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...

Good going, stik.  Looking fine!

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

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

I sure hope so! LOL!

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

With my carpet or on it.

Looks great SP, I really like the shading!

Be careful with the friendly fire please guys!

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...

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...

Nicely done, stik.

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

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

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

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

Here's a look at Flak Bait in storage. You can see that the markings were quite crudely done

This is her around teh time of completing 100 missions shortly before D-Day. I will have to modify the kit nose are decals as well, which are for the end of the war after over 200 missions

end of the war nose art as in the kit

and here are Marauders from Flak Bait's squadron in summer 1943 with the grayed out stars and gray ID codes

She looks pretty darn close to the real thing SP!

Thank you my freind. I am trying. And with such a  well preserved and documented subject, I have no excuse to do less...

Entering the home stretch now. Please forgive these poor photos, but I accidentally left the good camera on and killed the battery. It's recharging now. So I had to use my phone to snap these shots.. Tomorrow or Wednesday I will get more and better photos up. Today I airbrushed on the Future coat in preperation for decals. It toned down the panel fade effect and chaged the hue of the OD to a bit more greenish and darker to match the Life photos as I was hoping that it would.

Tomorrow- decals!!!!!

Well done, stik.  Maybe I missed it--whose OD did you use?

Thanks! I used Tamiya OD for the base color, and two different Polly Scale ODs. PS USAAF OD for the panel fade and PS QM-22 OD for the fabric flight control surfaces. The OD 41 dope had a habit of fading different than paint if you look on photos.

Nice work SP. I got told that about the fabric when I was doing a B-17 a few years back. Did a lot of US aircraft have fabric covered control surfaces.

I am pretty sure that most, if not all of the pre war designs, did have fabric covered control surfaces. Some of those later received metal skinned ones as their designs were modified thru the war. Only later designs such as the B-29 came off the drawing board that way.

Thanks for the information, stik.  I like to use different manufacturers' OD, for variety sake.  I don't use acrylics, but in enamels/lacquers, no one's OD looks the same as anyone else's--even though (I guess) they're trying to duplicate the same things.

I haven't posted photos yet, but I painted the Liberator's control surfaces to represent fading, too.  I used MM for them, with WEM's for the basic fuselage/wings.  You'd never know they're both OD.

I suppose in their defense, maybe some of the paint makers are representing the later version of OD, not the OD 41 used early in the war.

But--I've had late work again the last two nights, so the photos have been falling behind.

Again, stik, excellent work.

Yes, the variety in OD 41 is quite well documented. And yes, if you put each companies' OD against each other, there is variation there too. Add in the 41 and ANA 319 shades, as well as "faded" ODs, and you can have quite a few paints in your paint collection. I know that I do. I really miss the Floquil and Aeromaster paint lines for their ODs.

Well today before work I got about 2/3 of the decals on. Considering their age (potentially up to 38 years), and how long this kit has been in my stash (14-18 years) and I am quite happy to be getting them to work at all. Which is good because trying to find the Aeromaster set (just in case) for Flak Bait is not an easy task. It's long OOP. I will see how recalcitrant they are when I get home tonite.

Today's decalling seesion went much more smoothly than yesterday's. The National Insignia and the serial number decals gave me all the problems yesterday. Today the nose art, stencils, and crew names went on smoothly. Again considering their possible age, that is very fortunate! anyways I only have time for a couple of teaser shots before work today, so here you go... a much more thorough update to follow tomorrow or late tonite...

Thanks for looking!

Stik>  She's looking mighty fine!  Can't wait to see her finished up. 

Wanted to comment on something, so:

THE FOLLOWING IS AN OPINION AND HOLDS NO MORE WATER THAN ANY OTHER OPINION:

You mentioned the graying out of the insignia (if I understand you to mean it has deliberately been sprayed with gray paint), and while that's possible, to my eye it appears more that the paint is "weathered".  In the pictures you posted, I note that the paint on the aircraft is very worn, and even to the point where you can see bare metal on the underside, and the red of the previous insignia border where it has been over-painted with blue.  Is it possible that what the "gray" areas are where the white paint has been worn down to where the OD of the original skin is beginning to peek through, thus giving it a grayish appearance?

Now that's just a thought, and I haven't seen the aircraft in person, but from the photos you've posted you can clearly see the paint is very worn, even the OD parts.

Well, whatever the case, you've done a splendid job on her with all that detailing!

Thanks!

Gary

Thanks Gary. Your suggestion about the graying out of the stars is possible that this is due to wear. But I do know that it was fairly common for 8th Air Force Bomb Groups to spray the white portions of the stars in gray to tone them down. Especially in 1942/1943 when the Luftwaffe was most dangerous to bombers air to air. 322nd BG was part of the 8th AF until later in 1943 when 9th AF took over the "tactical" role out of the UK. Plenty of color photos show the Marauders with Gray stars in Summer 1943 when Marauder ops were just beginning and none would have yet been as beat up as Flak Bait was by late Summer 1945 when she was put in storage. And if you look at the fuselage side Star in the one photo, over the OD, the white would have worn away to that, and not the Gray. And that is my reasoning behind my work on that. Is it historically accurate? Maybe, maybe not. But it looks the part. Which is my prime goal here.

So here is the "big" photo update that was delayed for various reasons: work, dead camera battery, etc...

Firstly I mentioned earlier modifiying a windscreen from my spares bin for the tail gunner's armored glass. Here it it glued in place. It took a couple of test fittings to get it in under the tail gunner's transparency

then the tail gun assembly all ready for installation

and installed in place

then better shots of the gloss coat

and finally the decals. In hindsight, most gave no trouble, considering the age, except for the stars and serial numbers

here are the seperate pieces- props, nose wheel, bombs...

the small ones- crew names, tail numbers, nose art, etc.

and the overall shots

next up- sealing coats and weathering... stay tuned...

That's looking really nice SP. Nice work on the rear gunners screen.

Looking at those pics of the real thing, are there any plans to restore her.

They are doing that now. They have pulled the nose out of Smithsonian and are re assembling her currently. She is to be put together and then on display in original condition, not "restored" at the Udvar-Hazy center next to Dulles Airport in Virginia. Thank goodness that they are  not doing like the Air Force musuem did to their Marauder and repainting everything. She will be as she was in 1945.