Second model: 1/48 Revellogram B-25J

Nice job!  Take any oppurtunity you can get to take pics of actual aircraft any chance you get!  You'd be surprised the more models you do, you might find yourself getting interested in something you didn't think you would.  I know I have!  Some planes can be so ugly they are beautiful, lol.  I'm not a fan of the B-2 at all though, lol. 

Thanks for the kind words.  The "Wings of Freedom Tour" is in my town today so I went by and took about 100 up close detail pics of a B17F, B24J and B25J.  After I got home, I dirtied up the undersides more.  That plane was filthy after flying yesterday.  You know what they say: when it stops leaking oil, you're out of oil!

I want to do a super detailed 1/48 or 1/32 B17 at some point, so I took a ton of pics of the B17 especially.  Was able to walk through the whole ship except tail turret so got lots of detail shots of cockpit, bombardier's office, radios, as well as exterior details.  Will be happy to share if anybody needs them.  Fewer pics, though still a lot, of the 24.  That's such an ugly boat!  I know they were important planes but I can't get interested in modelling that one. 

I am extreemly impressed with this beiing only your second model. You Sir have some mad skills and I'm looking forward to your next W.I.P.

Chemteacher

Great job. I have this kit in the ready locker. Due to limited display area, most of my models get hung from the ceiling of my work area. Any insight on how much of an issue it would be to build this kit with the gear up?

 

Not sure since I never dry-fit it that way, but it seems that you could button it up pretty easily. 

And finally, finished photos:

Nose art

Topside detailing.  Used a pin wash of raw umber oils, followed by dullcoat and chalk pastels for more tonal variation, exhaust staining, and dusty footprints on the wings.  Finally a little drybrushing with silver

Underside.  Wasn't thrilled with how light the exhaust staining came out on the grey.

A little gunsmoke:

Signal lights:

As for the nose weights, I applied 5 or 6 split lead fishing sinkers in the bombardiers tunnel and between the cockpit bulkhead and instrument panel.  Still, though: 

This has been  a really fun kit to get me back into the hobby and practice some new techniques.  Thanks everyone for your encouragement and tips along the way.  I've got a Tamiya 1/48 Razorback kit arriving tomorrow, so expect another thread soon!  

This is the first time that I have looked at this post. You are doing a great job. That will be a nice looking aircraft.

I hate to ask this question, but did you add any weight to the front of the plane to keep it from sitting on its tail. Maybe you did and I missed it. I have not built this model, maybe it does not need nose weights?

getting there! Assembled except for fiddly bits, final paint down and gloss coat on for decals

I had the same issue with the nose glass on mine and I too moved the guns to make the glass line up. Your work and paint looks very good. I may have to do another one of these.

BK

Well that explains that.

Sorry to hear about the broken MG barrels though. That's never fun. I once cut one in half when not paying attention to where my clipper blades were. I fixed it, but it was a big swear moment regardless. Lol

it wasn't that bad. I removed all the guns (easy because I used CA), taped on the glass and shimmied the guns through the holes. Then reapplied CA.

Funny story, though... Trying to take the glass back off to mask for painting, I completely shattered all four barrels. I switched out the other nose with the two gun barrels and moved on with my life. 

I think it's looking good!  How much rearranging did you have to do with those guns to get the nose to line up? I haven't heard that mentioned before.

Fixed the glass nose issue in the expected fashion - redoing the placement of all the guns. Overall, the nose of the plane is the only major fit problem I've come into with this kit, but it's been kind of a PITA. Got on to some painting. Trying my hand at black basing. Definitely can improve my technique on this. The wing is finished with the initial color - going to add some highlights. Don't know why it's showing up so light on this picture. It's Olive drab. Fuselage is pictured after the "marbling" layer. Im going to put a couple things blending coats of base Olive drab over this before adding highlights.

I read elsewhere about using Liquitex flow enhancer to make MM acrylics easier to work with and reduce tip dry.  I went to Michael's (my only local source for hobby and art supplies) and they were out of that, but I bought some Golden retarder and added 2 drops to a half-full cup on my Patriot.  This did improve the tip dry issue significantly.  I still had to brush it clean, but not as frequently.  

Model Masters was the best I was aware of the last time I was modeling, oh, about 25 years ago, so when I bought my first kit off scalehobbyist, I got some of those.  I've since realized that they are widely disliked (the acrylic version at least).  I've read some great reviews of the Mission Models paint line.  I've been in touch with their CEO, who says a pretty full line of WWII and modern aircraft colors are coming out this week, with about thirty more to follow in July.  Once those are available from Mega Hobby (the only one of the big online retailers who carries those paints, that I've seen), I'm going to get some USN colors and do a navy bird for my next project.  Dauntless or Helldiver maybe. Or a Hellcat.  Or Corsair.  Or I could do another of these kits as a PBJ-1....

