vetteman42

Redraider56 your B-26 is in and on the front page Seems like the builds are getting bigger this time around dont it

Yup.  I'm big into medium bombers, but doing OD over gray is getting too dam boring, so I need something big and shiny to break up the monotony

Alright. I'm ready to announce build #1 for this GB!

Dragon's Orange Box M4A4 Sherman!

Amazingly, outside the Revell 1/32 Sherman, it's the cheapest Sherman in the scale I could find. And it qualifies for Amazon Prime so...free shipping! 

I've heard the kit itself is somewhat lacking, but who cares? I'm going to be slapping it together and painting it silver with racing stripes, for goodness sakes!

Haven't worked out the exact scheme, but it should be pretty awesome. Also considering trying to source a spoiler for the rear deck. You know...for downforce.

Doogs: You gotta find a chin splitter and some fat slick treads or how bout those 60's style flying wing spoilers.

Some progress on "Bottoms Up". I finally found a picture.

Glad I found this before I started sanding off the armor plate under the cockpit windows. Apparently they left the armor when they removed the package guns

Almost ready to button her up. Just gotta figure out how much wait to stuff in the bombadiers tunnel.

Hey guys sorry I haven't been around seems life hit a major bump ? No a bigger drop off, more like a sink hole, yeah that's it, a sink hole. Anyway its gonna take some time to get the hole filled and paved over again so I may be gone from here for a few days at a time in the next few months. My niece had one of those "What the were you thinking" phases and is in hospital for maybe 2 weeks. Almost lost her, shes over the hump now but it will take time for her to beat this thing. Aint life's drama a wonderful thing ???  NOT.

Doogs yes yes your tank is listed on the front page, can NOT wait to see what you come up with.

Jbrady you are the first to start a build for the group, and yup its a great start too I like the detail you picked out and you did a very good job on the seat belts too. The IP really looks good man !

i hope everything quickly gets back to normal for you vetteman!

Hey Vetteman, hope all will be well with you.

Don't put me on the roster yet, but I will for sure join this build! I am still working on my ace projects.

EDIT: Wow a Monogram B-29!!! Your going to have fun with that! I built that when I was 15 remember? I bet you will do great. I just had trouble with that front windscreen, but I am sure you will figure it out.

Some progress on the B 25 J

Lots of putty for the cowlings and the center line seam on the underside of the airframe... my favorite thing. Suppose I should get rid of the dog hair.

Is it to late to enter into this GB. If not can you add me for a 1/48 Revell B-25 Mitchell.

Jbrady lookin good there guy. Your 25 doesn't look to need as much putty as some I have seen so your careful fitting has paid off

Jetmodeler it wont be too late to jump in till May 1 2012 so your build is in and welcome to the group. looks like we will have a number of Mitchells in the group, thats way cool.

Some more progress on the B 25 J. The fulegage join was a little off so I decided that the larger gap would be on the bottom because I worried about the fit of the clear parts on top... may bite me in the butt later the bottom is the part with the NMF.

Good fit on top

SO So fit on the bottom

Upside is the clear parts fit with just a small gap on the left side. I do have a problem with the sprue attach point... don't know how I'll deal with that.

The cowlings were'nt nearly as bad as I thought.

more later.

This is gonna sound a little rediculous but will anyone complain if i make a chrome tank?

Scorpiomikey

This is gonna sound a little rediculous but will anyone complain if i make a chrome tank?

Way cool. I think Doogs ATX is doing a NMF tank for this build.

That will be interesting, hes got a sherman, ive got a tiger. mines only 48 scale though, although we could put them in a diorama with a scaled effect going on.

V-Man: Sorry to hear about your niece. I hope she's doing better.

Jbrady: Nice work! Looking forward to seeing her finished with a nice shiney coat.

Doogs and Scorpy: Only thing better than a chrome tank is TWO chrome tanks. Am so looking forward to the shoot-out between the chrome crusaders!!!

Gamera

Doogs and Scorpy: Only thing better than a chrome tank is TWO chrome tanks. Am so looking forward to the shoot-out between the chrome crusaders!!!

Heck yes! 

Though mine won't be chrome, exactly. Right now I'm thinking it'll be overall duraluminum/white aluminum/what-have-you with darker gradient ghost flames up front. Maybe a racing stripe, too, but that might be overkill with the flames.

The name? Why, "Ronson Racer", of course!

CallSign, Raptordriver and Gamera thank you for the good wishes. She is doing well just has one more surgery to go this week. And thank you all for understanding my absence.

Raptordriver I do remember your B-29 and you did a fine job on it too, just hope I can do mine justice as well.

