Tamiya Brewster Buffalo build.

Tamiya's F2A-2/ B339

This Tamiya F2A is the first kit i've built in some 25 years. I was motivated to build this kit by a "Buddy Build" that was run by a Facebook group I belong to, The $20.00 Modeler's Club.

Here's a short photo essay of the build.

The start: I would be using the kit's decals which would hopefully be in a usable state! Because I was concerned about time constraints, I opted for the Dutch East Indies scheme which would require a minimum of decal-ling!

A chance to fire up the old Badger airbrush for the first time in 25 years!

Interior work coming along. I used a medium olive green for the interior which seemed to work well.

Assembly coming along. Note the feeble attempt at preshading.

I had to rebuild the crash bar assembly from sprue, the kit's struts had broken when I tried to remove them from the tree.

The first exterior coat of paint. The dutch aircraft had aluminum colored undersides.  I ad to do this twice as the first coat revealed some sanding marks on the underside of the fuselage. 

First upper camo coat. The Dutch aircraft were painted in a olive drab/ medium green camouflage scheme. My first color is a homemade mix of field drab and olive.  Also note the canopy masking. I broke down and purchased a set of masks. They worked pretty well, I'd use masks again, especially for this kit!

The medium green paint applied. I used masking tape for this scheme, although I'm not entirely happy with that. May try "Silly Putty" next time!

After applying a coat of "Future", I applied the kit decals which went on pretty darn well. I did use some "Micro Sol" to help them settle in.

All in all, I found this kit to be quite a lot of fun to build and it went together quite well. I kinda wish I had more Tamiya aircraft kits in the stash!

Here are a few shots of the completed Buffalo;

The $20 Modeler's Club had a random drawing for a coffee mug with the Buffalo on it, guess who won one!!