YAAAY getting close to finished.
Here's what I've done since the last post. I didn't want to bore you guys with the humdrum stuff like base color painting and clear coating so I fast-forward to this entry.
The yellow tail stripe was masked, sprayed Tamiya XF-2 flat white then two thin coats of MM Chrome Yellow. Cheap Modeling clay was used for the Grey/OD demarcation line . The clay left a little oily residue on the model and I've since bought " Sticky tack " for future use. I hope it does as well as the Blue tack you guys use.
It took 3 coats of Future to get it shiny enough for the over all oil wash to bring out the details and dirty it up . I had trouble with the decals falling apart,which where quite old, so I used a neighbor's scanner to print up some new ones. The decals came out good but I used Testor's laquer to seal the printer ink but that didn't do it. As soon as the new home- made decals hit the water the color disappeared. So, I sprayed Model Master clear on the old original decals so they wouldn't disintegrate and that pretty much did the trick. Note to self; use MM clear on all sucessive decals. I still had some difficulty with the original decals . Some of them broke up into 3 or 4 parts when sliding them off the paper but I persevered and they came out ok. I used a lot of Micro Set since most of the decal glue removed itself from the paper, having to soak them for quite a while due to their age, but they settled in quite nicely without having to use Micro Sol. Another coat of Future was necessary to seal in the decals, Then came the Brown/Black wash thinned 75% with Turpenoid and let dry for a couple of hours. Paper towels and Q tips where used to streak up the whole model, including the bombs.
While that was drying , the vacuuform canopy top and side windows where cut out carefully with a new Xacto blade then was masked and painted . The hole for the machine gun was cut in the nose canopy using the original nose piece as a template and at this time is where I managed to crunch in the nose right at the tip AAAAARGH. I'm going to use a painted masking tape strip over the two painted side seams on the nose to help cover the crunch lines and that'll hafta do it.
The landing gear was assembled with the added Edward PE and installed. The Bomb Bay PE stuff was installed.
The chiping was done by actually chipping the top coat with a dental tool and files, down to the Alclad primer, no salt or hair spray was needed. I found pics of the real B-26 in OD that where chipped lots worse than I did on the model, so I am happy with the way it came out. I haven't completed the chipping on the tail area yet.
Next up is some more little PE parts , Testor's Dullcoat and some exhaust and oil stains with pastells, and installing the opened canopy.
Thank to all of you for the reads and replies. Criticisms are greatly appreciated.