Jbrady wow you have handled those seams very well, in fact it looks like you did some talented fitting to keep them from becoming canyons. Keep the pictures coming man

Scorpiomikey yes yes another shiny chrome show tank is more than welcome. And a Tiger in chrome would be something to see too, just let me know the kit info and I will get you listed on the front page.

Doogs a racing tank ??? Now that is a cool idea ! Just a thought, but the hot rodders here are getting into an etched chrome thing, shiny chrome with a frosted highlight kind of thing. Would look really good on a tank too I think.

Sweet, its a tamiya 1:48 tiger 1

Scorpiopmikey your build is listed on the front page so you are officially in. Cant wait to see the Tiger and Sherman.

vetteman42

Scorpiopmikey your build is listed on the front page so you are officially in. Cant wait to see the Tiger and Sherman.

  A chrome Tiger and a racing sherman. Thats going to be very interesting.

jbrady~ Your B-25 looks great so far.

I'll post some pictures of my progress some time soon. I actually started the build about 3 or 4 weeks ago and haven't worked on it since.

Hey guys thought I would share something I saw, have no pictures though, bummer that it is. But while I was out and about yesterday I saw a polished aluminum, very highly polished BTW Ford Cobra. Really cool looking and first time I have even seen one that wasn't fiberglass. Anyway there is a chili cook-off and car show coming up next weekend hopefully it will be there and I will get pictures of it to show you. Also might spark some ideas too.

Okay so here is my progress so far.

A huge seam going down the back.

A big gap. Anyone know how to fix that one?

And another big seam.

The wheels so far.

And a pic of the bombay. One of the bombay doors came off. An easy fix though.

jetmodeler

A big gap. Anyone know how to fix that one?

Jet - eesh that's a nasty one! From the pics, it looks like you may have wanted to do a bit more cleanup on the sprue tabs, since they seem to be preventing the fuselage from closing entirely.

First thing I'd do would be to check the canopy and top turret and make sure they fit alright. With a gap that wide, you might find they're suddenly too narrow. 

To fix the gap, I'd recommend getting some thin Evergreen strip, stuffing it into the gap, and welding it in with Tenax/Ambroid/equivalent.

I did something similar with some nasty wing root gaps on a Monogram P-47 I was building last year (though I caught the gap before assembly, and tacked the strip onto the wing before joining, but same principle)...

vetteman42

Hey guys thought I would share something I saw, have no pictures though, bummer that it is. But while I was out and about yesterday I saw a polished aluminum, very highly polished BTW Ford Cobra. Really cool looking and first time I have even seen one that wasn't fiberglass. Anyway there is a chili cook-off and car show coming up next weekend hopefully it will be there and I will get pictures of it to show you. Also might spark some ideas too.

Call me crazy, but I'm not a big fan of polished aluminum or chromed cars. Honestly I think bare aluminum is the absolute bees knees when it comes to cars:

I'd say the evergreen method is probably your best bet. Must admit i did alot of cleaning up on the fuselage halves of my mitchell with dryfits inbetween so my problem was slightly less severe than that... (see monogram mafia GB)

A method i often use is to use white fast drying wood glue initially (use my finger to rub it right into the seam, usually closing it up. Excess is easily rubbed off with a wet cloth). After that is fully hardened i repeat the process or go the normal putty and sanding way, depending on how bad the seam is.

Good luck!

Richard

Doogs & Richard~ Thanks guys for the tip. After the assembly dried I test fitted the clear parts to see if they would still fit. I was actually very suprised about the fit. They fit perfect. So its actually an in between moment when you hate the gap but glad its there.

Well, i started the tank last night, i think itle be quite a quick easy build, even with the foil. Once ive got something to show ill post photos.

Jetmodeler: A couple of things on the fit of this kit. I'm working on the same kit now and here's some things I did to improve the fit. I made sure that the internal bulkheads for the bomb bay and the bombadiers compartment in the nose conformed to the shape of the fuselage. It took a little bit of sanding to get a good fit but it made a big difference in how the fuselage halves went together. Doogs comment on the sprue attachments is right on. They are unecessarily large and do interfere with the fit. Last your bomb bay door is splayed too far open it should be more closed. Keep the outside of the door in the same plane as the side of the fuselage. Probably too late to help but I found that careful sanding and fitting before glue minimized the headaches others reported with this kit.

An update on the B-25. Decided to detail the nose compartment since this is going to be a glass nose. Added a True Details resin side wall and replaced the kit bombsight with one that is more in scale. The kit one looks like it is closer to 1/32 than 1/48.

very nice detail, jbrady! helpful for Im planning a b-25 too, so all of this is very helpful!