patricksparks Posted October 10, 2020 Share Posted October 10, 2020 (edited) Well I decided to take the plunge into the abyss of the Hobby Boss B-26 kit, yes its a bit of a mess, surprisingly thought it all seems to fit together pretty good ??? Yes the fuselage cross section mid town is wrong, I think though most scratch builders can make it look a little bit more "normal" the cowlings are also wrong, but it seems to be mostly in their profile, they don't seem to have enough "arc" in them , back to front, they have too much of a flat angle, I think you could glue a strip of styrene around the front third of the cowling and fill and sand and get the shape corrected. So Far I bought some Tamiya Corsair sprues with the propellers, I cut the blades back about 9/32" each in length, they might not be quite wide enough in cord but I think that they look pretty good. I ordered a 1:48 Monogram F-84, I'm going to use the drop tanks to make the wing tip tanks for this project, I was going to get the F-105 kit but they are a lot more expensive, doing some measuring it seems that these tanks in 1:48 scale can be cut down in length and suit the shape of the tip tanks, we'll see ??? The gun nose in the kit seems to be pretty close to the right shape in profile according to drawings that I have looked at. I'm looking forward to see others take the plunge into this end of the pool !!! Edited October 10, 2020 by patricksparks Out2gtcha, LSP_Kevin, Nailcreek and 16 others 19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fastterry Posted October 10, 2020 Share Posted October 10, 2020 I don't think Trumpeter or Hobbyboss make bad fitting kits and their surface detailing is usually good it's just that they don't pay enough attention to shape and details. I'm sure they do all their research from books and don't spend any time looking at or measuring real aeroplanes. Not going to buy one of these myself but look forward to you doing some good old fashion modelling. TRF scvrobeson, Nailcreek and patricksparks 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finn Posted October 10, 2020 Share Posted October 10, 2020 This manual may help in your project: https://www.docdroid.com/oiHN1it/douglas-b-26k-illustrated-parts-breakdown-pdf Jari patricksparks, Greg W, D.B. Andrus and 1 other 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patricksparks Posted October 12, 2020 Author Share Posted October 12, 2020 One thing I found with the Hobby Boss kit out of the box is the cowlings and front of the engine nacelles are slightly "skewed" towards the wing tips(see the first photo) I found if you trim the locating tabs on the back of the nacelle fronts(second photos) you can get everything back up and vertical. The next photos show the kit's nacelle front, the tabs on the back of the part can be trimmed or removed to let it be rotated to get the cowling and engine oriented beck to vertical. I have started making the modifications on the cowlings and the nacelle fronts for the A-26K, I have removed the front cowling carb intake, I cut off the front of the kit cowling and replaced it with the Tamiya front cowling ring that came with the sprues that I bought with the Corsair props, it seemed to help to get more "ark" into the cowling. The Taniya ring is slightly smaller in it's outside diameter so I added a strip of styrene in front of it as filler to sand away. I have my first blush of the A-26K final design carburetor intake on the cowling, I still have to do some filling but I think based on photos, it's pretty close to what it's supposed to be. chrish, Nailcreek, Trak-Tor and 24 others 26 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quang Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 Great to see some excellent old-school modeling. Looking for the next installment with anticipation Cheers, Quang Troy Molitor, patricksparks, Out2gtcha and 2 others 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spyrosjzmichos Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 This does look like an interesting project! Looking forward to more updates! patricksparks and Troy Molitor 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 You don't take much of a breather do you Pat? Great work! I was wondering when someone was going to build one of these Craig patricksparks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seiran01 Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 Awesome, great start! This will be a project worth following patricksparks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 Nice work! Love to see where you go with this one patricksparks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 Absolutely brilliant start! Iain patricksparks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patricksparks Posted October 14, 2020 Author Share Posted October 14, 2020 (edited) Did a few things today, I realized that there is a "step" on the starboard side of the cockpit sill, I looked a lot of photos of this area and could not find anything that indicates that the sills on either side of the cockpit are different heights, so off it came.... Removed... I also decided to go ahead and glue the vertical stabilizer halves to their corresponding fuselage halves so that there won't be an issue with everything lining up when the fuselage is assembled. I have cut the rudder halves into 2 pieces in order to widen the cord of it as the full size "K" model had a larger rudder. I looked all over to find the increase and it's a pain to find the real answer, I found 6 inches wider, 8 inches wider, 10 inches wider and 12 inches wider, so I settled at about 10 inches and I'm leaving it at that. I cut the rudder halves down the vertical panel line located about the middle of the parts and I glued .040 styrene strips about 5/16" wide in between the halves too widen the assembly. I will cut off the tail cone and put a filler in to push it out to meet the widened rudder. I did a little experiment with a propeller blade, I had a couple extra Tamiya prop blades and I took one and using my super thin razor saw I cut the blade down the center about two thirds of the way down from the tip, I then gently pulled the two halves apart to make the blade wider at the tip and then cut a piece of .040 styrene with a taper from zero to about .070 wide and glued it in between the spread halves, this gives the blade a closer look to what the "K" props look like. I have found some information that indicates that the propellers used on the real aircraft had a cord of about 15 inches, the Tamiya Corsair props cut down only scale out to about 10 or 11 inches, it does made a big visual difference looks wise. I don't know if I will go back and cut and widen all the blades now that I have already glued up the assemblies. Edited October 14, 2020 by patricksparks Lothar, Alain Gadbois, LSP_Kevin and 9 others 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 Super work, Patrick! Kev patricksparks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Molitor Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 Crack'en start Patrick. I love to see these builds start up. I'll be following your build like the rest of the masses. Great start. Troy patricksparks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richdlc Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 this should help you http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=34145&hilit=Special+Kay&sid=3577caaeb1a91bbba191c76e4d164c18 patricksparks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alain Gadbois Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 Impressive start! The modified intakes look great! Alain patricksparks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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