Very nice work your doing here.

Cant help with the dry tip issue, but as a general check pherhaps try these.

1. Air Pressure - As I found over time, no one pressure fits all sprayed media

2. Cleaning - After every session I shoot laquer thinners through my AB. I strip and oil/clean all parts every 1-2 weeks depending on use.

3. Paint - I manily use Tamiya (coming from my childhood days) which I only thin with laquer thinners and shoots great. Mr Hobby is the same regement as Tamiya, MRP straight out of the Jar.

Keep up the good work.

I think your progress is fine and I commend you for experimenting. I'll have to start trying to do some weathering in the near future.

As far as MM acrylics are concerned, I gave up on them with my Badger 105 Patriot. Not necessarily because I couldn't have found the magic combination of thinner to paint along with, perhaps better techniques while airbrushing - I just tried Tamiya and have not looked back. That, of course, is exactly what you were NOT looking for in your query so I hope someone on FineScale can help. Any suggestions you get I'll also be reading.

A little more progress.  In spite of my best efforts, I ended up with a pretty big step on the air intake on my port wing.  I built it up with Bondo applied with a popsicle stick, then smoothed out after a few minutes of drying with a q-tip dipped in lacquer thinner.  This was then sanded smooth after drying for 24hrs.

Detailed up the dorsal turret:

And last night, finally got grey on the underside of the wings.  I made a large batch of neutral grey with 2:1 flat white:flat black, and then made two highlight shades in 5:2 and 3:1 ratios.  I convinced myself that the tonal variation showed up in person, although it doesn't look like much in this photo.

As you can sort of see in the above photo, I tried some basic weathering.  I used acrylic washes, dry pastels, and wet pastels.  I wasn't thrilled with any of the results and washed most of it off.  There's a little shadow left around the aileron.  You may also notice that I achieved a very nice seam free join somewhere that there is not supposed to be one: the gear bay door! After notice that mistake, I tried rescribing it a little.  It's not great but no one will see it on the undersurface of the wing. 

As a side note, I'm having a huge problem with tip dry on my Badger 105 using model master acrylics thinned with windex.  I've tried brushes and qtips with a variety of solvents (windex, water, alcohol, lacquer thinner) but it seems to take a good thirty seconds of cleanign for every thirty seconds of spraying.  Other than trying another paint, which I plan to do with my next model, any tips?

Update: the caulk has shrunk down a little more after a couple days, so I would recommend two applications for any use, knowing that it's going to receed somewhat.  

Bomb racks and sloppily-painted bombs installed:

Engines painted and detailed, installed with cowlings onto engine nacelles:

With the wings completed, I think I'm going to try spraying the OD/NG on these. My only pause is that I'm going to have to mix the grey, since I don't have any, and I'm not sure I can make it an exact match when I mix the rest for the fuselage.  

This little post was broken out of the box. Replaced it with stretched sprue.  Hopefully it'll be strong:

Bought quick boost barrells.  Unfortunately, the set I got's for the B-25B, which means there are only seven barrels instead of the 19 on this bird.  I'm going to use them on the nose mounted guns and the waist guns.  

Also sadly found the mask set I ordered was for the -B model, meaning it's not very useful for the canopies on my J.  I'm going to experiment with a couple of things, since fortunately this kit comes with two complete sets of clear.  Has anybody ever tried painting over the whole canopy and picking the paint off of the clear glass with a toothpick?  As tedious as applying a pre-cut masking set seems, using tape and cutting each window out individually seems even more so.  

I may have to give the caulk thing a try myself!  I've been using perfect plastic putty, and I really love it.  But if I run out I know what to try!

Nice looking build so far!  I'll be watching.

The gap filling latex painter's caulk? I can't imagine machines guns are all that troublesome. Lol!

Just a standard pencil works fine. The softer art ones are easier to grind down if you want to brush it on though. Hit the highlights or, as I do, rub down the entire thing. You won't be able to get all of the crevices, but you don't needs to. "Try it, you'll like it" lol. I do this on all gun barrels. Its just the most realistic finish for them IMHO.

You can even black wash over it for filling in the deep areas!

Yeah! Paint them flat black and rub them down with a graphite pencil. If you can find an old lead pencil theeffect is not as stark, but wil look the same after a clear coat.

Easy, effective, and looks perfectly like the real finish.