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TBF frustrations


inviernos48

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Dear Friends at Squadron,
 
I purchased a Trumpeter TBF Avenger in 1/32 scale but, much to my annoyance, the kit came without a list of paint colors required to finish the model. I have attempted to get help from Trumpeter but they just sent me a guide to painting the exterior, which I already have. I am wondering if any of my fellow modelers has a list of colors for this plane with Tamiya paint colors that I can order via mail.
 
I communicated with Stevens International, which distributes Trumpeter in the U.S., but they told me the colors referred to in the instructions are Humbrol, albeit with no names, just numbers. According to a posting on the internet from another frustrated purchaser of this kit, the references are to Gunze-Sanyo, not Humbrol.
 
I am wondering if maybe someone has an instruction sheet from another airplane model from Trumpeter that depicts a U.S. Navy plane from the same time period that actually has the colors described accurately. That would mean something like an F6F Hellcat or an SBD Dauntless. These are both models that Trumpeter has modeled in 1/32 so the colors would probably be exactly the same. If someone can scan the instructions with the correct color list, and sent it to me via email, that would be a huge favor and make me a happy guy.
 
Paying over $100 for a highly rated model only to find the instructions are scanty at best is intensely frustrating. I am living in Guatemala where there are no local hobby shops I can drop into to shop for the right paints so I need someone in the U.S. to give me a hand with this. I wrote to Trumpeter and got zero help, just a copy of a sheet depicting the external colors which I already had.
 
Your help is greatly appreciated. I wish you and your family a very Happy Christmas, Hanukah, and New Year season.
 
Thanks very much and my greetings from Antigua, Guatemala.
 
Andrew Winters
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Andrew, this may or may not help you, but I have an ebook available on the subject of United States Camouflage WW-II.  It was originally authored and privately published by Jay Frank Dial in 1964 and original copies are next to impossible to find and also expensive.  In 2008 I restored and enhanced the book and made it available as a PDF E-book download.  Price is $9.99. You can find full information and a buy now button at http://scalepublications.freeyellow.com/camouflagebook.html.  All data was gleaned from WW-II Tech Orders, including such things at the dates National Insignia designs changed, exterior colors and camouflage patterns.  There are also scans of the actual color chip pages that Jay included.  It may or may not give you everything you're looking for, but what it does give you comes from the proverbial horse's mouth. 

1941073222_U.S.CAMOUFLAGECOVERc-2-300pxls.jpg.8a2f3125ee5abb7266979a16afed0bad.jpg

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Wow! I have Dial's book! Is my retirement nest egg sitting in my archives? Just kidding. I would never part with it. It was one of the very first references I ever bought. I love pulling books like that out if not to consult it but just to reminisce about the early days of this hobby and the founding, ground breaking members of IPMS.  Richard Marmo- Thanks for the memories. Nick -Aging But Not Yet Senile (I think) Modeler -Filippone

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Dave, that is the correct book.  I didn't know  there were that many out there.  The last time I checked...before Amazon... I could only find one copy and it carried an $80 price tag.  You do need to keep one thing in mind.  The color chips were actual paint chips and there's no way of telling how much the colors may have shifted, depending on where these books spent their life.  My PDF version includes an index...there are still no page numbers and never were...along with ten photos of actual aircraft, as well as scans from my personal copy that I've had from 1964.  It's rarely been opened, so I don't believe my chips have shifted much, if at all.

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Looking at J.F. Dial's book made me start to think how this thread and the discussion of whether the models we build are toys or historic miniatures intersect.

I mentioned in a previous post how IPMS started with a goal to seek the same credibility as wood modelers. Intrinsic in that crusade was to demonstrate that building plastic models was not ' playing with toys' but the creation of legitimate replicas of historic objects- researched ( as best we could in 1964) and carefully executed. Mr. Dial's book is a perfect and significant early example of that quest. In the next 50+ years, the references alone have proliferated exponentially - not even including the Internet. 

It is therefore not an exaggeration to say that IPMS members have been indispensable in creating the demand for more references, better kits, accurate paints, marking options in decals, after market parts, etc. No single other organization can claim this accomplishment for all of plastic modelling! It was and is our ' raison d' etre.' 

Non- members should be thanking us. If not for us, they would still be building bright red Migs that don't look like any actual aircraft, they would be building a U.S.S. Maine that is really sort of an Olympia, and they would still be sewing tank tracks together with thread. 

Nick 

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Thanks, yeah, while that doesn't really answer my question it makes some good points. I did get the Accurate Miniatures instructions which are much more complete than the Trumpeter instructions although lack some of the information for detail that is included in the Trumpeter kit. Now the paints are slowly arriving so I hope to proceed to actually building this thing, one of these days.

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