B-24J 42-99949 of the 93rd BG/328th BS - Naughty Nan

[ChuckD]

14 hours ago, denders said:

That's looking really nice! I never knew there was a mud guard in the nose wheel compartment. 

Funny enough there's not... If you knock it off so many times that it gets put in the bowl of stuff to be added to the build at the last moment. 

 

[Iain]

Looking absolutely fabulous Chuck!

 

Iain

[LSP_Kevin]

Excellent work, Chuck!

 

Kev

[monthebiff]

Nice work Chuck, I had the same fuselage fit issues as you and it was down to the internal bulkheads being oversize causing the problem.  Once I sanded them down a little the fuselage fit was very good. I'm thinking of doing the same with my wings and was wondering what the fit is like on the spar once those internal locators have been removed?

 

Regards. Andy 

[ChuckD]

Hi, Andy.  Initial testing looks very promising.  There seems to be significant contact surfaces between the interior of the wing and spar piece, such that there is still a very positive location effect. So, the wing positioning is very good, but without the anchors, the wings will definitely slide off the spar piece under their own weight.  The wing root fit also seems very close and can be closed entirely with a little upward pressure on the wingtips.  I'm thinking I will use 5 min epoxy on the internal structures and rig up a jig to hang the beast from its wingtips while it sets.  Worst case, I'll have to add a little extra thin cement to the roots and will touch up any damaged paint.  Time will tell soon enough!

[ChuckD]

Back at it again.  I've more or less finished the build... well, I made it through the instructions anyway.  There's going to be lots more to put together as I paint things. 

 

Despite the progress, there's not a lot to show.  Just a lot of time sticking slabs of polystyrene together and lopping off a half a million sprue gates. 

 

Of interest... The quickboost prop vs the kit part. 

 

QB

 

Hobby Boss... The prop hub and blade shape are pretty bad.

 

The landing gear is an amalgamation of 3 separate sets.  Eduard wheels, Synthetic Ordnance Works struts, and Hobby Boss supports.  The wheels and struts are orders of magnitude better than the kit parts.

 

With the tail together, she's really starting to look the part!

 

I can start shooting some paint soon!

 

Edited Thursday at 12:19 AM by ChuckD

[ChuckD]

After a busy weekend, I got a few hours at the bench today.  Making slow but steady progress.

 

The way the cowls go together, they all had this little ridge that needed to be filled.  Mr Surfacer 500 did the trick.  I thought I took pictures of them filled, but apparently not.

 

While the Mr Surfacer was drying I decided to fill this gap in the nosewheel of the Eduard set.  Epoxy putty was the answer here.

 

Way more better.

 

I also added the brake lines with solder wire.

 

The ball turret went together pretty well.  The Eduard mask set was a godsend here.  I first painted it interior green then the neutral gray of the belly.

 

I finally got the bomb bay doors on.  I held off as I thought they might get damaged as I was sanding the belly seams.  If you follow the instructions, Hobby Boss would have you add all eight bomb bay door pieces - 4 in the open position and 4 in the closed position - so, be careful with that one. 

 

The ball turret is fully installed.  It is held in place only by the plastic shaft that has to mate into a cup on the top of the fuselage interior.  I'm glad I left the bomb bay doors off until I got that in place as I was able to see the shaft and cup.  It would have been nearly impossible otherwise.  The belly plate around the ball turret will require some filling at the fore and aft ends, but nothing too bad.

 

Here's a crappy photo of the engines in the wings.  I didn't realize my phone decided to focus on the ever so important trash can in the background.  Anyway, the engines are about as underwhelming as has been reported elsewhere.  Not that it can be seen here, but I did add the eduard ignition wiring set which helps spruce things up a bit, but yeah.  A pretty poor showing by Hobby Boss.  On the plus side, their simplicity made making 4 of them a pretty straight forward affair.

 

Most of my day today was spent sanding the wings and nacelles.  The sanding required for the nacelle left a small divot at the join where the cowling sits.  So, as I closed out the night, I filled that with epoxy putty and will sand it into shape next.  Once that's done, it'll be a relatively quick rescribe and rivet job and it that should just about do it for the body work.

 

With the engines in place and a couple placeholder turrets, she's really starting to look the part. 

 

I'm debating my previous opinion of when to attach the wings.  I might be able to finagle it around my workbench and painting area, then I wouldn't have to worry about touching up any sections after gluing the wings on.  Time will tell, but I think I'm still on track to finish it by the June 6th deadline.