Classic Airframes 1/48 Brewster Model 239 Buffalo Build Review

By Larry Hornya

Background

For a look at the history of the Brewster Model 239 Buffalo and this kit straight out of the box, check out our first look

published earlier on Cybermodeler.

Construction

Brewster's stubby little Buffalo may not have been very successful for the US Navy but for at least the Finnish Air Force, the round little fighter proved to be one of the most successful fighters of WWII. With well trained Finnish pilots at the controls, the Buffalo scored a kill to loss ratio (26:1) only second to the Grumman FM-2 Wildcat. The model 239 was essentially a de-navalized version of the F2A-1. Classic Airframes' kit represents this version with markings for several Finish aces. This was a commission build and the customer wanted the markings of top Finnish ace I. Juutilainen, which were not actually in the kit so I used an aftermarket sheet from Mike Grant for the markings. I also used a set of aftermarket vinyl canopy masks as this saved a lot of time with this canopy!

Let me just start out by saying that this was one of the nicest short run kits I have ever built. In fact, compared to Classic Airframes' 1/48 Dornier Do 17Z this seemed like a Tamiya kit! I used a resin cockpit from True Details that was designed for the Tamiya kit which was very easy to modify to fit the CA kit. Assembly was pretty straight forward. I deviated from the instructions on the wing to fuselage assembly as the they recommended gluing one fuselage half to the wing assembly and then attaching the other fuselage half (I taped this assembly together so you can see how they recommended assembly). I found this a little awkward so I followed what for me is a more "normal" procedure of joining the fuselage halves and then attaching the wing. The cockpit floor and seat are attached to the wing and fit very easily up into the assembled fuselage. Very little filler was required.

The engine assembly was a little tricky so take your time with this part as the mounting brackets are a bit of  a pain to align. The payoff is that the wheel bays are very nicely detailed and much nicer than Tamiya's as far as I'm concerned. The back of the engine is a nicely detailed resin piece that you can see up in the well. That was the most difficult part of the entire assembly. There is also a nice resin insert for the gear leg area of the wheel bays. This fit with no difficulties as well. Detail wise, the engine was the only thing lacking a bit with the kit. It's too bad CA didn't include a resin engine with a bit more detail. I added plastic rod pushrods and ignition wires from fine solder wire.

Juutilainen's markings are particularly colorful with the standard Finnish yellow wingtip undersides, fuselage band and cowling. An orange spinner and number 4 on the tail are a great contrast to the black and green upper camouflage. I painted the entire kit with Tamiya acrylics and made color mixes with FS equivalents using my FS 595a chips. I am a big fan of pre-shading and after doing this with flat black I painted the areas to be yellow with an undercoat of white. I then paint all of the yellow areas and masked them off when dry. After the camouflage I clear coated with Future and applied the decals followed by an oil wash and then Testors acrylic flat coat.

I would highly recommend this kit to anyone interested in building a Finnish Buffalo.