2 , 1/48 Accurate Miniature Avenger 

Also a 1/72 Sword Avenger

Gallery Article by Shawn "phantom" Weiler on Apr 16 2020

 

      

I built this rather difficult kit twice. Reason, one kit has been in my stash for years. Along with the Belcher Bits conversion to make a late service Royal Canadian Navy Avenger. Recently I got a commission to build this kit for someone else. He supplied the kit (in an Italeri box) along with another copy of the Belcher Bits conversion. So now , I had to try this build I have been holding off for years. Figured if I built them together I could learn the mistakes on mine and the customer gets the one in better condition. Turns out it was not as difficult as I feared. Sure was not easy, but not THAT hard. The only real difficult parts was the positioning of the rear observers rotating seat. I made a frame out of paper clips which seems to scale out rather convincingly.

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As I built the kits it appeared parts from three models were in the box. This was helpful as some of the smaller parts broke. Easy fix THIS time, use the spares. So at the end of the month these tow took to build I had two acceptable models. I wanted to build both with the torpedo, but it seems only one of those were in the box. The customer chose the torpedo, I get the bombs.

Once the two big 1/48 scale Avengers were ready for paint I started the 1/72 scale kit the customer wanted from Sword. The little guy is no where close to as nicely detailed as the 1/48 scale kits. Its clearly a short run kit, but turned out ok. The kit decals, are wrong for a RCN plane. The roundels are for a modern Air Force airframe, not the Sugar Maple leaf used by the RCN. So I used spares from a 1/48 Sea Fire. Not an exact match but pretty close. I had no idea Canada flew these radar planes, so I am not sure the yellow surrounds are right for the airframe. But they were the closest in to scale marking I could find in my stash.

"phantom"

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Photos and text © by Shawn "phantom" Weiler