Olimp Pro Resin 1/72nd Douglas XSB2D-1 "Destroyer"
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History
The history and out-of-the-box preview I have already discussed in
a previous
issue of Internet Modeler.
Construction
 Construction
was not difficult and I have broken this down into parts. No big surprises
for this all resin kit but please read on for some tips that I wish to
impart through bitter experience. May your build be easier than mine.
Fuselage
The first thing to build is, of course, the cockpit and gunners station.
The instrument panel is an etched brass front with clear instrument facings
and then you back this up with a resin piece. I lost the resin back of
the instrument panel to the carpet monster, so I had to build it out of
scrap plastic. You will need to pare down the pilots seat to allow for
the stick. The cockpit build had no surprises and looks pretty good in
my estimation. The rear gunner station came to me with two of the three
ring brackets broken. I had to rebuild these by gluing the brackets back
together then place them back on the station floor. The neat thing about
building in resin is that the resin is so brittle you can piece things
back together without the worry of the part being bent. The rear seat
does not have seat belts. The extra lap belts on the etched brass sheet
do not fit and are the wrong shape. I did not build anything to replace
them, wanting this to be an out-of-the-box build. Do not install the periscope
at this time since this tends to break later in the build. I installed
it because the instructions said to, of course it broke off, and so I
left it off until I was ready to install the canopy.
  Make
sure you place enough weight in the nose. I even drilled out some of the
solid nose to accommodate more weights. Place the weights only after placing
the nose wheel well in place. Joining the fuselage together the instructions
show the rear gunner's seat facing forward. It won't fit facing forward
because of the shape of the floor, the gunner faces to the rear anyway,
so reverse it and it will fit normally. I had a hard time getting the
fuselage pieces to fit together correctly, I'm sure it's just me, because
I ended up having some gaps near the instrument panel and the nose gear
well (notice I haven't broken the periscope off yet in this picture).
Nose and Spinner
  Like
I said before, I opened some space up in the solid nose with a Dremel
tool. I also installed a brass rod in the spinner and a corresponding
sleeve in the nose so that the propeller could spin, as well as take the
delicate propeller off during transportation.
Wings
  Once
the fuselage is together the wings come next. Not much problem here, except
to clean the wing roots up to accept the wings. There are even molded-in
pins to make the fuselage to wing connection real strong. My example had
a piece broken off the trailing edge and I could not find the missing
piece. I just filled it with resin flashing and super glue (notice the
periscope is now missing from the rear gunner station). The 20mm cannon
mounts are delicate, I, of course, broke one before I could attach it
to the wing. I replaced the barrel with some brass tubing and I think
it looks better than the original part. There goes the out-of-the-box
build I was hoping for.
Painting
I started painting the aircraft soon after the wings and stabilizers
were attached. At first I followed   the
instructions and painted the upper fuselage and wings a dark blue, and
pretty much followed the tri-color scheme of a F4U Corsair. Then I started
looking at the rare pictures I could find on the web and decided that
the instructions were completely wrong. So some of the pictures of this
review will show an earlier paint effort (mostly blue upper sides) and
the later re-paint of mostly Intermediate Blue sides and slim upper Dark
Blue scheme. There were no instructions on the color of the spinner, from
the pictures I had it looks like the spinner was either painted silver
or just left in its unpainted aluminum state, so that's what I painted
mine.
Landing Gear
I pinned the multi-part front landing gear together for more strength.
I don't think that CA glue, by itself, could hold all the weight that
I put in the nose to ensure it to be a nose-sitter. I also pinned the
  main
wheels to their struts, butt joints make me nervous when it comes to landing
gear. I should have left some of the pin sticking out of the gear for
the gear door to attach to, but hindsight is a lot clearer than foresight.
I could hear the carpet monster grumble as I attached the tiny photo-etched
oleo struts to all three legs. I managed to keep it hungry on that maneuver.
If I was smart, I would have airbrushed the gear with silver but I was
impatient by this time so I hand painted them. Resist the urge, go ahead
and airbrush the finished gear, it will look better. The wheels themselves
are too large for the landing gear bay, but I figured this out too late
to change things. Aeroclub has BTD-1 wheels in their catalogue, so you
may want to get a set to replace these crude facsimiles.
Canopy
Installing the canopy is straight forward for those who like to install
vacu-form canopies. For the rest of us, it's a real chore. Before installing
your canopy, remember to install the periscope sight. Place a little paint
at the tip of the sight and mark the inside of the rear canopy with it
to drill the hole. This is not discussed at all in the instructions so
beware.
 Dive
Brakes
As you can tell from the picture, the photo-etched dive brakes don't
match the engraved pattern on the wings. Because of this I could not display
the brakes open. Even when you glue them flat in place the "legs"
don't match up, so you are left with voids. This is one of the few things
that this model falls short in detail and ease of assembly.
Decals
The decals look real nice, and in register, although the few pictures
I could find did not have the style of star and bar (with the red surround)
that comes with the kit. I decided to test the lower wing decal to see
how well it reacts to Solvaset. Good thing I did, it just wrinkled up
and dared me to  make
it straight again. After five coats of Solvaset it started to straighten
back out but had some bad creases where it finally started to break apart.
If you want to use a decal solvent, use different decals. Eagle Strike
decals has a nice set of 1943 red surround US insignia decals (48046 -
both 1/72 and 1/48 I guess). Even with these resist the urge to use a
lot of Solvaset, use just enough to snuggle down the decal into the dive
brakes. The original decals are just too thick, but use the tail numbers
and the propeller decals, these will be good enough on the flat surfaces.
Conclusion
 I
liked this model, it builds into an accurate, little known aircraft that
will stand out amongst your other naval subjects. The only downsides being
inadequate instructions, overly thick decals, crappy wheels and some deficient
air brake slots. All of these can be overcome or ignored with just a little
planning. Have fun, get a model out of your stash and build it today!.
Thanks to Olimp Models and Internet
Modeler for this review sample.
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