You said it Gamera. Invasion stripes on fuselages are hard to do. Of course I'm sure some are easier than others. I'll figure it out somehow.

Ken: These photos came out great- very nice work!

BS214: Yeah, I always do the white area first and then put in the black. Not sure what else to tell you though, I'm not that good at this either- yeah the fuselage ones seem hardest to get right.

Oops.... I meant to GAF's suggestion. LOL!

Bish - I was measuring it that way (total length) for my stripes. LOL! No matter how hard I tried, it comes out either too long or too short.

Greentracker - I was using a caliper (cheap plastic kind from Harbor Freight) and that one gives me fits as well. Nothing to lock measurment in place. LOL!

stik - I may have to try that route using pencil......

Wings aren't the problem doing stripes on. It's the fuselage that's giving me fits. LOL!

Good advice there Gary.

Glad to see you got it sorted Ken. Great pics.

Black Sheep I used a caliper to get mine. I wasn't having much luck with a ruler, so I bought the caliper.

Thanks guys, the camera setting was way off. Duhhhh any way here are a couple more pics.

just thought you might like to see my builds for this GB together

BlackSheep,

Try not to anger the stripe gods.  Set out a tall, cool beverage (of your choice) and relax.  Stripes will come.

Not sure if you're trying to do individual stripes, but the easiest thing to do is first measure out the total width for all the stripes on wing or fuselage, then paint the entire area white.  Then you can go back and do the individual black stripes over the white.  That way, if you mess up a bit, it can be corrected with a little touch up.  And don't worry too much about getting everything perfect.  I doubt the ground crews did. 

Good luck!

Gary

try a miniature version of what the gound crews did. Use a pencil to draw an outline of where the stripes are supposed to go on the model, then mask around that. On the real aircraft, the outlines were chalked onto the airframe and then the stripes were painted on.

AAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I give up!!!!!! No matter how hard and patient I am , I just can't mask a section of white to my liking for the invasion stripes! I tried laying down the lower part decals to give me an idea where they start and end to mask, measuring the stripes total length to fit the fuselage, I tried measuring each individual stripes to get a total length to make sure it's gonna give me the correct spaces between black & white stripes and nothing is working. I spent a good part of 45 minutes last night (12:30 am - 1:45 am) and this morning  2 hours. I'm literally at my wits end and ready to give up all together and to hell with it. LOL!

Any help/suggestions/tips would be appreciated.

Many digital camers have a "close up" setting, often with a flower icon for that option. Look at your camera to see if it is there, and try shooting the model with that setting on.

I am useless with camera's ken, I just let my camera do all the work and luckily they usually come out well. Are you doing anything differently to what you normally do.

Sorry everyone; it has taken me forever. No matter what I do, I can't get a pic to be focused. I'm open for suggestions. I did this pic further back and zoomed in.

Ahhhh, right SP, I thought it looked like it was slotted but I guess it's just my eyes.

It's actually birdshot... #8 load I think,,, I still have lots of it, hopefully enough to last the rest of my modeling days. And this sucker is still tail heavy so far. I will need to put more in the cowlings behind the engines I think. Good thing that it has sturday landing gear.

Terrific pair of bombers guys!

Love that engine nacelle full of lead sinkers SP!

Great idea for masking the bomb bay CMK. I have used that on a few kits for wheel wells when they have landing gear doors for that will work for that purpose. That OD shade looks pretty good. I can barely make out the cloud pattern that you are talking about.

Well last night before bed I finished gluing the engine nacelles down in place and added their tail cones. By carefull planning ahead and effort, I had minimal gaps/seams in this area to contend with that I have read more than one person complain about online... I sanded that smooth in the midday, then used Squadron White Putty to take care of any remaining gaps

Later in the afternoon, I sanded the putty, and am satisfied with the results of that work...

I also finished painting and built up the wheels

and masked up the canopy with Tamiya masking tape, then glued it in place.

Now it's time to enjoy a Saturday evening out...

That is coming along really well, stik.  Exceptional detail work!

Yesterday I painted some OD on the wings and tailplane.  I used WEM's OD 41, which turned out to be a very pleasing color.  After the out-of-the-bottle color, I lightened some and thinned it out, then oversprayed the whole thing in a sort of cloud pattern.  It's barely discernible in the photos; a little more so in real life.

Those rudder pieces have two very "nice" ejector pin marks on each, so I used black electricians take to try and preserve the details while I filled and sanded.

Today I masked the fuselage for painting the undersides.  The open bomb bays might be tricky.  I didn't want to knock any bombs off, trying to stuff paper inside, so I used the doors for the closed position, and stuck 'em in place with poster tack. 

Hopefully they'll work to keep paint out of the bay.  There is a second set of doors to be used when the bay is open.

let me rephrase that- I am working on it... ;) It's just nice to be at a point where lots of little bits are finally being glued in place, instead of just being painted and sitting there, ready to be added, but waiting on some other step of assembly. .

Very nice SP, glad to see it all together.

A lot of people say I am trying, but that's a different story.

Sweeeeeeeet.  Now add more guns!!! 

Thank you sir... I am trying

Apparently yesterday I forgot to add a couple of photos that I took at the end of the session. Let's just say that between some refershing beverages the night before and all day at the bench I was a bit on the tired side... so here they are:
I had read that the fir of the nacelles tot eh wings can be problematic on this kit. True. But nothing a little effort can not fix, especially knowing that ahead of time. One nacelle fits quite well, and no work needed to correct that. The other- well there is a bit of a gap- But, a simple shim of sheet plastic added where needed and sanded to match the countours ahead of time and that is corrected.

