1/48 Accurate Miniatures SBD-5 Dauntless by Wade Middleton

1/48 Accurate Miniatures SBD-5 Dauntless

Gallery Article by Wade Middleton

This kit is built out of the box to depict the terrific Accurate Miniatures SBD-5 Dauntless dive bomber that served in the early part of WW II in the Pacific against the Japanese. After building the kit, I realize how much AM will be missed because of how great it goes together, and the level of detail there is. I have also built AM’s Mclaren MK6 Can-Am racer, and for anyone who really enjoys a well engineered model, these are the best, in my humble opinion! I just hope another modeling company picks up the molds and continues to produce them.

This “dash five” as it’s referred to, was assigned to the carrier USS Lexington during the landings on Tarawa in November of 1943, and apparently was lost during that operation due to an overly hard landing. Hopefully, it was still a ‘good’ landing where the pilot/crew walked away unhurt!

Click on images below to see larger images

The instructions have 15 very clear steps to follow, starting with a warning in bold face type to “pay close attention to this instruction sheet”. Oookay! If anything, there is more information than is necessary for the experienced modeler, and most inexperienced modelers will probably want to start on something less expensive with fewer parts.

Saying that, it still goes together without a lot of difficulty, just a lot of parts, especially in the cockpit area. In fact, it’s hard to see all the detail that is there and it would be a great kit to have a clear body aka Tamiya to show it all off.

I painted my SBD using Tamiya and Model Master acrylics, and used guitar string for the antenna. The weathering was done using artist’s pastel chalks.

Wade Middleton