Louies fantastic job on the gunners position . That office looks busy . Keep the awesome work going 🙂

Thanks for the compliments gentlemen.

I made a little more progress with the Dauntless today. The upper wing halves are glued in place. I also glued the stabilizer/ elevators together. I'll install them once I get the seams taken care of. There are no gaps to worry about just a little attention is needed to spruce them up.

Louis, I don't know why I didn't notice this earlier, and it maybe to late or to much work to fix, but there should not be a shoulder harness on the pilots seat. For reasons known only to BuAer, USN aircraft only had lap belts installed until after the Battle of Midway. If you check Tom Cleaver's 1/32 Trumpter SBD and other Midway or earlier builds you'll find that he confirms this

I was able to cut away the top section of the shoulder straps with a sharp X-acto blade. Here's how it looks now.

And the offending piece.

Thanks again Rick !

You're a good man Rick ! I appreciate the offer.

I had the air brush out painting parts for the Devastator. I had the color flat black in the hopper, and the SBD needed some parts painted this color, (as did the newly started PBY-5A)

So I sprayed the propeller.

The upper deck ahead of the cockpit:

The engine cylinders and twin .050 machine guns:

and finally, this part. I know the picture doesn't show much details since the part is a dark color and didn't photograph well, but this is the spinner I was missing from my kit.

My friend Rick Wilkes graciously sent it to me. Thanks again buddy !

Does it look familiar Rick ?

That's all for tonight. It's not much progress, but any progress is better than nothing at all. As long as it's good...

Well it's starting to look more like a SBD ...

Tonight I managed to detail paint the engine. While I was painting the SBD Dauntless engine, I painted the one for the Avenger too...

Here's how the SBD engine looks after assembly.

The next step was to glue the .050 caliber weapons into the upper cowling deck. Here's how it looks from underneath... I painted the charging handles aluminum.

The forward fuselage was completed and glued in place: Don't forget to install the oil cooler before you glue the front part of the fuselage on. I almost did...

and the cowling pieces were glued together too. If you're building one, pay close attention here... It's kind of tricky to glue together.

Then I installed the engine...

and the upper cowling deck / machine guns...

The final part to be glued on was the cowling.

Here's how the engine looks once the cowling was in place. I like the details.

Finally here's how the SBD look tonight after everything was finished.

Step #7 is now completed... maybe tomorrow I can get started on the landing gear.

Comments are encouraged. I'm calling it a night.

Take care.

PS: I noticed that I had not installed the arrestor hook from a previous step. So tonight I placed it in the slot where it goes. The fit was so nice and snug that no glue was required. It simply snapped in position. Maybe tomorrow I'll snap a picture of that too.

You can get all the information you need about markings and finish from my 1/32 kit. dick told me the airplanes were factory-new and "the cleanest airplanes I ever saw in the Navy."

This morning I was able to get some more parts sprayed.

Before I sprayed the wheel again, I gave them a once over with some fine sand paper.

then I re sprayed the tire black color... I think they look much nicer since the sanding removed the visible sanding seam.

I attempted to mark off the thin line on the spinner, but failed horribly... So I sprayed it flat black again...

Here's how your old spinner looks again, Rick...

This was followed by spraying various parts Light Gray...

Main landing gear doors:

Inside of the center flap and landing gear struts

The undersides of the flaps

The bomb crutch and the wheel hubs / wheel caps

and finally the under side of the plane itself...

Getting closer...