The Flying Prostitute- Monogram B-26 Marauder WIP

Heh... Just a quick lesson in Pentagonian...

Like why a sheet-metal screw costs you 2 cents and the Pentagon pays 112.39... For two cents, you get a Hex-head sheet-metal screw..

For 112.39, you get the M-18 All-purpose Cross-Slotted Manually-operated Rotary Inclined-plane Metalic Materials Fastener...

TODDGEN, now there's something you don't hear everyday! lol

Thanks... Yeah, those cowls are an adult female dog, as is the fit of the stabs...  Not haing built the kit since the 70s, I'd forgotten that it had a few problems... I've never found the 1/48th ESCI kit that came out around that time, so I've no comparison... However, I'm a die-hard Monogram builder, and I still insist that there's no kit from them that's as bad as some folks have purported them to be...  Once Monogram decided to make models instead of toys (Starting with the P-40B), they really set the standard of model kits for others to emulate.. Of course, the others did do that, and surpass, but not at nearly the same price...  I really get a "pang" of nostalgia for them when I look through my old mags from the 80s & 90s and see these same kits at 3.99 and such (I think the B-26 initially came out at around 6.99)...

Anyway, back to the build... I tried something different with the second Maruader, that is to say that I attacked the wing/fuselage joint with a sanding stick... It took very little effort to remove a couple areas that were causing the fit problem and I don't need to add any strip or sprue to fill the joint (it still needs putty and rescribing though not nearly as much)... 

I'm also using the stock rear turret set-up instead of the modified one, and that's gonna save some time, putty, & sanding there, although the fit of canopy section over the tail will need a bit of attention, as it doesn't sit properly on the fuselage edge if you make a tight fit of the rear section.. The situation is reversed if you go for a tight fit on the edge, the rear won't fit right, and sits too far below the rudder and at a rather extreme angle... So the strip will get used in this area to ensure a good canopy/fuselage fit... The other option, since it's a factory setting, is to not use it all and just detail the tail position, leaving the canopy at the side of the aircraft awaiting installation...  I'll use a Thumb-Operated Dual-sided Digital Decision Generator* (TODDGEN) when that time comes...

*TODDGEN= Flip a coin

Well I never use Bud, only PBR....

Ditto thanks for your tip.

I just came back from a garage sale where the XO bought two folding beach chairs. The guy wanted $ 10 the pair, I offered him 7 he countered 8 and I agreed if he threw in half dozen little shot glasses that look like little beer mugs. Paint mixing cups!

Thanks, Mac... Using the factory as an excuse to make the cut-away seemed the way to go... However, keep in mind you're looking TWO builds, not one... The flak damage is for an "operational" B-26 dio (depicting a turret-change), and the cut-away is for the "Rosie and the Baltimore Whore" dio... 

Bondoman, I thought about using some vac-form sheet initially so I could easily curve the panels that go into that area.. But your idea of a little "Budweiser Building" is a good one..  Truthfully, I never even thought of using aluminum until you posted, lol.. But, I'm gonna take your idea and substitute the foil cup from a tea-light instead of a beer can... That aluminum is better suited to the model than the beer can aluminum, which is stiffer and tougher to drill the rivet-holes into, since it's basically a heavy foil...

What's funny is that I sent a tip about using tea-light cups into FSM's "Reader Tips" and it got published... I pointed out that I used that stuff for making aircraft cowling, panels, what have you, then forgot my own tip when it came to doing it, lol...

Thanks for reminding me, man...

Hans, when you go to make the loose panels, I have one word:

beercan

Great detail work Hans!!!!  I think it will look great as a cut-a-way.  That flak damage looks very convincing. 

My father flew a number of missions as the pilot and co-pilot of Mild and Bitter. I may have some old photos of the plane. He passed away in 2008. His pilot/co-pilot is still alive and lives in California.

Bill Vollenweider bill@detroiter.net

Ok, here's some work on the opened radio/navigator compartment for the "Factory" dio...

I cut open the compartment with a saw blade in the Dremel, then cleaned up the cuts with a fingernail sanding stick.

I then added some framing with .020 strip with the wider strips being doubled to .040 by laying them alongside eack other and hitting them with some liquid cement.

I painted them interior green of my own mix (90%Testor's MM OD & 10% Insignia Yellow) and after they dried, put the "holes" in them with MM Flat Black.  These are temp holes, BTW.. I wanted to see if the effect would good enough, or if I would have to drill a LOT of # 80 holes in the strip, hence the sloppy work... I think the paint effect will be good enough, so I'm going to paint the holes after the model is finished with a toothpick-point to keep them uniform in size (There really should be two rows of holes on the wide strips, but I think it looks OK as is)..

Anyway, that's where we are today, Men..

Thanks fer lookin'..

Well, I took saw to styrene, and it's open now... I REALLY wish I hadn't done it, but...

