I spent some time with cleaning up the leading edges of the outer wings. Once that was done I decided to glue the end sections in place that will give this area some details when the wings are folded. I've decided to fold the wings just like 6-T-6 was in the original color photos.

Here's the Starboard side inner wing fold section:

Followed by the Port side:

Finally the outer sections...

After studying numerous photos of Devastators that were parked on the ground, it appears that the only time you see the landing flaps lowered, is just prior to take off or when the plane is landing. Otherwise the flaps have been raised in every picture that I have seen.

So I decided to alter the kit flaps just a little, and saved myself some extra detail work building an "inner section" that looked like the wing structure to the inside of the upper wings on each side in the process.

It's a very simple modification:

Simply cut away these two small tabs that are protruding from the flap. I'm pointing at one of them with a small file in this picture.

This photo shows how the two tabs have been cut off. They appear almost white in this photo.

I sanded down the gray primer from last night and re-scribed the bomb bay doors using a spare set as a pattern from another kit.

Finally I glued the torpedo mount to the underside of the fuselage and also glued the flaps in the "UP" position.

Here's how the underside looks now on the Devastator.

I may mask off the upper portion of the wings and spray them white. I haven't really decided just yet.

Please stay tuned !

Thanks Bernard.

I used a small machinists file to go in between the corrugated ribs on the leading edges of the wings. It worked out OK. Then I went back over the seam by brushing a hot glue over the area and it seemed to blend things together pretty good.

You guessed it... I just couldn't leave it alone for the night. So I masked things off in preparation to spray some white as a base for the yellow. This is going to have an added bonus, since 6-T-6 had two white diagonal stripes on top of the wings. Now all I have to do is tape off the striped area and "presto" ... white stripes.

So I masked off the fuselage

and the outer wings...

The lower section of the cowling on 6-T-6 was also white. Since I was spraying white, I thought why not spray the lower cowling...so I masked it off too.

Here are the wings which are now white:

Followed by the outer wing panels:

and the undersides. The yellow from the top of the wing wrapped around the leading edge of the wing. So I sprayed this area white too.

Finally, here's the lower section of the cowling which has been painted too.

The white is a great base for spraying yellow, which sometimes has a translucent look to it after it has been sprayed. By spraying on white first, it helps to keep this from happening.

Maybe tomorrow night I can spray on some yellow. The parts are masked off already... all I have to do now is mask off the white diagonal chevrons that were present on the inner / upper section of the wings.

Take care. I'm calling it a day...

Thanks David. It has been interesting at times, but a lot of fun overall.

Tonight's progress included spraying the yellow and black. I made some headway.

This is a Douglas Factory painting diagram. It came from my Devastator book by Steve Ginter. It was supposed to be taken directly from blue prints. It shows the walkway and chevron stripes on the upper surfaces of the wings.

Another neat bit of information was on the colors of the letters and numbers. I was always under the impression that the wording "NAVY", along with TBD and the Bureau Numbers were either black or white. I noticed that this factory drawing also listed a silver for use with red backgrounds. Interesting ...

Here's a color picture that was in the "LIFE" magazine from 1940. This photo is one of the reasons why I decided to model 6-T-6. It clearly shows how the upper wing chevrons (in white) were not exactly where they were supposed to be located. If you look closely you see that these chevrons are farther back on the wing than pictured in the factory diagrams.

This photo is the clincher. It shows exactly how far back from the leading edge the chevrons started. They lined up with the fuel filler cap on the wing.

The factory drawings also gave dimensions of the stripes. They were 16 inches wide. So I did some math and calculated just how wide they should be. It turns out they would be 0.333 in inches, or 1/3 of an inch. My ruler didn't have that measurement so I converted it to Metric. In Metric it's almost 8.5 MM wide, which I could do.

So I cut out some 8.5 MM wide strips from blue masking tape...

and applied them to the wings in the positions indicated by the photographs.

The next step was to start spraying the yellow... The outer wing panels were first.

Followed by the main center section...

After the yellow dried sufficiently, I removed the masking tape from the outer wings:

This was followed by removing the 8.5 MM strips to expose the white Chevrons.

The next step was to mask off the wing walkways.

Once this was done I sprayed on some flat black.

As this was drying I decided to spray some other black parts for my other Midway Builds. I sprayed parts for the SBD and my latest ambitious project the PBY Catalina.

Then I realized that the area above the instrument panel wasn't painted yet, so I masked this spot off and sprayed it.

Once everything dried good enough, I removed all the masking tape.

Here's the results.

The Aluminum color is next... but some smaller parts will have to be glued on first.

Meanwhile here's a parting photo of 6-T-6 that I zoomed in on to bring out a little more details. Hopefully this model will look like this picture soon. Maybe not as grainy though. 🙂

Take care.

Since I finally finished my old M-60A1 tank model, I can now get back into gear with the TBD. I want to try and finish this one next, even though it wasn't initially planned that way. Sometimes the stars just happen to align...

Here's tonight's progress:

I started off by masking off anything that wasn't going to be painted aluminum color on the fuselage.

The outer wing panels, cowling and main wheels were prepped for paint too...

Just as I was about to start spraying, I realized that I left the nose open on the firewall area... So I simply stuffed this spot with tissue paper.

Out came the air brush, and some Model Master "Metallizer" non buffing aluminum color which is a nice shade to replicate the original aluminum lacquer and dopes used by the US Navy back then in the 1930's.

Here's a rear quarter picture showing the fuselage after spraying the aluminum color.

