1/48th Mitchell II - Allied Advance and Defense of the Reich WWII.

you are welcome sir, considering how your hands must feel after each session...you achieve so much.

Thanks again mate !
Didn't get any more done last night, as my hands and arms were so painful, I decided I needed stronger pain killers - so I went to the pub for a few pints !!
Just been tinkering with a few jobs on the 'Tin Tent', before rain stopped play, and I'm about to get back to the bench and get the interior bits wrapped up, and hopefully get the fuselage joined and start on the separate nose compartment.
Might have some pics later.

Excellent work on the interior Terry! Lots of added details there!

Thanks John - I seem to have added a bit more than originally intended, mainly as the lack of some items would be noticeable, if only just, but adding them at least gives the impression of a 'fitted out' interior, rather than an empty shell.
Getting closer to closing the fuselage, with the waist guns and ammo feeds in place, and the initial work done on the dorsal turret.

PIC 1. Shows the spare .50 cal Brownings from the B-25J kit, with some rudimentary and very basic detail added, in the form of 'spade' grips and the recoil damper tubes, along with reasonably acceptable 'flexible' ammo feed chutes. The latter were made by combining part of the B-25J kit's moulded chutes, with 'Evergreen' plastic channel. I would have preferred to have them showing more 'bends', but to do that would have meant using different materials, and taking a lot of time to fold and drape them, meaning more pain and discomfort.
Although far from perfect - or accurate - when seen from outside, through the waist windows, they should look reasonable, and give the impression of the very prominent feeds used on this aircraft.
PICS 2 and 3. Guns, feeds and ammo tanks painted and in place - the resin barrels will be added once the model has been painted and finished. I had intended making and fitting the counter-balance pulley wires, but after fiddling around installing the guns and feeds, I'd had enough. I'll see how I feel tomorrow, and might have a go at fitting them if my hands are up to the task.
This lot looks a bit 'rough' in the pics, but they look better to the naked eye, and should pass muster when viewed through the windows.
That interior colour, as seen in the pics, is bugging me though - it's nowhere near as 'pea green' as seen here, being more of a light olive / yellowish green, but the mixed lighting has altered the colour balance.
PIC 4. The dorsal turret on the 'C' and 'D' models looked like this inside, and as I've had to adapt the kit parts due to discarding the kit floor, and fitting a scratch-built floor much lower in the fuselage, I needed to find a way of mounting the turret, from the outside, ensuring it's supported whilst at the same time trying to replicate, if only vaguely, the turret pedestal of the real thing, as this will be visible through the waist windows, and through the top of the turret.
PIC 5. The kit's ventral turret ring will be used, as it has a 'pin' on the underside, in combination with a length of plastic tube, and the kit's original dorsal pedestal, cut down in height. This will allow the base of the pedestal to be glued to the floor, after drilling a hole to accept the pin on the bottom of the pedestal, with the plastic tube being cemented on to the 'pin' underneath the turret ring, with this assembly then slipping over the shortened kit pedestal, allowing the turret to rotate, and to be removed if required.
PIC 6. The kit part has been shortened, and glued in place, and awaits painting.
PIC 7. Trial fit of the turret assembly.
PIC 8. The turret ring and new pedestal, which will have the saddle-type seat, ammo boxes, spent cases bags and some other details made and added, before painting.
PIC 9. The base of the ventral turret, being used for the dorsal turret ring, is 'solid' as supplied in the kit. This will be opened up, and some basic detail added, in the way of gun mounts, the gun breech receivers and ammo boxes and feeds (from the spares box), and a scratch-built MkIIIa reflector gun sight, before adding the transparent dome from the kit. This will then be put aside, and the turret locating hole masked off until the model has been painted, decals applied, and clear coated. The turret can then be slipped in place, locating onto the 'stud' of the adapted kit pedestal.

With that lot out of the way, I can now start on the cockpit assembly, when the seats will be improved and installed, 'Sutton' seat harnesses made and fitted, and the various engine control levers made and added, together with some detailing to the instrument panel and side walls.
Once that has all set and been painted, the cockpit assembly can be fitted to the starboard fuselage half.
The nose gear leg has to be fitted at this stage, before the fuselage halves can be joined, and a small amount of work needs to be done on this first, to improve the appearance, and to allow the fitting of either the spare resin nose wheel or the wheel from the 'J' kit.
All being well, I hope to get this done tomorrow, and join the fuselage halves, before commencing work detailing and fitting-out the nose compartment, which is a separate section which attaches to the front of the fuselage.
Thanks once again for your interest and kind comments, and I'll post more some time tomorrow.

Sweet!

nice work Terry

Thanks chaps.
I hope to get some more done this evening, although at the moment my hands aren't cooperating, so I'll have to wait and see if I can do an y delicate work.

Great work so far Terry!

Got a lot done there Terry. Great work.

Agreed! Nice work mate.

Very nice work on the interior gun stations!

Thanks very much chaps !
No further progress I'm afraid, but I'm hoping to get at least a little work done tonight - hands permitting.

