B-24D: FINALLY FINISHED!

Yup! Thanks!

Aside from (very) occasionally fishing, one of my other hobbies is reenacting the War of 1812. Back in the summer I was given some .45 caliber lead shot, too small for my .69 cal Springfield...I wouldn't hit ANYTHING with them at a target shooting event!  But since this kit looks like it'll need plenty of nose weight, I glued two musket balls and some sinkers into the nose of my Liberator. That's American ingenuity for ya!

Started working on the top turret last night. I have a feeling it may be a bit tricky.

Nice progress!  You're doing my nostalgia-building heart good!

Thanks Baron!

You're very welcome!  These large bomber kits are fun to build, and it's fun to follow others' builds of them, too.  Any progress shots since your last post?

Yep! I've been a little preoccupied lately on account of looking for a new job (dang layoffs!) but I was able to assemble the top turret. Each piece of the turret fit together very tightly when I dry-fitted them. So I didn't even use cement or glue to connect the pieces. It'd take the strength of Thor to rip off the clear part!  The ammo belts I painted over with Testor's Brass. It's difficult to tell from the photo but it came out nice! It's now ready to be masked off, as you can see:

I also started scratch building some ammunition boxes for the waist guns, which I unfortunately don't have any photos of yet. But I'll post them as soon as I can! 

I ended up finishing those ammo boxes. I wasn't totally happy with the way they turned out but oh well. I tried going for a wood grain look by adding putty to the exterior, then smoothing/scoring them with a hobby knife. I'll be building a few more for the nose guns, I'm thinking I'll leave the putty off this time. The ammo belts were made out of aluminum foil. 

I'm sorry for the quality of the photos...I tried using a different filter to make the photos brighter. 

Glued the wing halves together and put the superchargers on:

The landing gear were next. These aren't for the faint of heart! After checking my references, I realized that the two doors actually need to be bent out a bit. This was very easy to do, but I'd advise anyone else who's going to tackle this kit to be extremely careful with these pieces. They're quite fragile!

The landing gear are all set!

Fascinating job SIR!!!

Good progress!  For the landing gear doors, was it just a matter of scoring them along the point where you needed to fold them?

For wood grain, you might want to try the trick of using oil paints over an acrylic or enamel base coat.  You lay down the base coat, a medium tan, for example.  Then you take a brown shade of oil paint for the grain.  Put a dab of the paint on a piece of cardboard, like the back of a tablet or a piece of corrugated, and let it leach out some of the oil carrier (usually it's linseed oil as the medium carrying the pigment).  Dip the edge of the brush into this, wipe the excess off on a cloth or paper towel, and then drag the brush over the base color.  The bristles will leave trails in the brown color, that look like wood grain.  You can find tutorials on this on many modeling websites.  I've seen the technique used very convincingly to do the shellacked plywood finish of WWI German fighters, for example.

And for the ammo belts, try using old bits of cable ties (zip ties).  In 1/48 and 1/72, they can be used to duplicate the chutes with a belt of .50 cal ammo pretty well.

Thanks for the tips Baron! I didn't even realize that I should of scored those fold points until I saw your post. But I got those parts to stay bent thankfully! If I get my hands on some zip ties I'll definitely use them on this build or the next. Last night I worked on masking all of the clear parts - a job I think will take me some time to do!

Well, a couple of nights later and the windshield and canopy are done. I used Tamiya 6mm tape for all but two of the window panes. For the other two I used liquid mask applied with a syringe.

rocker, sorry, didn't realise this was now a WiP. Some nice progress there, I like what you have done with the waist gun positions.

No worries, Bish! And thank you!

Here's some more photos of my Liberator. I spent the past two evenings working on getting the right amount of weight in the nose and forward compartments so it wouldn't be doomed to a life of tail-sitting.

After five .45 caliber musket balls and about sixteen lead fishing line sinkers, the beast is finally sitting on it's nose!

If anyone else out there is planning on building this kit, take full advantage of the empty radio operator's station behind the cockpit (unless you want to go all out and detail that station!) I placed the majority of the weights there, as well as one behind the cockpit gauges. My next step will be to finish the interior and then glue this sucker together!

Nice work rocker. I gave up on nose weights ages ago. One advantage of doing diorama's, I can secure the plane to the base.

Can't wait to see some paint on this.

Nice progress!

I like Bish's observation, too, about dioramas and nose-heavy subjects.  I remember reading a tip when I was a kid, in Shep Paine's "Tips" in either the P-61 or the B-25 kit, to use a small bolt sandwiched between the nose wheel halves, to secure the model to his diorama base.  And I thought, "I never would have thought of that!"

By the way, if you want some cable ties, even for your stash, shoot me a PM with your mailing address.  I have a ton of cut ends, 4", 6" or so, and I'll be happy to drop some in an envelope to you.  I work in a small theater doing stage lighting, and we use cable ties to secure the power cords on our lights.  When a show is done and we move things, we cut the ties.  I scrounge them.  We go through them like eating potato chips.

Wow, I never would have thought of that either, Baron! And I do have a Black Widow kit lurking in my stash. Thanks for passing along the idea!

I hope everybody had a great holiday season! After visiting with family and friends these past few weeks, I was finally able to get back to work on my Liberator....and speaking of getting back to work I was able to obtain a new job, finally! And thankfully it's a day job, which will leave plenty of time in the evenings for model building.

Here's a photo of the engines and props. I've since put all the shafts into the gearboxes- and I found that the pieces that hold the prop shafts in end up restricting the movement of the props somewhat. It's no biggie if you enjoy cementing your props in place... but if you like them to be able to spin you might want to sand down the shafts (or widen the holes) a bit to ensure they rotate. I have one or two more things I want to add to the bombardier's station and then I will FINALLY be able to glue the two fuselage halves together. (I feel like I've been saying that for months now!)

I was finally able to glue the two fuselage halves of my Liberator together a few nights ago....let's just say it was a pretty daunting activity, but the halves are together! I was left with a few gaps/seams to fill, but nothing I can't handle.

Cemented the bomb bay doors onto the plane.

Coming on nicely there rocker.

Thank you Bish! I finally got a little time to myself this weekend and spent about an hour on my Liberator. Just a few more fiddly bits to mess with then I can glue the wings/tail/clear parts on!

Here's something I've got the Baron to thank for. I used a cable tie for an ammo belt for one of the nose guns. Thanks for the ties and the tip, Baron! It came out awesome!

Hey, Rocker, you're very welcome, and you've made great progress, it's really coming together well.  I look forward to your next updates.

hey everybody! I masked and  installed the tunnel gun window tonight. Here's a photo!