bomber stash build

 Alright, I am headed back in my original direction. As awesome as the Pavla resin interior update kit is upon inspection I found that it is intended for the later version PV-1. Thus, there is no detail for the nose section. The early version that I am building has the nose windows for the bombadier station. It would look a bit funky to detail the interior and have none in the visible nose section. So, I will build her OOB. Alas, all is not lost. I just recieved the gunship version PV-1 that I got on ebay for $8.00 and I will detail that out. A nce future project. Seeing as this is a Bomber Stash GB I will complete the early version as it has been in my stash for quite some time. Well, for now maybe I,m done waffling.

                                                                                  Joe

very nicely done F111 Im glad to see you are moving along, great work on the camo looks like it could light up and fly away look forward to seeing your other builds, keep up the great work.

Very nice Aardvark!!!! Brother used to work on them when we lived in California and he was in the Air Force Reserves at McClellan AFB.

This thread is just what I need.  I'm at college right now and won't be able to start building again for another 2 weeks, but put me down for a 1/48 B-17G and a 1/48 B-25D

You can also follow my B-17 diorama here

/forums/t/127408.aspx

Here's an idea for a badge maybe....

Welcome redraider, I'm looking forward to seeing your build as well as as your dio, that sounds like an excellent project. Also I lke your badge.

My PV-1 is moving rather slowly but I get in a little progress in here and there. This kit has some fit problems and is going to take its share of squadron putty and Mr. Surfacer 500 to smooth her out.  Like you I'm a bit crunched on modeling time for the time being, balancing a new full time job, one part time job and a more than abundant weed crop.

Haven't seen much activity on the thread in quite some time so I was wondering how everyone else is coming along. Looking forward to some pics and updates. A little motivation is always helpful.

Hey all. Just an update from my end. I am awating the arrival of my resin cockpit for my Tornado. After looking at the stock tub and seats from Monogram I just couldn't see putting it in there. I actually bought a couple of resin British Pilots for it and the seat pretty much swallowed them up! I hope to have it soon and have some pic of it up here.

Travis/STFD637

Well I did finally get my wings put on the Wellington, I'm hoping to get some real building time this week.

can i enter please?

iv got 2 1/72 vulcans that im using to as guinee (sp) pigs

Can I enter here with an Accurate Miniatures B-25D I'm building for the Secret Santa build? That build is not very active.  I just closed the fuselage halves but I have progress pictures of everything I've done so far.

Eatthis and John  , I for one would love to see your builds and participation. I am guilty for being rather inactive in this build as I have made little progress on my PV-1 Ventura. In addition to sparse modeling time I have been concentrating on finishing my 1/48 Hasegawa Hawker Typhoon (nie on a year now). Unfortunately that project just encountered a delay as I dropped the gunsight into the netherworld of the fuselage and have not been able to retrieve it. Currently seeking replacement. Thus in the meanwhile I'll be getting some work done on the Ventura.

                                                    Joerix

1 of the vulcans is at the back im learning alot about filling with these kits lol

 Nice looking fleet you've got going on there Eatthis. I can relate to the filling learning curve as the Ventura is going to require a good bit of it. I just got some 3M Blue body putty that I'm going to try out as it has been recommended by a number of folks here on the forum. Keep the progress pics a comin'.

                                                           Joe

Eat that's a nice display there!!! Looking forward to seeing some get finished!!

Joe, had a mate do one of those PV-1s, Fondurie miniatures i think it was. where the horiz. stab. meets the fuse didn't have the right fillet look to it so he used CA and toilet paper I think it was. (yes there is a joke there) Sanded it back and smoothed it with mr surfacer and it came out really good. I think your body putty sounds much easier though.

  Hey All, Well I have actually made some progress on my Ventura. Unfortunately my Kodak Esyshare camera does not do close ups well thus I am currently photoless but I will post pics later that may not do justice to the build.

    Anyway, I have painted the engines and assembled the wings. This kit is a rather ill fitting beast and is requiring an inordinate amount of filling and sanding. But, this is all good as I am definitely getting some well needed practice. As I mentioned in an earlier post I was going to try out some 3M Blue Body Putty. My impression is that this stuff is pretty darn awesome. It fills and sands very well and most of all it does not shrink. The drawbacks are the fumes, respirator highly recommended, and it dries very fast. I am currently trying to find a viable solvent with which to thin it.  During the sanding process I discovered that small pits occur in the putty and if applied to thick does not "feather" well. I have remedied this by applying Mr Surfacer 500 to this spots and the results have been excellent.

  I have also sprayed the interior with MM zinc chromate green and painted the landing gear. I have assembled the nose piece which is molded seperately in clear and got it filled and sanded, All in all the Ventura is slowly shaping up. In addition I just recieved the Eduard PE detail set for this kit and am debating whether to apply it to this particular build. 

  That's all for the moment and I will work on some pics. How's everyone else comong along?