I also built up the main gear struts and l placed (not glued) them into position for drying overnight.

and that's where things stood when I sat down this morning... First was mor Neutral Gray. Landing Gear struts, bomb racks, bomb bay doors, wheel hubs...

after the NG had a while to dry I added a dark gray enamel wash on the wheel hubs and landing gear struts

I masked up where the white needed to be re done for the fuselage invasion stripes, airbrushed the white portions, the touched up the black by hand brush to give the not so neat appearance of the real things

and I airbrushed a custom mix metallic color onto the front portion of the package gun housings. Once it had dried I glued them into place. I will add the Quick Boost barrels to them at the end of the build.

and I actually did some gluing today as well... first I scrath built the final portion of the tail gun ammo chutes that channels teh flex portion near the tail gunners armor plate, and added them to the flex chutes.

then I glued the horizontal stabilizers in place... talk about a tail sitter... you would think thaty I hgad stuffed ot full of something the way it altered the balance

and then I glued the landing gear into place on the wing and after that the engine nacelles. Again, after test fitting, I learned that if I glued the front portions first, let them dry, then the rear portion, it would reduce if not eliminate most of the fit problems in that area

then I had to do it... test fit the wings...

starting to look like a B-26 now...

bitbite

Bish

The no biting rule especially applies to Hamsters from Uruguay.

Your not S American are you BB.

No, but my name is French so I'm not above headbutting! 

bitbite

Bish

The no biting rule especially applies to Hamsters from Uruguay.

Your not S American are you BB.

No, but my name is French so I'm not above headbutting! 

Oh là là.

Nice work on those planes guys, both great looking builds.

Congrats all around for a great GB. I think it fit the subject matter very nicely.

Thanks for good words about the Italeri C-47. I've read up on the kit more and the consensus seems to be clean build but spare on detail. OK - that's my kind of kit. I doubt I'll ever be a super detail fan because nobody ever sees my kits except me and from five feet away, a clean kit looks just fine. (I can't really explain why I can't give my ship projects the same mellow attitude, but I don't.)

A while back a did a 1/48 Revell JU-52 and it worked pretty well. However, the thing was bloody huge and storage space is a serious issue with me. So after my AM B-25 is done, I'll be doing all multi-engined planes in 1/72. I've got the Italeri/Academy B-17C and the Italeri Sunderlund and both look terrific. Also picked up the Minicraft B-24: it's good enough for Eduard, so I'm hoping. The Hasegawa B-26 sounds like a serious project: we'll put that on the bottom of the list and hope someone comes out with a "new tool."

(Let's not get the hamsters into the World Cup. I'm very distressed to see the US luck into the second round and hope for a prompt exit. There's too much globalization as it is, and I think we should at least play our own games. I personally willed the Spurs into the NBA championship and was proud to be an American - even if the only American Spur was the coach. But at least they score and don't have ties or shoot-outs. Now if the perils of the NFL require us to cave in and adopt what Aussies call "round ball" we must feign indifference and negotiate until shoot-outs are eliminated at least in the World Cup. They might think of free substitution too. I was told by old Brit soccer fans in Leeds in 1974 that Italy ruined the game during the 50s - I guess there was a time long ago when scores frequently looked like 5-4. It's just a matter of marching backwards a bit.)

Thanks again everyone.

Eric

Thanks CMK! I spent most of today nickle and dming more progress on this project... Gotta remember to build OOB next time I have a deadline...

PETA... doesn't that stand for People Eating Tasty Animals?

OK, another full day's worth of work here with a couple of time out breaks. And today's progress is...

I completed the lower forward seam clean up by sanding up some Squadron White Putty

second engine wired up

and with the first wired engine already glued into its cowling

second bombrack drilled out. This time I barely used a pin vise, used my motor tool to grind out most of the solid stuff and then cleaned it all up with needle files

with the first one... using the motor tool I did not break and have to replace any of the cross members... score one for the good guys!

I painted up the side package gun housings and tail gun mount, and added the flex ammo feed chutes to the tail guns- still need to paint those, and the detail work on the tail gun mount

and I touched up the OD and Neutral Gray on the fuselage seams

as well as painting the tail gun compartment OD

and that's all for today...

Bish

The no biting rule especially applies to Hamsters from Uruguay.

Your not S American are you BB.

No, but my name is French so I'm not above headbutting! 

Nice work on the Marauder, stik.

We all do realize that this website is constantly monitored by PETA, don't we?

Anyway, some progress shots:

more masking of openings into the interior, so I can apply dull dark green to the canopy frames:

dull dark green applied, which revealed some flaws in the white glue I used to fill the gaps; now I'm waiting for more white glue to dry before I can proceed:

Last, I applied a very thin sort of filter to the wings with airbrush--lightened neutral gray; apparently so thin it doesn't really show up very well; so much for my latest voyage into weathering:

The no biting rule especially applies to Hamsters from Uruguay.

Your not S American are you BB.

That's hilarious Bish!!!

No biting is a good rule but I'd be more worried about hamsters going for the eyes.

Again great progress there SP, I'm waiting for the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror.

*Casually observes and munches on a food pellet*  You guys are right.  Something needs to be done to inject some sort of violence and excitement into that "sport." 

stikpusher

Hey, maybe that's gonna be the next thing for World Cup... Hamsters in the game balls!