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WIP: 1/32 Hobby Boss B-24J "Callipygia": Cockpit Insert Complete 3/2/2021


Dennis7423

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What do you do when you have several LSP's in progress? Well, you start another one of course! I've been itching to get this one started, and during some recent down time because of a nasal surgery, I finally had the time to do so.

 

B-24H 42-94920 "Callipygia" (Latin for "Beautiful Buttocks") was assigned to the 489th BG, 846th BS flying out of Halesworth. She was destroyed beyond repair during a landing accident in February of 1945, with no injuries or fatalities. She's in a beautiful and worn olive drab over neutral grey, with bright green and white tail planes. A very good looking bird in my eyes!

 

CALLIPYGIA1

 

When the Hobby Boss B-24 was first announced, I knew I just had to have one. When the museum my brother and I are building kits for said they wanted one, it sweetened the pot to build one of these big ugly beauties, and store it somewhere else! While the aircraft I am depicting is actually a B-24H, I am going to model the J in her markings, without doing much to convert the nose from the J to the H. But shh... don't tell anyone she wasn't actually a J!

 

When I received the kit, I too realized that it's a mixed bag. There's some good, and some bad. Sone, I will correct, like the radio room (see below), and others, like the wings, I'm not going to bother correcting. At the end of the day, I want to have fun with the build, and not beat myself up creating a completely accurate scale model. Besides, she's headed to a museum to tell a story, not be a dedicated account of a reduced size B-24 for review. She'll certainly look all Liberator when she's completed.

 

I have acquired all the of the Eduard sets for the kit, including photoetch and resin wheels, Eduard Brassin resin guns, and I will be adding Brassin resin bombs and turbos from their B-17 set. My Vector engines arrived a few weeks ago, and they are an absolute must for this build. I have a set of AMS propellers, too, which were molded off of the HK B-17 props, which are quite nice. The only thing still outstanding that this build, in my eyes, will require, is new turrets, which hopefully Ali came come to the rescue with in the near future! So, without further adieu, let's get cracking on this one.

 

I was toying with how exactly I was going to correct the radio room and the bulkhead between the cockpit and radio room. In a real B-24, that "bulkhead" is not load bearing, and is often not even present on real aircraft. It was typically a field-applied conglomerate of brackets, stringers, and plywood to fit the needs of the crew proper. Down side? The kit piece needed some serious work to become a more accurate representation. Second downside (but a fun one): With the bulkhead now opened up, the very, very sparse radio room is now very, very visible. Upside: This area differed from bird to bird, so I could use some creativity here. Yay scratch building! Once I had secured several references, studied photographs, blueprints, diagrams, and cutaways, I finally felt confident and competent enough to start in one it:

 

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There's a lot more viewing room there now! And with the big greenhouse canopy, side windows, top turret, and my intention to open up the escape hatch behind the cockpit glass, this area just screamed for some work. I found on eBay (source: happy.lappy) some resin US radios in 1/32. They were perfect! So I ordered two sets. To boot, I had a set left over from a previous B-25 set that he makes (highly recommended, by the way!), so I could get to work strapping resin into this space:

 

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Other bits added include oxygen bottles from Master Details, and some resin parachutes/personal dinghys from AMS. You'll also notice the scratch-built wiring channels on either side of the radio room, as well as scratch-built collapsible doors leading to the bomb bay and nose. There's still lots more to add, but I want to get a little paint down before I get too in the weeds with smaller stuff. I've also started on some of the other items associated with the forward nose, and the pilot seats are currently drying on the work bench as I type this:

 

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It looks like it'll all be visible to the keen-eyed observer once it's all sealed up. And besides, even if its not, I know its in there!

 

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That's all for today. This build will be a slow burn, as I am still cracking away on the Lancaster and some other projects as well. I wanted to get my radio room ideas in process before they exited my brain in another fashion, and I am quite pleased with the results!

 

As always, comments and critiques are most welcome! Thanks folks!

 

- Dennis S.

   Thornton, CO USA 

Edited by Dennis7423
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35 minutes ago, easixpedro said:

What museum is it headed to?

 

Peter, it will eventually be headed to the Vintage Aviation Museum in Salt Lake City, UT. They are relocating from California, and will eventually house two airworthy B-17's... B-17E "Desert Rat", and a yet to be named B-17C.

 

- Dennis S.

   Thornton, CO USA

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1 hour ago, Dennis7423 said:

When the museum my brother and I are building kits for said they wanted one, it sweetened the pot to build one of these big ugly beauties, and store it somewhere else!

