1:72 B-25B "Whirling Dervish"

[Vic Balshaw]

Thanks for the tip, Bill. I'll see what I can do. I've heard before that you should put in twice as much weight as the instructions call for, is that accurate?

Not always, but it is usually a little more than recommended. The weight recommended would probably just hold the nose down but a puff of air or grain or two of dust will push the tail down. But just to be safe if you can fit it, add an extra half of the recommended weight.

 

[Airframes]

Yep, as with explosives, use the Formula "P", where P= Plenty !

 

[Totalize]

good stuff there Matt.

 

[Maty12]

Hi all, I'm back from Europe. Should continue work on this build later this week if not next week.

Cheers,
-Matt

 

[Wurger]

Looking forward to that.

 

[ARTESH]

Hi all, I'm back from Europe. Should continue work on this build later this week if not next week.

Cheers,
-Matt

Welcome back! eager to see how it will progress.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Trust you had a good time, heading that way myself in about a month, I believe it has been very hot up north.

 

[Wayne Little]

Oh, it's very hot across Europe at the moment if the News is anything to go by...

 

[Maty12]

Thanks, guys! I had a great time indeed, travelled through Ireland and a few bits of the UK. Had a few pints of Guinness and saw the sights, and of course spent some time with my partner.

The heat severely surprised me. 25 C in Rio is perfect weather, in Ireland and the UK that temperature was uncomfortably hot. To me at least it seems like the only things that matter when you're that far North are whether there are clouds and whether there's wind. 21 C in Belfast with no clouds or wind is somewhat hot, 21 C in Belfast with overcast and decent winds is slightly cold. I took a scarf, winter gloves and a thick coat. I only wore that coat three times across the whole month, and they were mainly for trips to lighthouses across long docks in windy weather. The scarf and gloves did nothing but take up space I could have used for books and airplane models. We barely have a winter down here in Rio, yet it's been colder here the last few weeks than it was in the UK. I made sure to stay in a hotel with AC for at least part of that final week and I'm very glad I did, most of the accommodations uni put us in while in Ireland had none and we were melting for half that trip.

I came back from the UK with tan lines!

And modeling supplies, lots of modeling supplies. Got myself a hand drill, a cutting mat, plastic putty, leadshot, weathering/panel line wash, plasticard, and a P-36G. First thing I did in each town was visit the model store and boy it was hard to resist getting a lot of kits, the small size of my suitcase saved me a lot of money. It couldn't keep me from buying books though. My partner's a bad influence on that front, took me to so many book stores and I wound up with 6 different ones of varying sizes.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Sounds like you had a great time and as for visiting model shops, whats the holiday about if not for visiting them. No excuse about not buying more kits because of the lack of room, you could always buy another suitcase, something I've done a coupe of times.

 

[Maty12]

Been working on this quite a bit the last few days, but couldn't find the time to post updates.

Modeling started with a panic right out of the gate. I was snipping off some excess plastic from the aft cockpit bulkhead when I cracked it vertically. I grabbed my trusty Tamiya cement and started applying it... only for the bulkhead to fully break in two and half of it to fall into the bottle of cement. I fished it out with tweezers but the cement was not kind to it, all the detail was gone and the part had sort of melted. I was very concerned about this and even tried reaching to Airfix about replacement parts, but they won't get back to me until after the GB deadline.


However upon testing fitting the fuselage together, it seems that the damage is thankfully not that noticeable.


With that sorted, on with the build!
I really should ditch the strategy of paint zinc chromate before gluing the parts, as my zinc chromate paint rubs off very easily and I have to reapply it afterwards. Anyway, here's the cockpit so far:


Test-fitting inside the fuselage:


Bombardier's station and cockpit sidewall details:


Paints used:
Black: Sidewall details, navigator's compartment equipment, flap & cowl flap levers, trim tabs (hard to see in the photos but I did paint them!),
Bronze Green: Cockpit sidewalls, bulkhead, pedestal between the pilots' seats, seat cushions (color picked based on photos of Briefing Time and Apache Princess),
Dark Red: control lock, landing gear lever, emergency hydraulic pump, fuel controls cover (applied very carefully),
Neutral Grey: Floor of the cockpit compartment,
Silver: drybrushed onto the bombardier's heating/air vent.

