Accurate Miniatures' 1/48 scale
Vought SB2U-1 Vindicator

by Christian Bruer

Accurate Miniatures' 1/48 scale SB2U-1 Vindicator is available online from Squadron.com

Voughts designed and build the SB2U Scout Bomber between 1936 and 1941. This low wing monoplane aircraft was state-of-the-art in the mid 1930s, but the development of more capable planes was already underway. By the beginning of the 1940s, the Vindicator was already obsolescent and barely suitable for front line service.

Some Marines Vindicator saw action during the battle of Midway. Afterwards the plane were used only for pilot training.

The Vindicator is an interesting aircraft, because it represented the transition from biplane to monoplane aircraft with some modern features including folded wings, fully retractable landing gear, and a more streamlined design.

Accurate Miniatures' 1/48 scale Vindicator also offers the opportunity to build one of the colourful Yellow Wing USN planes! 

Accurate Miniatures' 1/48 scale SB2U-1 contains nicely moulded parts with fine engraved panel lines and no flash. The transparencies are also nice and clear.

There are some parts provided for building the kit with folded wings but no information in the instruction booklet. Even so, I decided to use the parts and built the SB2U with folded wings. That mean at first, taking a look for some references. I found some not very significant pictures in the Squadron Signal about the Vindicator. So I started to build it with the references I had. At first I had to cut the wings in halves and start fitting the folding mechanism. That need some time for filling and sanding the parts. I used some brass rod to make stiffeners to fix and hold the outer wing, so I can work separate on the parts an when the model is finished I can fix the wings very easy to the mounting support.

Building the kit with folded wings required a little bit modeling experience as well as some patience.

The cockpit was a kit in the kit with some excellent parts and easy to build. Some parts needs a little bit attention to fix together in the fuselage halves.

The only thing I am not satisfied with, are some sink marks in the rear fuselage halves. It takes some time, filler and again patience to remove the sink marks yet avoid damaging the very nice fabric rendition on the rear fuselage.

Building the rest of the kit was pure fun, I cut the rudder and elevators of to fix them in a deflected position.

I used some brass and copper wire and plastic rod to detail the beautiful kit engine.

For painting the colourful Vindicator I used Alclad II aluminium and therefore the preparatory work was to paint a primer and to polish the primed surface. I’m very satisfied with the Alclad II products I used the first time! The yellow wings are painted with Xtracolor signal yellow and I did some light weathering with Acryl colour and pastels.

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Thumbnail panels:

My Vindicator portrays Bu.No. 1342 with the identification no. 4-B-13 from VB-4 aboard CV-4 USS Ranger.

Yellow-Wings Decals offers some decal sheets with plane and squadron badges for the SB2U-1 and SB2U-2. The decals are excellent quality and easy to handle.

Building Accurate Miniatures Vindicator with folded wings was really fun.

There are some points that need a bit more attention but that is model making! 

References

Squadron/Signal Publications, Aircraft Number 122 SB2U Vindicator in action

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2008 by Christian Bruer
Page Created 27 February, 2008
Last Updated 27 February, 2008

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