Overengineered but splendidly assembled! Very nice Eric.

Just outstanding work done, Eric.
Such a pity that the interior will be encaptured after closing the fuselage.

Tom: I’ve been following the tips in that review Of this kit you wrote a few years back and am well aware of the too long gear problem. Any ideas how to fix this without ruining the brake lines and other GWH detail? I wonder if Scale Aircraft Conversions corrected this with their metal replacement set? Anybody know? Thanks for the compliments.

Works Starts Again!

Back working on the Devastator at last after finishing up my Sea Hornet project. Just glued the fuselage halves together. Here's another over engineering item that pops up at this point. The instructions would have you install the tailhook before mating the two halves together but if you do that, it's doomed to break off. I cut the tailhook's attachment point off at the fuselage end and will install it after everything else is finished. It slides right in. Be very careful when removing the hook from the sprue. Easy to snap it in half.

Onwards!

Getting into shape, Eric.
Good idea on removing those fragile parts.
Never thought about cutting parts but it is worth doing that to prevent bad things to happen.

@eb801: There is a neat little trick for cutting delicate parts off the sprue: cut the bit of sprue it's directly attached to off at the main "trunk" of the tree. Then, when you can lay the part completely flat on your work surface, cut the little bit of sprue off the part. Works. Every. Time.

Tricks copied, @tcinla and @eb801.
Great tricks!

Erik, @eb801
I just noticed your build journal, and also just read it from the very beginning to where you are now. You have done some amazing work on this plane. The Devastator looks good in any paint scheme, but I'm partial to the ones from the "Yellow Wings" era. I have only built the old school Monogram version and still have about 5 of them left in the stash... Someday I'll get to building them. This GWH kit looks to be very detailed and the work you have completed on the cockpit looks exceptionally well.

When I built a Monogram version for our Battle of Midway group build around 3 years ago I stumbled across a bit of trivia I want to share with you about fire extinguishers. I'm a retired Lieutenant / EMT from a local fire department, so naturally the fire extinguisher caught my eye... 🙂

Back in the 1940's, most of the fire extinguishers were manufactured in either a copper or brass material for the tank portion. This was left unpainted so the extinguisher would have looked like this.
I was lucky to find this photo of an antique aircraft portable extinguisher that someone had for sale. The one in the Devastator would have looked like this.

It's not too late to change it if you want to, or you could just leave it alone "as is", and 99 percent of the people wouldn't know the difference. The only fire extinguisher that would have been painted red back during this time would be a CO2 style, and they used a different style nozzle, and not just a hose. The CO2 extinguishers use a large bell type opening where the gas comes out. This bell is still in use on todays extinguishers.

As far as another little trick I use for cutting parts off plastic tress is stupidly simple and easy. I will cut away the part from the plastic tree using a set of cutters. I leave about 1/8 inch or so of the sprue connected to the part I'm retrieving.

Then I use an ordinary set of fingernail clippers to snip off the remaining plastic from the part. Fingernail clippers are sharp on both sides and make a cleaner cut when removing the leftover plastic stub. This really helps when you are trying to cut away small delicate parts.

The end result is a cut that looks like this, with minimal work to do to remove the last little bit of remaining plastic from the part. It's a nice clean cut every time.

I did a lot of research hen I built my TBD, and posted a lot of pictures that might help you along the way. Here's a link to the journal if you're interested.

https://imodeler.com/groups/75th-anniversary-battle-of-midway-group-build/forum/topic/148-monogram-tbd-1-devastator/

Hope this helps... 🙂

After seeing my fingernails in the one photo I just posted here, I think it might be time to use another set of fingernail cutters... This set is used strictly for building models.

Happy New Year.