                                                                    Joe

alot of filler and sandpaper is goin into the vulcans the inlets being the worst parts

Hey There fellow Bomber Stashers, Be there any life out there in this GB? I have actually been slow but steady progress on the PV-1. Cockpit painted and fuselage halves together. Also wings and tail planes assembled. lots and lots of filling and sanding is certainly prolonging my efforts. I've added a squadron canopy as the kit canopy was so poor. The squadron canopt itself took a bit of work as some fuselage removal was involved but it is indeed a vast improvement. I will be posting some pics here in the next couple of days. I hope to here how the rest of you are progressing.

                Joe

As promised here are some pics of the progress I have made on the PV-1 Ventura. As I have stated earlier this kit is truely testing and hopefully improving my filling, sanding and scribing skills. I am currently filling and sanding around the replacement canopy. As far as the cockpit goes I scratchbuilt some rudder pedals and some cnter consol control levers and knobs. I do regret that my Kodak Easy share does not produce the best pics but i hope they are enough to give you all an idea of my work.

 I hope thiese pics jump start some activity here as I would certainly appreciate some feedback as well as seeing how you all are progressing as well.

 Thanks, Joe

Uhhh, Has this group build gone belly up and no longer active?

Pretty much it looks like. I am trying to knock out other build that are nearer completion before I resume work on my B-25.

Thanks for repflying stikpusher. I figure I'll just keep posting here and maybe a bit of a jump start here will occur. Bit of a bummer as this is the first GB or WIP I've done.  Look forward to your B-25 when you get to it.

    Joe

Well the way things are going for me now on cleaning up the backlog hopefully by mid to late Spring I can resume work on my Mitchell. I do hope your GB gets back to life.

There's some good stuff here. I hope you guys keep at it. I just finished a monogram SBD that I thought would be an easy build. It's that "ancient" confederate air force kit, I'm pretty sure whoever designed the cocpit had never even seen an SBD. I thought about diving in head first and make my first attempt at scratch building a cocpit. I scrapped the idea when my wife pointed out the size of my stash. Anyway, I spent forever on this kit. Turned out to have more fit problems then I've ever seen on a monogram kit. In the end it was worth the $1.25 I paid for it at a garage sale. In other words - keep after it. I'd like to share the SBD with you. Not the quality of what I see on the BB here, but I'm happy with it.

Heck, it seems to me that you made lemonade out of lemons. That is a very fine job for such a substansard kit. I especially like your weathering, very nicely done. You also seem to have dealt with all the fit problems well also. What do you use for filler putty, if any? I can appreciate what you dealy with as the Minicraft Ventura has a host of fit problems also. I just glued on the wings and tail fins and I find I am in for another substantial lesson in filling and sanding. I am finding 3M blue body putty thinned with acetone to be a blessing. Sands well, dries fast and does not shrink.

 I want to Thank you for sharing on this GB Axeman. It is a pleasure to see your fine craftsmanship.

                                                            Joe

Thanks for comliments! I used a bunch of squadron green putty in thin layers. The weathering I did was based on an article I read in FSM from Oct 2002. I put down an aluminum base coat with intermed. blue over it and and sanded it off with a 2000 grit sanding pad. Since the build was going so badly for me I felt like i might as well just keep sanding it off until I got what I wanted. A couple things I learned were I'm sure duh! things for mose but I was surprised how much a even a slightly different base color changed the hue of the top color. I was also pleased how the rasied panel lines showed up even though I sanded them off in the process. One last thing - future floor polish. It killed a bunch of the subtlety of the final finish when I applied prior to the decals.

I too am planning on using the same technique of undercoating aluminum then lightly sanding. It seems to have worked well for you so I'm encouraged. For me I overcoat with Testors Glosscote, then decal, wash and weather, then apply testors dullcote, and then work with pastels. But, again I have not done the sanding then glosscote before. Is this the subtlety that you lost when spraying on Future?

Yes, the future did it. Maybe it was washing off "dust" from sanding? When I did my first sanding I was "OH MAN I've Nailed this kit!" and I'm a little disappointed. The wings just never got back to where they were. The fuselage was pretty much the result of the blasted decals not working and having to paint them myself. The tamiya tape ripped the paint off in a nice pattern and I left it. Nefver painted insignia before this kit either. Will be doing it on the Stuka I'm doing now.

 i hope you'll share your Stuka, especially some WIP of the insignia painting as I am impressed with your results on the SBD.

Got my new issue of FSM today. There's an article about modeling with raised panel lines. It expalins why I lost the effect as the more I worked on it. It wasnt the future, it was sanding through the undercoat on the panel lines! Ok, Dave is smarter that I was. Thanks!

The Stuka is progressing well. I went out an primered it to see how the seams looked and it's pretty good. I'll post something once I've gotten the preshading of the panel lines done. I made one small mistake I'm a bit embarassed about. I grabbed my can of primer and it was actually gloss. Yuck. With the humidity here it will be a week until that dries.

 I haven't received my issue yet but I am excited to read the article on modeling raised panel lines as I have a hand full of old kits (Matchbox 1/72 PB4Y Privateer and Heinkel He 115) that I am dying to build yet not to keen on rescribing.

 I'm making slow progress on on the Ventura. The filling and sanding over and over is close to being done and I am about ready to shoot Chromate green on the clear part frames then a primer of Tamiya white which is no doubt going to reveal further filling and sanding. i'll be working up some update photos soon.

Looking forward to some pics of the Stuka. Joe