patricksparks

One engine almost complete, the other close behind, I need to put some governors on them.">http:// ">http://

Decided to work on the engines for a change of pace,did a bit of wiring, also hollowed out the intakes on the nacelle fronts.">http:// ">http://

Not too much progress right now, I am still pondering the idea of making an early strafer, have been cobbeling up a mount based on the photos I can find showing the mount. ">http:// ">http:// ">http:// ">http:// ">http://

Here are a few more factory photos that may be useful, good luck with your build !!! ">http:// ">http://

Progress has been slowed due to work, ahhh yes, the real or unreal world.... Anyway, I found another detail about earlier model B-25s, they have an extra piece of nose glazing that I didn't know about, what's funny to me is that it had a ball socket in it for a 30 cal. machinegun, I guess they needed an option for straffing straight down???LOL">http:// ">http://

Thank you!!!

I had a thought today on this project, I started thinking about maybe doing an early straffer, before they painted over the clear bombadier's glazing, it might be a twist to look in and see a bunch of 50 cals mounted under glass ???

I'm planning on vacuum forming the tail cone. I still have to re-shape the bottom of the fuselage under the horizontal stabilizer as the earlier A/B/C's had a rounder cross section on the bottom, shouldn't be too bad though, it's only about the last inch.

Finally got around to fitting the wings, you really have to remove a good amount off the hook tabs on the fuselage halves that key into the wings to get them to go on, I didn't want them too tight so that I can remove them for painting to make it easier to get in and around the engine nacelles. I wanted to get a look at the overall shape of the back-date so far.">http:// ">http://

Some more progress.... bouncing around on different areas to avoid the dredded rutt.. Put the first set of casted propeller blades that I made up onto a hub to check the fit, seems to do the trick. Also I filled in the openings in the rudders that had to be lowered to match the vertical stabilizers and added the new openings. Word of caution, if you are building the HK B-25 check the rudder halves before you glue them together, I found that my kit's parts didn't want to close up on the trailing edges, don't know if it's an issue with shrinkage but I took a large sanding block to the insides of the halves to make sure they were flat enough that they would close up all the way before gluing. [/url]">http://https://postimg.cc/image/7bhqzpmwb/'>

Propeller Factory... I whittled down one of the kits "Canoe Paddle" propeller blades and made a mold inching along... [/url]">http://https://postimg.cc/image/6a2cj6pi3/'>

If your going to put all the radios in, I decided to get the Eduard B-17 radio compartment set as it has all the same equipment as far as the different components carried, plus you get a couple oxygen indicators/regulators you can add onto your cabin walls plus some other bits and pieces that can be used. I also looked into Resin 2 Detail who makes 1:32 radios(less expensive too) but I don't think the set has all of the radios that were carried on B-25s, the castings look really nice though and the set is probably enough components to make due once you close up the fuselage you probably won't notice. Pat

The ribs on the side walls of the fuselage I "cold" formed by hand with .040 X .100 strips as the sides are almost flat, if you look at interior photos of B-25s you will see that they have larger size horizontal stringers in some areas, behind the cockpit there are more than in the rear fuselage. The rear fuselage is built almost as a "box" if you examine photos you can see that there are four larger horizontal stringers that are basically the same size in height as the ribs, I put the four stringers in first and then glued in the the vertical ribs that I cold formed in between the four large horizontal stringers(I used .040 X .100 for both). The upper and lower ribs above and below the for horizontal stringers I had to make templates and cut them from .040 styrene, you don't need to make a lot of templates, you can make ribs that are close to size and reshape them to fit each station, unless your planing to open up holes in the fuselage much of these fits won't be seen especially if your doing an earlier ABCor D variant with only the original windows. Also the ribs on the lower fuselage don't need to meet as there was much flooring in B-25s that covered a good portion of the ribs except near were the ribs meet the large horizontal stringers. The ribs from the rear end of the bomb bay forward are common shaped, if you use the kits former that goes behind the cockpit and the rear wall of the bomb bay you can get the shape you need for that entire area. Hope this helps !!! Pat

Ribs are .040 X .100, the stringers are .030 X .030.

Wondering if anyone has information on this particular B-25C/D. All I have found is 13th Air Force, 42nd Bomb Group(CRUSADERS), 75th Squadron. I haven't been able to find a serial number or any additional images that might show the rear of the aircraft. Any help would be appreciated !!!">http:// ">http://

RIBS, RIBS, RIBS and more RIBS, making some progress... ">http:// ">http://

I have to re-work the hole that I made for the astro-dome, I manged somehow to put it in the wrong location, way off....However looking at photos I have been gathering I was looking at one of the astro-dome and to my suprise I never realized that the hole in the aircraft is not round, it's actually square like the window on the earlier A/B models, learn something new every day. [/url]">http://

Making a little head way, man am I tired of ribs...unfortunately most of it will disapear once the fuselage is closed up but it's so hard to tell when you have enough inside that you won't see a bare piece of space when you look through one of the small windows of opportunity ??? ">http:// ">http://

GLUED.. ">http://

Tail planes rework success, I was able to cut out the recepticals in the vertical stabs that the horizontal stab plugs into. To my suprise I realized the the sockets are symetrical, so I was able to cut them out with the 3/16" off -set and simply swap them out left to right. Now I just have to reproduce the blank out cover and rudder hinge point on the outside of the stabilizer.">http://

I found that the kit turret is actually the right shape looking at photos of the real thing. The only modification I'm going to make is to polish out the multiple seam lines that were on the later turrets, the early C/D models only had the one glue joint going across the center left to right and some internal reinforcement strips glued on each side of the barrel ports internally. I will also have to put the opening in the front of the turret where the gun sight slightly protruded, early C/Ds had a different type of sight that didn't move with elevation, it had an internal mirror that moved up and down where as the gunners head didn't have to tilt back and forth as the guns were elevated and lowered. The lower turret I will have to make, I will probably leave it retracted as I preffer the look of the slightly exposed portion for some odd reason ??? [/url]">http://

A little more progress, figured I should start work on the interior so that I will be able to close up the fuselage at some point down the road. I'm trying not to "over" detail as most of the rear fuselage interior won't be visible due to the small windows of the early models. One note, I have to wonder how the kit manufacturers always leave out the armored door/bulkhead that is directly behind the upper turret on the early model B-25s ??? I have photos that clearly show it. The black object on the port fuselage half is the life raft receptical. I also opened the top of the kit's rear bomb bay bulkhead where the crawl space to the foward cabin is located on top of the bomb bay. [/url]">http://https://postimg.org/image/s5sh3elyl/'>

Thanks to a fellow LSP'er, I was made aware that the vertical stabalizers need to be moved up 3/16" , I plan to cut the mounting portion of the stabs with the fillets out carefully , move them down 3/16" and fill above, I will have to move the raised panel on the outside of the stabs as well and move the one slot in the rudders. ">http://

I enlarged this set of drawings :">http://

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://