 

THAT is what I need!  Where do I get one of those? ;-)

 

Great start to the build, BTW - I'm looking forward to following (even if I'll never have enough storage space to do a heavy bomber in 1:32).

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50 minutes ago, Dennis7423 said:

 

Peter, it will eventually be headed to the Vintage Aviation Museum in Salt Lake City, UT. They are relocating from California, and will eventually house two airworthy B-17's... B-17E "Desert Rat", and a yet to be named B-17C.

 

- Dennis S.

   Thornton, CO USA

Cool!  I've been following the Rat's restoration on FB for years. It's a fascinating story for certain.  Glad that Vintage Aviation picked it up to get her across the proverbial finish line. And always good to pass on your work to an organization that can use it--that's what I do w/ 90% of my builds.  Figure I'll reach out to the SAC museum for mine when that time comes. They've got every strategic bomber except a B-24 which is a shame IMHO.

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29 minutes ago, aircommando130 said:

Awesome  work so far! I have the "D" model...been gathering upgrades to build as a "carpetbagger"

all black special operations B-24. Will be following along....

Ron, that sounds like a fantastic project!

 

I can highly recommend the resin radio set from happy.lappy on eBay. They are well molded, and drop-in bits for this bird (which doesn't come with ANY radio gear at all. I ordered the oxygen stuff from Master Details via Ultracast in Canada. Both are highly recommended for these builds!

 

- Dennis S.

   Thornton, CO USA

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I did order the radio sets! I have the quickboost props...vector engines and cowlings...new metal landing gear...The carpetbagger aircraft

had the oxygen system removed...all the guns removed except top turret and tail...a "joe hole" to drop agents behind enemy lines where the 

ball turret was in addition to a bunch of other modifications to the aircraft. I will be following along with you!

 

Cheers...Ron

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16 minutes ago, aircommando130 said:

I did order the radio sets! I have the quickboost props...vector engines and cowlings...new metal landing gear...The carpetbagger aircraft

had the oxygen system removed...all the guns removed except top turret and tail...a "joe hole" to drop agents behind enemy lines where the 

ball turret was in addition to a bunch of other modifications to the aircraft. I will be following along with you!

 

Cheers...Ron

 

Well that just sounds like a really neat project! Looking forward to seeing it when it comes together.

 

- Dennis S.

   Thornton, CO USA

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Fantastic start to this one Dennis, I have a J part built as Tubereo, the assembly ship. I stopped because I wasn't sure how far to go with the interior as you can have a field day on the whole interior should you wish! 

 

Have you seen the true details wheel sets which are really nice and if you are going to town on the interior Profimodeller do a really nice interior decal sheet as well.

 

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Fantastic work so far and looking forward to seeing her come together.

 

Regards. Andy 

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34 minutes ago, monthebiff said:

Have you seen the true details wheel sets which are really nice and if you are going to town on the interior Profimodeller do a really nice interior decal sheet as well.

 

Andy, I'll have to check out the stencil set! that would be quite helpful. My concern with the True Details wheels is that the mains more closely resemble vehicle tires... they have flat side walls, and a flat "road" surface as well. Eduard makes two really nice sets for this bird with great diamond tread patterns, and a nose wheel with a see-thru hub. I'll be going the Eduard route on mine :-)

 

Looking forward to seeing yours come together as well!

 

- Dennis S.

   Thornton, CO USA

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31 minutes ago, phantom said:

Working on my B-24D. A lot of interior parts to this one.

Mime

 

Yes there is! I'm actually pretty grateful that aside from adding ribs and stringers to the nose, and detailing the radio room, the rest of the interior is quite complete. I'll only be adding a few small bits and pieces to the rear, which includes replacing the seriously oversized portable oxygen bottles in the kit. It's actually quite comical how big they are... the gauge at the top is as big as a bloke's face!

 

I'm hoping to get the stringers and whatnot added to the nose this weekend. Here's to hoping!

 

- Dennis S.

   Thornton, CO USA

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3 minutes ago, Dennis7423 said:

 

Andy, I'll have to check out the stencil set! that would be quite helpful. My concern with the True Details wheels is that the mains more closely resemble vehicle tires... they have flat side walls, and a flat "road" surface as well. Eduard makes two really nice sets for this bird with great diamond tread patterns, and a nose wheel with a see-thru hub. I'll be going the Eduard route on mine :-)

 

Looking forward to seeing yours come together as well!

 

- Dennis S.

   Thornton, CO USA

 

Just checked out those Eduard  wheels and they look the business dont they! At the time the true details wheels were the only thing available but I think I will ditch these now fir the Eduard items!

 

Regards. Andy 

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