Jay Jay

That's certailnly high praise from a pro such as yourself.

Whoa Nellie! Although I am flattered by your kind comment, I am a long ways from being any semblance of a pro. Heck, I've only managed to complete 7 models since I got back into the hobby 6 yrs. ago. Not quite enough to thoroughly hone my skills.

Very nice modeling!

  You are doing such a great job on this kit.  I'm enjoying the updates as they come.                            knox

Beautiful work.  Gotta tell me though, what did you use for the interior of the props.  It looks awesome.

Joe

TY Fightinjoe,

The props ,as well as the wheels and engines, are a base coat of decanted Krylon Fusion Gloss black , masked and oversprayed with Alclad II Aircraft Aluminum ,very lightly sprayed at at about 10 psi.

The Bomb bay is Alclad II  Polished Aluminum which is , strangely enough , less shiny than the Aircraft Alum . shade.

I'm going to wire the engines and the dirty them up a bit, along with the props, so the Alclad is just for a highlight effect when done.

"Just saw this. =] Really nice so far.  Are you in the Boeing GB?"

No BV, I'm not in the GB.  I build far too slow for that, but many thanks for the compliment my friend.

Besides, I think the B-26 was built by Martin not Boeing.

Thank you so much Brindos . Your comments mean a lot to me.

Incredible work!

Woot !   thanks a ton Huey !  I'm so glad you think so.

I'm rather rare visitor here and I see I've missed a lot - great looking job so far!

To Richs26

I viewed pics during my research that show the B-26 with a dark OD paint and I like the look so I'm going with that.  Weather it's an OD #41 or not IDK, not familiar with the # paint designation .

I did a Huey with the MM OD and was not crazy about the color, so I'm mixing my own OD with Tamiya OD and a little Tamiya brown.

Olive Drab #41 is the official OD designation for USAAF aircraft until it was revised in 1943 for ANA 613 is which is the same as the paint that Army Ground Forces equipment used.  Hueys used a totally different green color from OD #41 and ANA 613.

I hit a formidable wall guys.  

Installing the PE exhaust flaps on the engine nacells is a real bear and I'm having a hard time figuring out how to best do it.  You hafta cut out the molded in flaps , which was done with a razor saw, then bend 4 tiny flaps and CA them into the space on the naccells.  Maybe I can CA the flaps together on a piece of tape  then install them on the naccells IDK .  The 1st. try is not so pretty good.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The next pic is of the finished engines, all painted, washed and wired.  Wow the PE wiring is so small you can't hardly see it.

Last pic of the Bomb bay doors bent with the PE hinges installed and finished on the inside.

Ty for the read and reply.

P.S.  an oil wash was used on the engines as it seemed appropriate  lol

Your engine is amazing, I wish I could do that.  Fantastic job, and the flaps look absolutely fine to me.

Toshi

Hi Gang,

Finally , after much trials and tribulation, here's my update to the B-26.

The wings where assembled , sanded and primerd with Alclad Primer and micro scratch filler.  This is the 1st. time I used this stuff and I am impressed.  No polishing of the plastic was required prior to priming, but I did clean everything  with 91% alcohol like Lawdog says.   The fit of the engine / wheel nacells left much to be desired especially in the hardest to sand areas where they fit up with the wings... that figures.  

The 1st 4 pics are of these areas after fixing.

1 step Bondo was used smoothing it out some with a Q-Tip dipped in acetone...( that's a cotton bud for you Brits. lol ) then CAREFULLY  filed and sanded to avoid removing the raised details. Man that took some time to accomplish.

The last 2 pics are of the fixed, filed and sanded engine cowlings(  Arrrgh !) with the PE exhaust flaps installed. That was fun and I really mean it Herbie.  

I now can begin to understand why big bucks are spent on model kits. The expensive ones just hafta fit better than this $25 one.  More time was spent on this kit fixing the ill fitting parts than anynthing else combined. Waaaa.  and I'm only half done with the ass'y.  But because of all you good fellows' advice on here, I'm up to the challenge.