Followed by the wheels and cowling...

and finally the outer wing panels.

Once I gave the paint a little while to dry, I removed most of the masking tape. I left it alone in areas that I still wanted to protect, as the next step is a few coats of clear.

Here's the fuselage:

Outer Wing Panels:

and last, but not least, the wheels and cowling...

Like I mentioned above, one of the next steps is to apply some gloss clear. I want to have a nice surface for the decals to adhere to. Since I don't want the anti glare area forward of the pilots seat, the rest of the interior, or the black wing walk areas to be shiny, I left these locations masked.

My next step is to go back and mask off the exposed black wing walk areas completely.

Getting closer...

Comments are encouraged as usual.

Enjoy.

The Devastator is getting much closer to being completed.

This evening I was able to apply the decals.

The corrugated wing surfaces were not very fun to get the decals to snuggle down. To begin with, the first set of wing stars I used, started tearing apart as I tried to push them down into the crevices. I had used the original kit decals from another TBD that were dated from 1999 on the first attempt. I'm sure if the decals were newer, this problem would not have occurred.

So I decided to use the "Yellow Wings" Stars with red centers. They were a whole lot more durable. They were also a lot newer...

Here's the lower star on the Port wing. As the decal was drying I used a damp paper towel to coax the decal down into the valleys of the corrugations.

The upper wing Star insignia didn't settle as nicely, so I tried some "Solvaset" in an attempt to get it to snuggle down. It caused the decal to wrinkle quite a bit, but it got better as the setting solution dried. So here again I blotted the decal down a little with a damp paper towel. The end result was OK, but I didn't want to press my luck. Thankfully this upper surface star will not be too easily seen since the wings will be folded.

After narrowly dodging a bullet, I decided to leave well enough alone... So I simply sprayed clear gloss coat directly over the National insignia.

You can see how the right side upper star is wrinkled somewhat.

On these yellow wings planes, the Bureau of Aeronautics wrote a directive to help with visibility on similar colors, such as Lemon Yellow, which was a ship and section designator color, and Insignia Yellow which was used on the upper wing surfaces.

What the Bureau of Aeronautics decided to do, was to apply a small one inch wide band in a contrasting color to differentiate between the two. These one inch wide separation stripes were either white or black. Luckily "Yellow Wings" makes a decal sheet that has nothing on it except for these stripes... These guys have thought of everything.

Here's a photo showing how the black decals were used on the cowling, as the wrapped around the white. In some of the original "LIFE" magazine color photos you can just barely make the black stripes out, but they were there on the Cowling and the wing Chevrons on this plane, Bureau Number 0327.

Here's a close up of the Wing Chevron after the stripe decal and the number 6 was applied: The "6" was placed on both upper wings, just outboard of the wing walkway.

Finally here's a photo showing the plane after a coat of gloss clear coat was sprayed over the decals. After it was dry enough, I removed all of the masking tape.

Hopefully tomorrow, if things go as planned, I may just have this bird done...

I really like these Navy "Yellow Wings" era planes. There's just something about them that draws you to them. Almost like a moth to a flame.

Take care.

Tha'st starting to look like one sweet bird. Much better than the one I did several years ago.

Really coming tog ether nicely. Looking just like the original, they really kept them clean.

Thank you gentlemen for the kind words. I sincerely appreciate the compliments.

Today has been a great day. I was able to get all of the finishing touches completed on the Devastator.

I started out by adding Bare Metal Foil to the pilot's canopy. Then I glued it in the open position as shown below.

I also painted the rear facing .030 caliber machine gun. You can see it in this photo below.

Next step is something that I should have done before I glued the main landing gear wheels on... I used "Ultra Bright Chrome" Bare Metal Foil and wrapped a small piece around the oleo portion of the landing gear. This replicates the shiny surface on the shock absorber part of the landing gear struts.

Since I had the Foil out, I decided to try something new on the landing light. I used my Waldron punch set and made a small round piece using the ultra bright chrome foil. Then I glued it in place with the shiny side out using the Testors clear glue like I used on the canopy and small side windows.
Once the chrome foil was glued against the leading edge of the wing, I glued the kit part for the landing gear lens in place over the foil...

I then painted the oil filler cap, that is located just forward of the windscreen, in bright yellow. The wing gas tank filler caps were also painted in red.

Here's a few close ups of the kit supplied rear facing .030 caliber weapon.

Finally... The moment I have been waiting for...

The wings were glued in position after I painted the wing tip navigation lenses.

I fabricated the wires that were visible when the wings are folded. I used the photos found in my Ginter book as a reference. I used three small strands of bare copper wire to replicate them. I painted them black and simply pushed them into the holes that I had drilled out earlier... These holes are almost exactly as shown in the photos of the real plane. There was simply a hole that the wires passed into. I'm sure the real plane had some sort of a rubber protector to keep the wires from chafing against the wing ribs.

I also glued the kit supplied wing folding bellcranks. They look pretty decent since earlier I had drilled the holes in these too.

Here's the Port side:

and the Starboard side... The extra little bits I added help to bring this area alive.

The last thing to do was address the antennae wire. So I made an antennae cable out of some clear sprue that was leftover from the kit's clear parts. Once I heated the plastic up enough to soften the plastic, I simply stretched it to desired thickness. Then it was only a matter of gluing the stretched piece in position.

Here's how it came out in this photo below ...

Here's a few parting pictures of how the TBD Devastator turned out... I'm very pleased with the results.

Thanks for following along during this build.