Dauntless SBD – Accurate Miniatures

This is Accurate Miniature SBD-1 Dauntless, the 2nd kit I built of this now defunct maker. At the time, it was state of the art and can easily still hold its own against the latest kits over a decade later.

 

I had high expectations with Accurate Miniatures after the F3F-2 model and this Dauntless met everyone of them. Again the cockpit is wonderfully detailed. The instructment panel again consist of a clear panel with molded dial faces and decals are applied to the back of the panel after its been painted back. It creates a insructment under glass effect very effectively with a minimum of fuss.

I then continued with a wash with the interior, again detailed is just great. I then decided to do a little surgery and opened up the rear gunner hatch with an x-acto blade. Added some evergreen strip styrene with drilled holes to add the details.

 

Once the main body and wings were put together, I use Alclad aluminum to finish off the plane after a coat of primer. This stuff is really tough, unlike the Metal master metalizer series. A wash all around the engraved details, especially in the under belly finished up the plane. I then added the wiring, bombs (painted blue for “practice bombs”), and landing gears.