Yeah, very nice work SP, almost there now! I love how you greyed out the decals.

Thanks Bish. It came out like I was hoping that it would so far...

Looking really good there SP. I am liking the look of the OD.

Thank you sir! It's finally getting to the point where it is starting to take final shape.

Nicely done, stik.

I forgot to add this to yesterdays work. I used a windscreen in my spares bin to create the armored glass for the tail gunner yesterday... first I cut the rest away, then masked and painted it up
masked and frame painted

and mask removed

and I tried something new today. the kit decals depict Flak Bait as she appeared at the end of the war with white squadron ID codes. But thru most of her time in the war, she wore gray codes. Not wanting to try and find the old OOP Aeromaster sheet with the gray codes, or paint the kit's white codes gray, I opted to try some masks that I had in my inventory for another build, but had not yet used. I used Humbrol RAF Ocean Grey and like how it looks. But the masks did leave a bit of a gummy residue on the flat OD paint. I think next time that I use them I will do it over the future gloss coat to make the removal of residue easier.... but anyways not bad for a first time of trying them out...

also my research showed that Flak Bait had "grayed out" national insignia for much of the war, so I thinned down the same Humbrol Ocean Grey and grayed out the white areas of the kit decals...

and I touched up the OD panel fade, and removed the stripe masking in preperation for gloss Future coat and decals.

I just need to mask off the top turret itself before I spray on the Future tomorrow or Sunday. The tail gunners armored glass is drying in place right now...

The Marauders worked at medium altitude where they could be under the weather and SEE what they were bombing... sometimes even low enough to be threatend by blast damage and debris from their own work!  Now as for those 4 engined boys...

Looks great SP, I really like the shading!

Be careful with the friendly fire please guys!

With my carpet or on it.

Looking good Stik, I can't wait to see her finished!

I sure hope so! LOL!

Stik and CMK02> Good going, guys!  Both looking pretty nice.

I take it you're both going to make the carpet bombing before Operation Cobra? 

Gary

Thanks! I'm glad to see that I have company here with your Liberator!

Good going, stik.  Looking fine!

as promised earlier today...

I had a good airbrushing session today, took care of a few things. Plus my work over the past few days that I had not photgraphed before today.

Tail guns all finished and ready for installation

Props ready for decals and then installation

Now I had filled the nosewheel with birdshot, just in case to make sure this build will not tail sit. But even after I filed away as much as I could to glue the wheel halves together, there still was a sligh gap. I was not sure how to approach it until I thought of stretched sprue and lots of the hottest liquid cement that I have...

I have since sanded it down and added tread with an xacto... worked like a charm...

and then I added some panel fade using Polly Scale USAAF Olive Drab over the Tamiya OD. If you look carefully, you can see where I dinged up the finish a bit and will need to go back and touch it up tomorrow... ah well....

and everything just about ready for gloss coat and decals in the next couple of days

More updates tomorrow evening...

I have been at the workbench all afternoon here myself. I should have some photos up on here later on in the evening of today's work.

Thanks very much, all of you.  I prefer the OD, too--including on B-17's.  More interesting, I think.

I'll be applying some clear coat to the fuselage, putting a wash into the panel lines, then decaling if I can salvage the decals.  The IP decal and seat belts shattered.  Had the kit sitting around too long, I suppose.  But I have a MicroScale product to try.

Most of the wings are painted, too; so hopefully things will start moving a little faster now.

She looks fine on my monitor, really nice work!

Ye, looking really nice there Check. And I am with SP, I much prefer the OD scheme.

Looks good there CMK! I like the Liberator in warpaint far more than in NMF.

Managed to get some painting done on the Liberator fuselage over the weekend--then followed two days of late work, so things are going really slow.

After I got the paint done, then I noticed a spot in front of the top turret where I missed some sanding gouges.  Have to wait for the paint to cure fully before I can try sanding it again to fix it.

I used WEM's OD 41 for the basic color, then over-sprayed with a lighter mix of WEM and MM OD.  In the photos, it appears sort of grayish.  Must be the lighting and the flash.

Again SP, very nice work!

Amazing work Stik!  I'm in awe

Yes this build has lots of colors different than the typical USAAF build normally does both internally and on detail parts. Yes the OD & Neutral Gray with invasion stripes is typical, but that's about it...

Great looking work on the Marauder, stik.  Nice touch with the bombs; makes them different than the run of the mill.

Nice pics. I might do that with the fins on one of mine. I have some of those M5 trolley's, just trying to get hold of an M6 bomb truck.

This photo is my prime shot of the bombs

and if you look in the background here...

Bomb dump

I have seen pics of yellow bombs. The reason for the different colour makes sense. Why bother re painting, they hardly need to be camouflaged on the way down do they.

I did come across pics of bombs having there fins attached close to the aircraft when researching a couple of Dio's I have planned. I noticed on the bomb trolleys they even have fitting to hold the separate fins.

Bish

SP, looking sweet there. Was it standard for fin on bombs to be painting yellow, or are they a specific type of bomb?

I had a feeling that the bomb fins were gonna garner some attention. On the Life photos I found a few there showing just that,  so I did some digging. it would seem that prior mid 1942, the standard color for USAAF/AAC bombs was yellow. Then it switched over to OD. My guess is that these fins were old stock made before the switch over.  Since bombs were stored without the fins in bomb dumps and not mated to the fins until just before being loaded on the bomber, this seems the most probable explanation that I could come up with...

GMorrison

Oh and from an old ex "hippie".

Last week I attended a celebration of life for a good friend and ex boss of mine.

Flew the B-26 in combat.

In memory of John O. Merrill.

www.marinij.com/.../war-hero-architect-john-o-merrill-jr-tiburon

Didn't see you there, Bitbite.

Not to be mistaken for trading on the mans reputation, but we all grew up with WW2 vets and however we protested war (hippies) we had a very good basis of knowledge.

I guess I didn't merit an invitation.  I didn't mean to touch a nerve there, Mr. Morrison.  It was meant as a "South Park" reference . . . a joke . . . and nothing more.

My condolences for the loss of your friend.