B-24D: FINALLY FINISHED!

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!

No worries, Bish! And thank you!

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.

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.

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!

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.

Fascinating job SIR!!!

The landing gear are all set!

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!

Glued the wing halves together and put the superchargers on:

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

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. 

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! 

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?

Thanks Baron!

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

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

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!

Yup! Thanks!

Make sure your nose gear doors are folded inward into the fuselage, not outward like on G models and beyond (except for some J models in certain blocks).

I glued the nose wheel on last night, used a pair of tweezers in a clamp to make sure the part went on straight.

I was JUST looking at that site before i logged back on to the forum. You're right. And it looks less complicated to scratchbuild! Thanks again for sharing it again, richs26!

A better choice is to use the USAF Museum's B-24D, Strawberrry B, as a pattern as it is darn near original in paint and configuration to WW II specs:

www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/.../B-24D%20Waist%20Gunner.html

Thanks for the ideas and encouragement, guys! I ended up looking around online and found a website of a gentleman who took a ride on a 252534, a Liberator called "Witchcraft", and sure enough the waist gun ammo is box fed. Time to break out the sheet styrene!

www.histomin.com/.../HMJ%2015%20Photo%20Tour%20-%20B-24%20Liberator%20Flying%20Museum.htm

Awesome Idea....a bit of thinning for scale and "Presto"!  great Idea rocker286  

rocker286

...I may end up making some ammo belts as well...

Were the belts fed directly into the guns from boxes, or was there a trough system on this model?  If it was a trough, you might be able to use a cable tie to represent the trough with a belt feeding through it.

Looking good, I cant wait to see more!

Thanks 7474! Here's another photo of the waist guns. I decided to be daring and detail the MG's. Last night I applied tiny lines of Testor's wood colored paint where the handles would be. I may end up making some ammo belts as well.

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Very nice model and tribute to the B-24 crews. My grandfather flew B-24s in India

I can't imagine either. Wow. They were brave guys to go on that mission! I never knew that they rotated the gunners either. I also never knew that there was a base in Tuscon! My grandfather was sent to Muroc before going over seas to Africa in 42'. Said the first week they were there someone found a bunch of rattlesnakes under the barracks they were staying in!

I should have taken a photo of the fuselage of the kit I'm working on, I used my rotary tool to drill/scribe out the tunnel gun windows, which I'll fill up with clear part cement. The kit also came with the tunnel gun window and frame for the .50 which is nice.