Any, first things first... For the other diorama, the plane's fuselage, wings, and tail have been assembled after adding fishing weights to the navigator's compartment, and the cosmetic work started... I had to add some styrene strip at the wing/fuselage joint on the left wing, some stretched sprue on the right.  Both underside joints had strip added.

Both get puttied and (Wet) sanded smooth, then I'll rescribed as necessary. You can see the actual size of the gap in the bottom wing.

The tail got modified with the kit part, and I added PE ammo chutes from the B-24 kit as well as a ring site.  I had to assemble it with the canopy installed (which I hate to do) as the part won't fit into the position once the horizontal stabilizers are installed (keep that in mind for your future build of this kit).   I thought about adding the ammo boxes and gunner-seat, but once the frame is painted, not much will be visible there... 

Here's a shot of the flak damaged fuselage.

I did it the usual way, by chucking a steel-cutter in the dremel, and grinding the plastic away in various areas until it was paper-thin, then punched through with the X-Acto Knife, twisting here & there, and doing it from the outside.  On the OTHER side though, the "flak frags" created exit-holes, so I punched through from the inside to model the skin being ripped and pushed outwards... That's it for today, kiddies...

Hans von Hammer

The skin removed with the ribs showing would really look good. 

In order to "justify" it, what do you think about showing a worker (Rosie, of course) passing a skin panel to another worker in/near the compartment? 

hey.. I like that idea also! 

I like that idea!!

The skin removed with the ribs showing would really look good. 

In order to "justify" it, what do you think about showing a worker (Rosie, of course) passing a skin panel to another worker in/near the compartment? 

The skin removed with the ribs showing would really look good.  Like you say, if it is not accurate, it still is visually intriguing and will tell a story and show a part of the aircraft that is rarely seen.  Before you suggested this, I was going to throw out that you do severe flak damage that opened up that compartment, but then there would be the question of, "How much damage to the equipment in the compartment?"  I like your idea, and what the heck, it's your sandbox.  Keep it going.  Rick.

Klik

You know what else would be cool for a dio and would display the interior? Place it in a dio where it is being scrapped for salvage- cut the tail and nose off, maybe a wing, and put it up on blocks, with men wielding torches climbing all over it. Just an idea...

Looking forward to seeing it finished!

I've got a "Before & After" pair of dioramas of a P-47 in England in 1944 and then the same plane being scrapped in California about ten years later to cover that...  It's shelved right now to do the B-26s, but I'll get back to it after this build..

Ok, based on the replies and my own soul-searching (which included an hour or at the bench just looking over the mess I've created on it with these two kits), I've decided that "Flak Bait" will go onto the diorama as a normal build, however, it won't be "Flak Bait"... I decided that I'll do a Marauder from a spurious Bomb Group undergoing a top turret removal after a mission in which that area took a murderous flak hit that ruined the turret and wounded the gunner...  Gonna borrow some of Shep Paine's work on the B-17G diorama for that... I've already "flak damaged" the area with the Dremel and a steel cutter bit, so there's no turning back, lol...

The model with the scratched interior details will become the subject of the "Factory" diorama...  I thought that I could remove a top hatch from the radio compartment (hadn't noticed it before today) and thusly expose some more interior detail, but it turns out that that hatch is actually for the life raft compartment...

Although... I could still open that hatch and forego the installation of the compartment (the compartment itself is visible as a large "half-pipe" shape that runs down the center of the compartment ceiling), just to make the interor visible and damn the rivet-counters' opinions on whether that area would have the compartment installed at that stage of assembly...

I still don't think that it would hurt to have the skin removed from that area though..  Probably wouldn't happen that way, but a little artisic license would appear to be in orer given the work I did there...

My question is: Did it still fly missions after it was signed and had reached 100 missions, or is there part of the decals I could cut out to make it have, say, 75 missions under its belt?

I'm not up on any of the missions "Mild & Bitter" flew, but you should be able to trim the decal to reflect any number of missions if you can trim them so as to keep them in line...

Here's the only two pics I've been able to find of her:

I haven't been able to find any of her right side...

As for whether or she flew beyond the 100 mission mark, from the news article it appears that she didn't... It seems that the Army Air Force PR branch was quick to send her home to Wright-Pat...

I'd have to vote diorama, too many cool possibilities to pass up! I just bought the re-release at my LHS, and would like to do "Mild n' Bitter".  The problem is, the kits decals appear to be from after it had finished 100 missions, and is signed by all of the crew.  My question is: Did it still fly missions after it was signed and had reached 100 missions, or is there part of the decals I could cut out to make it have, say, 75 missions under its belt?

You know what else would be cool for a dio and would display the interior? Place it in a dio where it is being scrapped for salvage- cut the tail and nose off, maybe a wing, and put it up on blocks, with men wielding torches climbing all over it. Just an idea...

