FINISHED -- Revell 1:48 scale B-24D (NMF) Part two of my B17, B24 and B29 trilogy.
Last year I decided to build America’s three heavy weight bombers of WWII. Since I wanted the builds to be 1/48 scale, I chose Revell’s B17, B24 and B29. These are older kits from the Monogram era. They have raised panel lines and are decently detailed. Last year I finished the B17 http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/2/t/169251.aspx . It is a weathered, war weary rendition of the airplane.
This week I finished the B24.
The B24D in a lightly weathered natural metal finish. Except for the tires, the build would be straight out of the box. I chose not to make the same mistakes that I made when building the B17. When I built the B17 I purchased a bunch of after-market resin detailing kits. I spent hours and hours painting an adding the resin details. Guess what? Ninety percent of the resin details were not visible after the kit was finished. I did not repeat this when building the B24.
There is one huge problem with this kit. The locating pin at the front of the fuselage is in the wrong location. This causes the two halves of the astrodome’s frame to be misaligned. I resolved this by removing the locating pin and using clamps to align the two fuselage halves. Another issue is that the instructions indicate that the propellers are to be installed early on. This is not feasible because they would be easily broken during the remainder of the build process. I added them at the very end of the kit.
This plane has a tricycle landing gear; however, the finished kit is very tail heavy. Initially I tried to install lead weights into the front of the plane to prevent tail-sitting, but there is not enough room for the large amount of weight. So I decided to go with Revell’s solution which is to use the “crew’s ladder” to support the tail. Unfortunately the ladder is too weak to support the weight of the plane’s tail, so I glued it to the door of the crew’s access opening.
The plane is painted with Model Master Metallizer rattle can pant. I used two colors, Aluminum Plate and Stainless Steel. First I painted the kit in Flat black. After that dried I applied three coats of Auminum Plate. When that was dry I burnished it with a paper blending stick. I then masked the kit and applied Stainless Steel in certain fuselage panels.
I burnished those panels and removed the tape. I then rubbed the paint with 0000 steel wool to give the paint an "aluminum grain". After burnishing, the Metallizer paint is very durable.
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Following are photos of the final build. The plane is lightly weathered with Tamyia acrylic Smoke and Testor's Black Wash. It is important to dip the brush in water prior to dipping it into the wash. Otherwise the wash is impossible to wipe off. After the Summer I'll build the B29. That will be a good winter project.
