SB2C review

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Pro Modeller 1/48 SB2C4 Helldiver by Rusty Harris

It's been a long time since Monogram released a Helldiver in 1/48th scale. Believe me, the wait was worth it. Monogram's kit comes in a large box for a 1/48th scale kit, but once you open it, you'll see why. As with most kits these days, a lot of the part trees are in separate bags. Although all trees aren't in a separate bag, the clear parts are separately packaged so as not to scratch them.
The photoetched brass comes in a separate package with a piece of cardboard to keep it straight. This kit also includes flattened tires, and the landing gear struts are compressed. Why it's taking so long for manufactures to shorten the
landing gear struts is beyond me.
If you ever built the old Monogram kit, you'll notice a BIG difference. No more out of date rivets and raised panel lines, this baby has fully engraved panel lines that are real nice. The fabric of the tail pieces is well represented too.
Assembly is pretty much straightforward. The directions, with photographs of the real aircraft, are now common on the Pro Modeller series of kits. I'm not sure if it was just my kit, but when you assemble the cockpit to the sides and assemble
the body of the plane, the side walls of the cockpit floor were just a bit wide. You're really going to enjoy the cockpit. The kit includes a FULL interior, with an engraved cockpit panel, side walls, radios and a real nice rear gun position. Part of the photoetched brass includes ring and bead sights for the guns as well as seat belt buckles just cut some thin strips of masking tape, paint, and thread into the belt to make a set of nice looking belts.
Only a pilot figure is included in the kit, so you will have to look in your spares box for a rear gunner. The pilot comes in 4 pieces, legs and waist, upper torso, and both arms. This makes painting the parachute straps a bit easier and allows you to position the arms better.
You have the option of closing or leaving open the bomb bays, and the bomb bay doors have some interior framework.
The last couple of 1/48th scale pro modeler kit's I've built have included brass ignition harnesses which makes the engine really stand out. I just airbrushed the cylinders a dull aluminum, then did a light wash of oily black in the cylinders to bring out the detail. Be CAREFUL when working with the ignition harness, it's
V E R Y thin and is easily damaged, but allows you to carefully position the small wires over the cylinders.
The fit of the wings was quite a nice change from the older kits, mine did not require any filler between the body and the wings. This kit does not include any folding, but as with the Accurate Minatures TBM, I'm sure someone will release
a conversion.
When it comes to installing the wing bomb racks, leave them OFF until you apply the lower wing decal, it covers part of the holes for the bomb racks. There is NO mention of this in the instructions, but as with most kits, I read through the instructions making notes on possible assembly problems before starting; this
includes the decals!
A REAL nice touch of this kit is the included photoetched brass dive flaps. BE REAL CAREFUL, the rear edges of the flaps are EASILY bent! Paint the inside of the flaps red, mask over the red and paint the outsides the appropriate color
and you won't be bothered by bleed through. I attached mine with super glue, and they actually fit without any trimming!
A set of zero length rocket stubs are included with the kit, but no rockets. You'll have to raid the spares box for them.
I painted my kit in the classic 3 color scheme instead of the Glossy sea blue, because the "white" star and bar decals on the sheet were yellow, but the blue and white star and bar were not. Go figure?
Take your time masking off the "greenhouse". It's quite extensive, but when done carefully, you'll have a nice looking greenhouse. My personal preference is parafilm, it achieves a quite nice canopy.
The decals are a little on the thick side, so you'll have to use a moderately strong solvent to get them to snuggle down and stick, especially the side star and bars which extend around the bottom a little and on mine didn't want to stick very well. Using Solveset fixed this, and there was no damage to the decals.
Monogram deserves credit for producing a really nice kit of the Helldiver, yes it's not quite the kit of the Tamiya/Hasagawa kits, but then again it dosen't cost fifty bucks either!
I don't enter contests, so I couldn't tell you how "scale" the kit is. To me, if it looks like a Helldiver, and people tell me "nice Helldiver", then that's good enough for me.
I spent about 20 hours on my kit, most of that time was spent on the greenhouse and the 3 color paint scheme.

Photos courtesy of Rusty Harris