I based the colors on photos of Briefing Time and Apache Princess, cross-checked with the painting instructions provided by Micdrow (thanks mate!). Funnily enough I tried using my B-25/A/B pilot's manual to figure out what some of the detailing was meant to be, only to find that the kit's cockpit does not match the B-25B's that closely, missing all of the fuel selectors between the pilots' seats. One can hardly blame Airfix for this as I have never seen photos of a B-25B's cockpit outside of this manual, which is itself a rare find. The kit's cockpit is a very detailed approximation of a later B-25 cockpit and that's more than good enough for me, especially since none of these details will be visible when the model is finished!

In general, I am thoroughly enjoying this kit. Massive fan of how the subassemblies go together, makes for a very satisfying build. Not to mention all the lips keep everything properly lined up. Parts lock together in the right position with just a dab of cement within seconds. Now if only Airfix would make molds like this of more aircraft I like!

 

[Wurger]

 

[le_steph40]

Nice work

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Good bit of progress.

 

[Crimea_River]

An unfortunate mishap with the bulkhead but once the seats are in it should hardly be noticeable.

 

[Donivanp]

Yep, as with explosives, use the Formula "P", where P= Plenty !

Is that why I could never find any parts of my models when I blew them up?

Welcome to the GB Matt and great start, I really don't recommend using your kit parts to learn to make goo but what do I know.....

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[Wayne Little]

Not bad at all..!

 

[Maty12]

Thanks for the kind words, gents!

More progress: bombardier, pilot and co-pilot's seats fitted. The cockpit seats didn't come with cushions molded so I'm unsure if I'll throw in some yellow to mimic those or not. The handle for the bomb bay door lever has been painted black. All interior parts have been glued to the fuselage sidewall. Since I'm modeling the bomb bay closed there's no need to bother with any bombs or racks. Mark Twain Bombsight will be fitted later so that I don't break it off during handling.


Fuselage halves closed up! The fit is mostly perfect. Originally ended up with a 1.25 mm gap in the bottom of the nose. I sanded the side of the bombardier's floor assembly and then fitted it again. There's still a small seam but it's close enough for the nose glazing to fit so that's good enough for me. I'll probably put a bit of putty onto the seams. I feel like the fit could have been better if the kit had locating tabs on the fuselage sides for the frames and floors and if those were glued to the sides first instead of together, as I think my internals were a bit crooked and too far forward, leading to the nose gap in the first place.


With that, all the bottom hatches and the turret cover can be fitted.


Another thing I've been working on is trying to get a lighter shade of neutral grey for the fabric.
Attempt 1: A lot of Neutral Grey with a bit of White- Results in the same exact shade of Neutral Grey
Attempt 2: A lot of White with a bit of Black- Also results in the same exact shade of Neutral Grey (good to know if I run out of NG before I run out of black or white)
Attempt 3: A lot of White with a bit of Neutral Grey- Somehow the exact same shade of grey as unpainted Airfix plastic, perhaps missing the slight blue tint)

Attempt 4: Roughly 50% Neutral Grey and White- Probably the best I can get. Might remove it with water because there's now 4 layers of paint and the details are hard to see. Don't worry, I'm not forgetting about the trim tabs and leading edges on the elevators. I originally wanted to paint the control surfaces separately because I forgot their leading edges were metal (same shade as stabilizers/wing) and wanted to paint the leading edges correctly. Might wait until the rudders are fitted to paint them instead as that way both sides can dry at once and I don't have to replicate the shade of lighter OD that I have to create.

Is that why I could never find any parts of my models when I blew them up?

Welcome to the GB Matt and great start, I really don't recommend using your kit parts to learn to make goo but what do I know.....

Thank you! Well, learning how not to make goo is pretty important, so I guess learning to make it is somewhat useful? lol idk.

 

[Wurger]