I thought I would
submit another article to this great web site. This is my recently completed RCN
AS-3 Avenger built buy modifying the Accurate Miniatures Kit. Being
a Canadian myself I like to build a little Canadian content once and awhile. Allot
has been written about this excellent kit by Accurate Miniatures so I won’t
bother with the build details here. The
modification kit I used comes from Belcher bits in Ontario. There are some resin
components for the modifications along with two vacuformed canopies and a very
complete decal sheet in this kit.
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The main
modifications are the elimination of the ball turret and addition of an
observers seat in place of the ball turret. The
vacuformed canopy is intended to replace the kit canopy from behind the pilots
seat back. I felt the molding of the canopy frames was weak with this canopy and
opted to use the kit canopy and graft the rear portion of the vacuformed canopy
to enclose the area formally occupied by the ball turret.
There are some resin bits to fill depressions molded into the fuse above
the exhaust (behind the cowl flaps). Resin fillers are provided to replace the
ventral machine gun and glass window with a flair tube. A mount is included to
relocate the tail hook from exiting the rear most part of the fuse to the lower
rear of the fuse. The left and
right ventral windows in the kit need to be filled and painted over. A resin radar
pod is also included in this kit. This aircraft is supposed to retain the
wing mounted rockets from the kit or at least the mounts. My Accurate Miniatures
kit was one of their first releases and did not have the rockets included and my
parts box is missing rockets, therefore this example does deviate from reality
with these being omitted.
The
entire model was airbrushed using Humbrol enamel. Extra dark sea grey on the
upper surfaces and sea grey medium on the lower surfaces. Weathering was done
with a dark grey oil wash and a little pastel.
I
added the kits torpedo to the bomb bay. I admit I am not sure if the RCN
AS-3’s even carried one, I think not but it looks good.
There
is enough decals in this Belcher kit to build an early Canadian TBM in Gloss sea
blue, I'll have to add this to my to-do list of kits.
Ron
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