I could use Milliput or something else to add winter clothes to figures to approximate what is in the pictures.

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

6 minutes ago, Jack12477 said:

These look like a near perfect match to your photos WWII Aircraft Support Personnel

Wow, those do look great!  Thanks!

[Landlubber Mike]

After some noodling, I think I'm going to try to recreate this picture in a model diorama:

 

Sorry for using this log to record my thoughts, but I think I've worked through some of the trickier parts, which are:

 

1.  Representing the BW-378 - fortunately, the kit includes decals for BW-378 (Camo C).  The picture above suggests that the plane was re-painted/painted over in a winter camo scheme that looks very similar to the kit's scheme in Camo A, so I'll use A as the model with C's markings.  Super lucky here, as not having the numbers would have probably made me scrap this whole crazy idea.  The one thing I'm not sure about is whether in adding white for winter camo, the tail would have been repainted from white to blue - my guess is not since it seems like typical practice was to apply white paint over existing paint - here the olive and black areas of the plane - rather than repaint sections like the tail.  Too bad though, as I think the blue tail looks pretty sharp.

 

2.  Engine - with the panels open, I'll need to have a more detailed engine than the kit engine.  The B-239 used a 950HP Wright R-1820-G5 Cyclone.  Looking around, there are a few mid-late R-1820 aftermarket engines out there.  Fortunately I already have a Vector engine (32-005) that looks like it might fit the bill.  I had bought it for the Dauntless kit I won in the Christmas raffle on LSM a few years ago, so I might try and use that one and see if it fits.  

 

3.  Cowl interior parts - on my 1/48 kit, I had opened similar panels using a CMK engine set which included the engine mounting pieces.  For this 1/32 kit, it looks like things will be much simpler.  I won't have to cut the access panels from the fuselage halves (as in step 1 on the 1/48 build) because the halves end in the right place since the 1/32 kit includes separate parts for the access panels.  Plus, I believe that the 'curved-in' shape of the ends of the fuselage halves, together with the engine mounting pieces in the kit, get you PUR9 and PP1 and PP2 from the 1/48 kit (see instructions below).  So, I think that all I will need to do is modify the kits access panels to show the one on the ground and the one held by the mechanic on top of the nose of the plane (which incudes the air vent, which should be fairly easy to replicate).  Lucked out here (I hope) as replicating PUR9 wouldn't be easy.

4.  Figures.  Ultimately, these might be the trickiest parts of the diorama.  I'll probably find figures that most closely match the poses of the three in the picture, and Frankenstein them with other parts like "winter heads with hats", gloves, and boots, and probably add or modify details using Milliput or similar materials.

 

5.  Other diorama items.  The ladder and wheel chocks should be fairly easy to replicate.  The tarps will be tricky - I might use something like Modelspan, which I think I would be able to wet, fold and drape.  If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.  There are a few products to replicate snow, so hopefully that won't be an issue.  I'd really like to replicate that birch tree in the background if I can - it adds a nice touch to the scene!

 

All in all, I think this might be a lot easier to accomplish than I first feared.  Thanks for bearing with me on my little build treatise!

Edited March 20, 2023 by Landlubber Mike

[yvesvidal]

Good choice. This way, you can show all the intricate details of the engine.

 

Yves

[mtaylor]

4 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

 

Sorry for using this log to record my thoughts, but I think I've worked through some of the trickier parts, which are:

 

All in all, I think this might be a lot easier to accomplish than I first feared.  Thanks for bearing with me on my little build treatise!

No worries on the thinking out loud.   Input from others is a valuable part of MSW.