[COMPLETE] 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 May 2, 2024 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. 

[mozart]

Big beastie Chuck! Presumably that beautifully detailed and painted ball turret stays in its retracted position? 

[ChuckD]

17 hours ago, mozart said:

Big beastie Chuck! Presumably that beautifully detailed and painted ball turret stays in its retracted position? 

 

Yeah, sadly.  There's no provision in the kit to extend it, though if you were doing a gear up, hanging from the ceiling display, I suppose it would be easy enough to fabricate.  I kinda wish I'd replaced the plastic rod in the kit with metal as it's super flimsy and I'm worried I'll break it as I'm maneuvering the monster around to paint.  Even in the retracted position, it still protrudes slightly.

 

Anyway, the good news is that I got a little time at the bench today and she's officially ready for paint.  All body work and sub assemblies are done.  All holes are plugged and masked, so we are ready to go.  The bad news is that my wife and I just decided to kick off a fairly major home improvement project, so my next few weekends are pretty well booked solid.  I'll see what kind of time I can squeeze into bench time, but I'm not sure I'll be able to pull the whole thing off by June 6th.  Maybe I can do a massive marathon session for memorial day and pull it off in the end.  Cross your fingers.

[ChuckD]

Well, be still my beating heart.  A month and a half later and my replacement turret from CWS has shipped.  Now to see how long Bulgaria Post takes to get it here.

[dennismcc]

What a fantastic build, when I re started my modelling voyage I would not have believed that  a 1/32 scale four engined heavy would be possible.

Ok it is a bit clunky but still to me an astonishing thing to behold.

Keep up the good work.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[ChuckD]

Hello, all.  Nan is making slow, but steady progress towards the finish line.  I'm still waiting on Bulgaria Post to deliver the resin tail turret, so in order to wrap this build up for the group build, I may tack the kit's tail turret together, then readdress it once the aftermarket turret arrives.  But, with the exception of that little pothole, the road seems clear to finish this build this weekend.  Here's to hoping.

 

I've fallen into something of a bad tendency where I get so focused on what I'm doing that I forget to take pictures.  Thus, my build threads tend to have quite a few gaps.  I'll try to be more cognizant of that in the future.

 

Anyway, on to the pics I do have.

 

The beast is preshaded.

 

And the first layer of OD Green (MRP in this case) is laid down.  I was able to mask the leading edge boot by simply laying down strips of tape, then tracing the panel canyon/line with a knife.  The panel lines, few though there are in this kit, are very very deep.

 

After considerable time spent with a garden hose of MRP, I got the base coat down.  The reference a/c shows that it still had the deicing boots on the leading edges, so I painted those first, masked them, then painted the green.  I love MRP's paint, but their OD green is very very dark, so I lightened it up a bit by mixing their OD green and Dark Yellow, thinning it and fading the upper surfaces.  The effect is subtle, but it definitely helps. Tough to see in the macro shot below too.

 

The turbos have since been painted.  I masked the wheel wells with silly putty, my favorite modeling material.

 

Fast forward a week and it's time to mask the name.  There are only 3 pics of this plane that I can find and none of them show the nose all that clearly, so I tried the best I could to replicate what little I could make out.  I tried printing decals for it, but the resolution on my printer is kinda crap and they came out grainy.  So, it was back to my old trusty standby... masking.

 

First, lay down the whole mask, then carefully remove the letters.

 

Spray yellow and carefully place the letter masks back on.

 

Carefully (notice the theme here?) remove the letter outline masks.

 

Spray the shadow color - in this case MRP IJN Cowl color - remove the main masks....

 

Then remove the letter masks.  Voila!  Love it.  The mask cutter is the single most valuable return on hobby tool investment behind the airbrush.

 

After the above, I applied a filter last night.  Next up is chipping, washes, weathering, final assembly, then done!

 

As an aside, a B-24 without a nose turret looks like a perpetually shocked water buffalo. 

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Excellent mask work, Chuck! The B-24 is looking great.

 

Kev

[ChuckD]

Almost...

 

...there...

 

 

...but I'm outa gas tonight.  Turrets, props, and aerial wires and she's done tomorrow morning.  Amazingly, I had to add more weight to the nose to keep her from tail squatting.  Wild.

[ChuckD]

As an aside, I cannot wait to do something small next.