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B-25J Betty's Dream(ing) of a French Kiss


BloorwestSiR

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Coooooool! This was a great kit. Other than some minor detail corrections it goes together really nice.I went the same way with the aftermarket too.If your so inclined, take a look at the the cowling openings, as from documentation I found, they were substantially too small OOB.I used a large wooden dowel of the correct diameter wrapped in 600 grit sandpaper (tapered on a lathe at the end right before the sand paper to make sure the openings got enlarged symmetrically all the way around and centered) to open them up to a more realistic size. DSC01536-XL.jpg DSC01587-XL.jpgLooking forward to more progress!

I remember following along on your Lady Lil build Brian. Thanks for the reminder on the cowl openings.

 

Carl

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Don't know if you've heard, but the Canadian Warplane Heritage will be converting their Mitchell back to the proper glass-nose version. They've had a glass nose in storage for a while, but now have the funding to do it. The Hot Gen artwork is actually from a 98 Squadron aircraft flown by a Canadian pilot in NW Europe. The gun-nose was cool but not flown by the RAF.

 

 

 

Richard

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  • 2 weeks later...

Don't know if you've heard, but the Canadian Warplane Heritage will be converting their Mitchell back to the proper glass-nose version. They've had a glass nose in storage for a while, but now have the funding to do it. The Hot Gen artwork is actually from a 98 Squadron aircraft flown by a Canadian pilot in NW Europe. The gun-nose was cool but not flown by the RAF.

 

 

 

Richard

That's great news Richard and it'll be good to see Hot Gen with the correct nose. I might still stick with the gun nose as I have pics of her that way.

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Wanting a quick break from the Phantom and Corsair, I decided to work a bit on the Mitchell. I decided to start with the cockpit seats.

 

DSC_0015-L.jpg

 

The first thing I noticed is that the the numbers on the instructions don't match the PE fret. They're off by 10. So if the instructions say you need part 10, then you need 20 on the fret. If it says 15, you need 25,etc. Not insurmountable but annoying nonetheless.

 

Here's the first seat mount built up.

 

DSC_0017-L.jpg

 

I think I've got assembled correctly. I found it a bit fiddly so knowing I have to do a second one is filling me with so much joy.

 

Not.

 

 

Carl

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Guest Peterpools

Carl

Holy Cow, a B-25 on the bench as well. Nice start with the engines and taking notes as later this year, I hoping to finally get going on my B-25.

Thanks for the heads up on the HGW Seat PE set - always a bit of added fun when the instructions are wrong.

Very nice work on the PE Seat - it looks mighty good. Any reason why you decided to use the HGW PE set and not the Eduard set as Brian did?

Keep 'em comin

Peter

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Carl

Holy Cow, a B-25 on the bench as well. Nice start with the engines and taking notes as later this year, I hoping to finally get going on my B-25.

Thanks for the heads up on the HGW Seat PE set - always a bit of added fun when the instructions are wrong.

Very nice work on the PE Seat - it looks mighty good. Any reason why you decided to use the HGW PE set and not the Eduard set as Brian did?

Keep 'em comin

Peter

Thanks Peter! I think it'll be the biggest model yet for me. The plan is to have the F-4E finished this month, the Corsair early month and then go full on with this build. At least, that's the plan...

 

I think the HGW and Eduard seats are identical (Eduard usually do all the PE for HGW) and since I prefer HGW's fabric belts, that was the basis for my choice. Might be a bit cheaper that way too.

 

Carl

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So I managed to get the second seat base finished. Here's all the parts that go into it:

 

DSC_0018-L.jpg

 

DSC_0023-L.jpg

 

With those out of the way, I started on the seats themselves. First up was the copilot'seat.

 

DSC_0019-L.jpg

 

This was a bit easier than the seat bases. The plastic rod is for the vertical supports.

 

Here it is assembled next to the underway pilot's seat.

 

DSC_0021-L.jpg

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Deciding to take a break from the seats, I did some work on the nacelles. One thing I noticed after assembly was that the engraved lines for the gear doors was no deeper than the panel lines.

 

20170903_115028-L.jpg

 

I decided to scribe them a bit more to try and highlight them.

 

20170903_115017-L.jpg

 

Hopefully you can make out the deeper panel lines in the picture.

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