Looking forward to seeing it finished!

According to something I read, somewhere, sometime (meaning I don't remember) is that I THINK they slid aft...

Hans von Hammer

You could always build Mild and Bitter as well as Flak bait as both were from the same squadron.

Actually, although they were from the same Bombardment Group (the 322nd),  "Flak Bait" was from the 499th BS (PN*E), "Mild & Bitter" was a 452nd BS (DR*X) bird... Haven't found any shots of "Mild & Bitter" on a Google Image search yet.  Is there something unique about her that you know about A post-mission photo or something? I haven't heard of her until now, other than during the search, I found a 1/72 kit that had its markings as an option.

 And how will you improve the waist gun sections?

Dunno, haven't got any pics of that area yet, but I'd imagine that there's a floor, ammo cans, oxygen bottles & hoses, toilet, electrical conduits, etc, and the Putt-Putt (APU) is also in that area, although I'm not sure if that's actually in the tail or waist...

I know there is at least one photo of Mild and bitter in the Squadron B-26 in action book . And what were you going to do about the waist hatched because I don't know if they swing open or slide open?

I vote cut-away on simple base with lihgting all the way Hans!

Brian

p38jl

Another idea ,, instead of a "cutaway" , open up all the access panels, hatches, cowlings, etc,.,. as if for an inspection and overhaul was going on..

This is the basic scene I want re-create with the second one (although I plan a few changes in the "sub-plots"):

You could always build Mild and Bitter as well as Flak bait as both were from the same squadron.

Actually, although they were from the same Bombardment Group (the 322nd),  "Flak Bait" was from the 499th BS (PN*E), "Mild & Bitter" was a 452nd BS (DR*X) bird... Haven't found any shots of "Mild & Bitter" on a Google Image search yet.  Is there something unique about her that you know about A post-mission photo or something? I haven't heard of her until now, other than during the search, I found a 1/72 kit that had its markings as an option.

 And how will you improve the waist gun sections?

Dunno, haven't got any pics of that area yet, but I'd imagine that there's a floor, ammo cans, oxygen bottles & hoses, toilet, electrical conduits, etc, and the Putt-Putt (APU) is also in that area, although I'm not sure if that's actually in the tail or waist...

Hans von Hammer

B17Pilot:

You could combine the two and do a factory scene like Shep Paine did in the pamphlet.

 

Oh hell yeah, I wanna re-create that one.. That's the plan for the second one... Got the engines ready (I cast some extras from a Monogram Black Widow). You mean perhaps that I remove the skin in those areas (radio/nav and waist),  right? How about showing the turret being hoisted into place as well?

think I agree, a cutaway probably wouldn't look as good, in a dio, though it could be done.  But I think a cutaway looks better on a display that doesn't have anything else around it to distract from the interior.  As to a display for it, you could apply some creativity to the base, that is, perhaps to shape it like a unit badge, or maybe make a plaque to fix it to and hang it on the wall for display, something like that.

Not a bad idea about the badge for a base, Brad...  Whattya think if I were to re-create the "Flak-Bait" nose art to about a 18 x 18 inch drawing and decoupage that onto a plaque? Or use it as a background, and mount the artwark on a plaque, then another plaque at a 90-degree angle to it for the model? 

You could always build Mild and Bitter as well as Flak bait as both were from the same squadron. And how will you improve the waist gun sections?

Another idea ,, instead of a "cutaway" , open up all the access panels, hatches, cowlings, etc,.,. as if for an inspection and overhaul was going on..

B17Pilot

You could combine the two and do a factory scene like Shep Paine did in the pamphlet.

Oh hell yeah, I wanna re-create that one.. That's the plan for the second one... Got the engines ready (I cast some extras from a Monogram Black Widow). You mean perhaps that I remove the skin in those areas (radio/nav and waist),  right? How about showing the turret being hoisted into place as well?

think I agree, a cutaway probably wouldn't look as good, in a dio, though it could be done.  But I think a cutaway looks better on a display that doesn't have anything else around it to distract from the interior.  As to a display for it, you could apply some creativity to the base, that is, perhaps to shape it like a unit badge, or maybe make a plaque to fix it to and hang it on the wall for display, something like that.

Not a bad idea about the badge for a base, Brad...  Whattya think if I were to re-create the "Flak-Bait" nose art to about a 18 x 18 inch drawing and decoupage that onto a plaque? Or use it as a background, and mount the artwark on a plaque, then another plaque at a 90-degree angle to it for the model? 

You could combine the two and do a factory scene like Shep Paine did in the pamphlet.

On the question of adding weight, Terry Dean makes a weight specifically for this model. It is molded to go between the aft cockpit bulkhead and forward bomb bay. Its only a couple of bucks. works fine.

Mike