Next up is the ass'y of the fuselage halves and completing the Bomb Bay PE stuff.

I'm going to also pose the canopy in the open position with the gull wings and side glass open.  I have a vacuu-formed canopy on the way to facilitate this operation.

The pink colored filler you see are the actual holes where the parts didn't fit right, filled with the bondo

Your work is incredible, especially on this old kit.  I'm sorry I missed this one until now.  

Joe

You've 'er looking good so far Jay Jay. The tedious work that you're putting into it now is going to pay off huge in the end.

To Lawdog;    I have to thank you again for all your tips on here. I couldn't have done it without them. "incredable " ?  you,ve made my day Sir.

To Joe Rix;   Thanks again  and I sure hope so.  I've been building this one with the adage constantly in mind..." I'd better fix this now or be sorry later "  

I forgot to add in my WIP that the disks you see inside the nacells are custom cast lead.  I simply made  a mold by drilling an appropriate sized hole in a piece of wood, then poured lead  into it.  I used my wife,s little food scale to pour 1oz lead disks and epoxied them into the nacells so the thing will not tail sit.

Jay Jay

I forgot to add in my WIP that the disks you see inside the nacells are custom cast lead.  I simply made  a mold by drilling an appropriate sized hole in a piece of wood, then poured lead  into it.  I used my wife,s little food scale to pour 1oz lead disks and epoxied them into the nacells so the thing will not tail sit.

Well, I'll be danged. That's downright brilliant Jay Jay. I tip my hat to you.

Thanks Joe, I've cast a lot of fishing lures in my time so that was like a natural thing to do for me.

Very nice update, everything is looking good.  

How on Earth did I miss this before!?! Fantastic work JJ, I've got the same kit in my stash, I'll pull it out every now and again, glance though the parts and put it back in the box and move on to something else. Will be following with interest!

Many thanks Toshi and Gamera,

I really appreciate your comments as they motivate me to press on.

I'm still working on the wings because during the priming, the air brush stream picked up tons of "micro fibers" in the air and deposited them on my paint job, which resulted in little tiny hairs all over the wings...more sanding and reprime.

I have an air filter in the house and I going to run it it in garage, where I do my spraying, for a couple of hours berfore I fire up the AB next time.  maybe that will solve my contaminate problem.

Hi All,

Here's another update ,albeit small, on my B-26;

Since my last update, I have been filing,filling and sanding.  I was just about to close up the fsg. when I noticed the bottom windows looked real yucky.  I removed the kit parts and tried unsucessfully to make windows with epoxie and then Testor's clear glue. So I had to ream a channel all around each window from the inside with my trusty Dremel to thin down the plastic and insert film made from blister packs.

The first few pics are of the finally finished wings and engine nacells.  I used Alclad primer ...good stuff.

The next few pics are of the assembled fsg. This took lotsa time as I had to file , sand and fill the stepped seam almost all around the length of the fuselage.  Near the nose is a sliver sharpie try for checking the finished seam.  Behind that is the length of fsg that was filled with Mr. Surfacer # 1200, then sanded again b4 the Sharpie test.   Between the turret and tail as well as the whole underside is the Mr Surfacer unsanded.

Next up is repairing all the raised panel lines that got sanded off.  I'm going to attempt to build up these panel lines by painting Mr. Surfacer between two strips of tape before priming the whole thing.  Wish me luck.   Ty for visiting.

That's a very inventive way to re-address the raised panel lines.  Good luck on this procedure, I'm looking forward to the outcome.

Toshi

Thanks Toshi, I am too  lol

Very solid work Jay Jay. Your patient and diligent puttying and sanding is really paying off. That silver sharpie method for checking seams is effective for sure. I do the same thing but, with a Testor's silver paint pen. I'm also very curious to see how your raised panel line method turns out. Never seen that tried before. The best of luck. You're doing fantastic. Just keep bringing it.