Sorry about how long I have been gone, and the fact that I have not been posting here at all, and the fact I have not done anything in the way of updating this build, I appologize. I have been extreamly buisy with everything, models especially. There are several things that I need to get caught up on here, and seeing the lattest builds from all of you.
By the way the are so awesome, I love the B-17s, and the Black cat is amazing. Ill be trying to update this build here over the next few days.
Now on to the 1/48 B-24D The Lady Be Good.
Here are two photos of the model one an overall view and one a close up, I am hoping to have some more posted soon. These were taken at the MMSI figure show and I would like to thank Lawrence Hansen David Raatz, for taking these photos.
http://www.finescale.com/fsm/objects/images/mmsi2004-125.jpg
http://www.finescale.com/fsm/objects/images/mmsi2004-126.jpg
This model has about 6 to 7 months of work out into it equaling to around 275 total hours of construction time.
Interior:
90% of the rear portion of the bomber is scratch built , I had to extend the floor of the waist gunning position to the point of the break, I rebuild all of the structual members in the interior because I did not like how Monogram represented them. The oxygen bottels are from the Monogram B-29 kit, and the ammo belts are scratch built.
The Cockpit was built as is since not much detail is visable with the hazed over glass. It was then weathered with the base color of the aircraft and instaled.
Tail Exterior:
The tail turrent was converted back to the correct D version, that was the hardest part of construction, it took me two months to find enough pictures to get it right. The rear virtical stabalizer with all of its fabric gone was also scratch built using styreen strip. and the elivators were repositioned, and all of the fabric surfices were given the rotting fabric treatment.
Forward fusalage exterior:
The number four engine was removed and the insides built using a very good photo of the libs engine to work from.
The correct D version windows were put on the canopy, abd the nose bubble was damaged using a dremel thinning it out from behind, and making cracks by scribing them with a hobby knife.
The propelers are all bent to the correct angles useing photos enlarged to 1/48 and bending them until they matched.
The pealing deicer boots were made using apoxy putty, and the wrinkles in the skin were made wih a dremel tool and smoothed over with steel wool.
Paint weathering amd markings:
The overall color of the aircraft is Tamiya dark yellow. The aircrafts insigneas were airbrushed on using the kit decals as stencils. I used Tamiya medium blue to represent the faded insignea blue. The name and aircraft number were hand painted on using Tamiya paint. The aircraft is waethered also using Tamiya Dark yellow. What I did was only weather everything that was not dark yellow with dark yellow so that it gives the impression of the entire aircrfat being covered in dust.
Tha base is part of a cutt apart hallow door, and it was covered in a mixsture of celluclay, white glue and sand.
over all I had a very fun time building this kit.
I also hope to start posting back on here regularly. And sorry about how long this post is.
Vintage Aircraft
P.S. I want to thank Lawrence Hansen David Raatz again for taking there time to photograph my model, thank you.