Well. I managed to make some good progress, although it took a lot longer than I anticipated, due, yet again, to stiff hands and wrists. which just lacked articulation and coordination !
With most of the cockpit now done, it's getting closer to being able to close the fuselage, and move on to the 'meat' of the construction, with improvements and modifications to the wings and engine cowlings being required.
The following looks a bit rough in the rather brutal 'Macro' shots, but isn't too bad to the naked eye, and should look good enough under the canopy, when fitted. It's difficult to see in the pics, but the throttle, pitch and mixture levers are in pairs, and very thin - which made fitting and painting a nightmare !

PIC 1. Adding the throttle, pitch, mixture and other levers and controls, using thinly stretched sprue cemented into holes drilled in the pedestal and quadrants. At the widest point, the control pedestal is only 3mm wide, so there wasn't much room to drill the holes for the group of three, paired levers. Also visible in this shot are the lever friction knobs, and the landing gear lever, the latter on the floor, port side.
PIC 2. The kit's plain instrument panel has had switch panel extensions added on the lower edges. These caused minor problems when test-fitting later, as they fouled the locating point of the panel where it joins the cockpit floor and control pedestal, so they had to be bent upwards in order to fit.
PIC 3. A decal from the B-25J kit was used on the instrument panel. It's not totally accurate for a Mitchell MkII, as it's lacking the centrally placed auto-pilot panel, and I doubt it's accurate for any wartime B-25, probably being styled on a preserved aircraft, but it's much better than the decal provided in the kit, which was a plain black panel with a few white dials !
The various levers, knobs and switches have also been painted but, as mentioned above, they aren't that easy to see in this pic.
PIC 4. A rather 'rough-looking' side view (darned macro close-ups !), but it shows the levers fitted to the various quadrants on the control pedestal.
PICS 5 and 6. Switch and instrument panels have been fitted to the cockpit sidewalls, and the 'quilted' lining painted.Again, all this looks better to the naked eye, and should at least show some detail through the rather thick canopy, rather than 'bare walls'.
PIC 7. The seats as provided in the kit are reasonable for profile and shape, but are otherwise bare, and hollow at the rear, and in need of some detail, even though most of it won't really be visible once they're fitted into the cockpit.
PIC 8. The hollow seat backs were first 'filled in' with plastic card, slightly curved edge to edge, which then had 'stiffening ribs' added from stretched sprue. Basic 'tubular' frames were then added, using two sizes of 'Evergreen' plastic rod.
Once the seat frames and backs have been cleaned-up and painted in the interior colour, and the seat cushions painted in the dark green shade common to the B-25, with a yellow cover over the seat backrests, then RAF Sutton harnesses will be made form thin paper or decal-covering tissue, painted, and fitted to the seats, before installing them in the cockpit.

Next step is to clean-up, paint, and fit the control columns, along with the completed seats, and then install the complete cockpit unit into the starboard side of the fuselage.
The rectangular window in the navigator's compartment roof needs to be cut and filed to a circular opening, to match the astrodome which will be moulded from clear sheet and fitted near the end of the build, and the nose gear leg needs to be cleaned-up, improved, painted and fitted to the 'pin' on the port fuselage half. Also, an inner hatch-cover for the rear entrance hatch has to be scratch-built, and fitted in the open position, hinged to starboard, before joining the fuselage halves.
Once that's done, a repeater Direction Indicator will be scratch-built, and mounted centrally on top of the instrument panel coaming, before fitting the canopy (pre-masked and the interior frames painted) and blending this into the fuselage, to eliminate any joint lines.

A rather long post this one, but then even though it doesn't look much, quite a bit has been achieved, and things are now progressing well.
Some of the work done is a bit rough, and certainly not some of my best work, but given the limited visibility inside the fuselage, and particularly the distortion through the cockpit canopy, I'm reasonably happy with it, and it should be acceptable enough, especially as the model will be part of a diorama, once finished.
Thanks again for the interest and comments, and I hope to post another up-date soon.

Thanks Wojtek !

I've just messed up when test-fitting the cockpit !
There was a little bit of interference around the top of the instrument panel, no doubt due to the addition of the lower switch panels, which raised the height of the main panel by about 1/2 mm.
Whilst correcting this, I knocked off the mixture control levers, and the emergency hydraulic pump handle, the latter on the aft bulkhead.
Surprisingly, I managed to find them both, but as I was fitting them back in place, they both 'pinged', and disappeared into the 'no man's land' beneath my desk, probably to re-appear in 6 months time !
So I've had to make and re-fit both items, a rather fiddly job as I had to work around the other levers on the pedestal, and scrape-off some paint on the bulkhead, in order to cement that hydraulic lever in place.
I think this is a signal to take a break, so I'm putting this aside for a few hours !
Back soon, hopefully with a completed cockpit, and maybe with the fuselage joined - at last !

You've done lots of work recently so a break is well-deserved! Lots of nicely added detail to the cockpit center console and back of the seats!

Looks great so far Terry!

Thanks John and Hugh.
Just trying to finish off the cockpit area, then do the other little jobs before joining the fuselage halves. Should have some more pics tomorrow.

Good stuff Dogsbody