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Building the 1/72 Czechmaster Resin Martin AM-1 Mauler

By Will Riepl

The Martin AM-1 Mauler was a competitor of the Douglas Skyraider, and was built to the same specification for a single-place carrier bomber built around the Wright R-4360-4W Cyclone engine. The Mauler was more complex than the Skyraider, and was initially proposed as a replacement for the AD. It boasted a top speed of 367 mph, vs. the AD’s 320 mph., and a range of 1800 miles, twice that of the Skyraider. But the AM’s complexity made it more difficult to maintain, and it could carry only 4500 pounds of ordinance as opposed to the AD’s 8000 pounds. Eventually, the Skyraider replaced its replacement, with the survivors of just 149 Maulers going to reserve units when production ceased in 1949.

When my son Chris (one of the senior editors of this Internet forum) said he had a Mauler kit for me to build I thought, "Good! A new 1/48 scale kit." But no, he had a new kit from Czech Master, all resin and in the devil scale of 1/72.

When I mustered my courage and took a look at the kit, all I could say was WOW! It looked like a Hasegawa kit, only better—and in resin. The fine (and I mean fine) scribed lines on this kit are something to see. The people who did the work on this little beauty are truly master mold makers.

The many parts that make up the kit are packed in individual plastic sleeves. The Mauler could carry a lot of ordnance, and Czech Master allows you to duplicate this accurately. You have the choice of three torpedoes, two Tiny Tims, 12 HVARs, 12 100-lb. bombs and a 500-lb. bomb. There are three different propellers and a full interior.

This is my first try at a full resin kit, so I wondered just how to go at it. I planned to pre-glue some .005 plastic card to the fuselage halves, thinking this might help keep the halves straight, but the more I worked with it, the more I decided to just super glue them together. The only preparation needed was to remove the excess resin on the inside of the tail. I sanded the pieces against a flat board with sandpaper glued to it. This technique will keep your work flat, and serves as an ideal method for vacuform kits as well. I sanded it until I had a sharp trailing edge on the rudder.

The cockpit is somewhat sparse but about average for a short-run kit. You have seat, instrument panel, stick and rudder pedals to work with. I painted the instrument panel flat black, following the pictures in the Mauler book from Steve Ginter’s Naval Fighters series. I painted the inside of the fuselage green zinc chromate, with all the panel work done in black.

The wing is a single piece, with the correct crank in the wing and very fine detailing of the dive brakes. There is very little work required here. To save time and aggravation later on, I pre-drilled the holes for the weapons pylons. This is the only way I could see to put fine parts on a little plane using big fingers.

Before I glued the fuselage halves together, I glued the stabilizers in place. The resulting small gaps were a lot easier to sand and fill at this point.

Using clamps to hold the rudder in alignment, I super-glued the fuselage together starting at the nose. The next step is putting the cowling in place. There are three parts to the cowl. The aft end has some beautifully drilled-out exhaust ports. It’s a shame you won’t be able to see them in the finished plane! Atop the cowl goes a very fine supercharger intake; take care when cutting out this part, since it is very thin.

Once the fuselage was fully completed, I put the wing in place. A little putty was required on the wing joint to the fuselage on one side for a good fit.

Now comes the hard part—cutting off the fins for the ordnance. These are very delicate pieces embedded in a resin wafer. I only lost four fins during this process—not too bad, considering. I used the fine stainless steel saw that comes in the Hasegawa 1:48 Dauntless kit. The fins that went missing were replaced with .005 card. I removed the attachment points on the rocket pylons and replaced them with bits of wire to make attachment into my pre-drilled holes easier.

With assembly done, I hit the model with a couple of coats of primer. This will show up all your mistakes, allowing you to correct them before your final paint job shows them up! Once the mistakes had been sanded out, I used AeroMaster Dark Navy Blue for the overall aircraft, with a bright orange for the reserve band. I painted the band first, then masked it off and painted the rest of the aircraft. I let it dry for a couple of days while I painted the ordnance. I made a holder out of cardboard to hold all the ordnance pieces and painted them bright yellow. When dry, I masked the yellow and painted the red noses.

To prepare the model for decaling, I sprayed a gloss coat over the model. This is thefirst time I have used CzechMasters’ decals, and they proved to be very thin and snuggled down very well. You’ll want to make sure you have enough water underneath them to position them on the wing. Otherwise, once on, they are on for good. When the decals were dry, I sprayed the model again with a coat of semi-gloss to blend the decals into the blue paint, and then masked and sprayed the flat black anti-glare panel on the nose.

Cutting the canopy from its carrier and installing it seemed easy enough, but it turned into a disaster for me. The plastic is very hard and brittle. I wanted to have the canopy open, and in trimming the piece off its carrier, over half of the transparency shattered! Now what? I got out some polymer clay (Fimo or Sculpey, found at your local craft store), and molded it to fit inside the shattered canopy. Then I removed the canopy piece and baked the clay according to directions on the package. When it is baked, it is very hard and can be carved and sanded. Once more Mattel saves the day—a replacement canopy was made using their good ol’ vacuforming machine. I mentioned the canopy problems to Chris and he passed it on to CzechMasters, who plan on putting two canopies in the kits from now on.

The kit gives you three styles of propellers. I chose the flat propeller with spinner. I noticed that the landing gear attachment point could be a problem, so I cut a piece of plastic rod to the inside diameter of the wheel strut and glued this into the wing first. This will keep the struts straight and strong. The strut is a weak point in the kit. I took music wire and bent it to the shape of the strut and glued it on.

I am glad I had the chance to build this kit. Thanks to all the fine detail and all many optional parts, it is a big surprise. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate it a solid 9. Thank you, CzechMaster. I hope you come out with more like this one. This kit can be found at Aviation Usk.