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HK Model B-25J Backdated to a B-25C/D, Fingers Crossed


patricksparks

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  This :">http://YtyjbC9.jpg   To This :  ">http://h3DOOIc.jpg                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   I've been thinking about doing this ever since HK released the "J" kit many moons ago, I was always concerned about hacking up the fuselage in order to "shallow" the height of the rear half, the real B-25C/D models were about 6 inches lower starting at about the flap leading edge all the way back to the tail cone(clear Plexiglass), I didn't want to get started and ruin a kit and then I saw a fuselage sprue for sale on ebay a couple weeks ago and figured "why not" I'll buy the fuselage halves, shallow it, fill the gunner's windows, put all the new windows in it, if all is good buy a whole kit, piece of cake... I have removed the tail gunner postion as well as the waist gunner's windows as I want to make the un-modified earlier version, all the new windows have been added and the upper turret opening and the lower turret opening have been opened as well. In order to "shallow" the fuselage I had to remove 3/16" of height, there is a downward angled panel line near the top of the fuselage that starts just a little foward of the rear end of the bombay opening, it runs almost to the horizontal stab, I started at zero and laid out an expanding taper toward the rear of the fuselage growing the taper from zero to 3/16", there is a horizontal panel line just below the horizontal stab, I laid out a parallel line 3/16 below the panel line, these are the cut lines and cutting this way keeps the tail plane in the proper finished height and alignment to the wing.

 

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Edited by patricksparks
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Hope to end up with something along the the lines of these, however I remember an Air Classics magazine that I had back in about 1974 that had a great photo of a Pacific based C/D model called "THE PLASTERED BAS***D", great nose art, still looking for it ! [/url]">http://06015-00.jpg

Edited by patricksparks
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Wow - that is cool !!!!

 

I will be watching closely, since I had the same idea some time ago... although I did not have a clue about this reduced height - so essentially just daydreaming :-)

Thank you! The lower fusalge on the earlier model B-25 make it look different, it gives the fuselage a "hump back" look. The reason for the size change in the later fuselage was to help accomodate the tail gunner position which became standard.

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Hi Patrick,

 

Good work! I was literally just asking for information on doing this exact thing in LSP discussion last week or the one before. Looks like you're off to a great start.

 

Where did you get your info for the rear fuselage shape from? I know it was 6" shallower but I couldn't work out where. Do you have some C/D drawings?

 

I'm looking forward to seeing how you go with it. Good luck!

 

Craig

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Hi Patrick,

 

Good work! I was literally just asking for information on doing this exact thing in LSP discussion last week or the one before. Looks like you're off to a great start.

 

Where did you get your info for the rear fuselage shape from? I know it was 6" shallower but I couldn't work out where. Do you have some C/D drawings?

 

I'm looking forward to seeing how you go with it. Good luck!

 

Craig

Thank you ! I found an old IPMS article on the internet about converting 1/48 scale kits into C/D when there were no good kits available in that scale, it gave me the dimension math and I converted to 32 scale, I didn't realize until I read that, that the horizontal stab had to drop along with the top of the fuselage. So it became much easier for me when I found out about the stabilizer, on the HK kit if you just locate the panel line under the the stabilizer fillet just mark off a parallel line 3/16"(scale 6") lower than the original panel line, this will bring the stab down and still leave it in the proper realationship with the airframe. The other cut I used my judgement with overall shape of the original fuselage, the B-25 has pretty much flat sides, with consistant radii on the corners, if you look at the HK fusaelage there is a continuous panel line about where the vertical flat side ends near the top of the fuselage that runs from the back end of the bomb bay almost all the way to the leading edge of the stab. This panel line should have 3/16" removed below it at it's very rear end where it meets the same vertical panel line that the stab shares, the cut needs to taper back to zero moving towards the front of the fuse. I did this because I realized the cutting there basically leaves the flat sides are still meeting the continuous radii at the top of the fuselage, nothing gets disrupted left to right when you re-glue the seam. I will have to re-scribe the one panel line and a few rows of rivets at a different angle because it starts in the same place at the front but according to all the drawings I've looked at it should run down to about the middle of the stab. ">http://lElDA5l.jpg

Edited by patricksparks
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