B-24 Liberator Diorama - 1/48th Scale.

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Thanks chaps, as always, it's much appreciated.

Work has started on the port wing, with the landing lamp aperture drilled out, the rear of each nacelle opened, and two cowling panels removed from the port outer engine nacelle, ready to plan and install an engine being worked on by the ground crew.
The folding cowling panels will be made from plastic card, and fitted in the open position much later in the build, and I'm assuming that quite a bit of scratch-building will be required around the open engine bay, and the rear of the nacelles, and I should have a better idea of what's needed once the engine is test-fitted.
I've ordered a set of "Quickboost" resin engines, which should be with me hopefully tomorrow (Wednesday), so I'll check these against the engine bay and see what can be done and how.

My wrists and hands are aching a bit after all the drilling, sawing and filing (the drilling was hard going, through quite thick plastic), so I'm having a break tonight, but should be back with another up-date sometime tomorrow, with the resin engines and the start of work on the starboard wing.
Meanwhile the pics below show how the nacelles were opened and the cowling panels removed (the latter by using a razor saw).


 
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Missed a couple of post there Terry, am bust galavanting around the country. You have done well mate, lots of time consuming fiddly work. All looks good. Any news on your miss directed turrets from the US.
 
Thanks all.

No news yet Vic, but I'm still hopeful, and it'll be some time before I reach the turret stage.
If they've gone missing, then I'll have to do the best I can with the kit parts, with some internal scratch-building perhaps detracting from the seams in the clear parts.
I live in hope (actually, I live in Cheshire, and Hope is in a different county !).
 
Got a little more done on the port wing, with the start of improving the appearance of the cowl flaps, starting with the inboard, upper. These were repeatedly scribed along the rear edge, the hinge line and along each flap edge, in order to give them a more realistic look. There's still a little light sanding and clean-up to be done, but this will be carried out once all the flaps have been improved.
The edges of the cowling where the panels have been removed need to be thinned down, and some adjustments made in order to make and fit framework etc., but this can't be tackled until the resin engines arrive, so that spacing and fit can be assessed. These should have arrived today, but it appears that Royal Mail Parcelforce 24 (hours) operate on a different clock system, where one hour equals two hours, so maybe tomorrow!!
Meanwhile, there's still lots to do before commencing work on interior detail, so I'll keep plodding away.

Pics show the state of play so far, and again, many thanks for the continued interest in this build.


 
Thanks chaps.

Not much more to show just yet - still scribing and shaving on the port wing. Got the cowl flaps done, and removed the raised panel lines on the top of the wing and engraved new lines, a long, slow, repetitive job, but they look much better.
Hoping to get the starboard wing to the same state tomorrow, and then start sorting the engine fit.
 
The "Quickboost" resin engines have arrived, and are a great improvement over the kit parts.
These can possibly be fitted without removing the casting blocks, although that would mean that new prop shafts would need to be made, fitted through the front. But I'll know more once I do some trial fitting. The casting blocks cover the entire rear face of each engine "firewall", so they'll take some time, and care, to remove.

I hope to get the wing engraving completed later today, and then start work on sorting the engine placement, and should have something to show by tonight.


 
A short up-date on the work to date, with the upper wing surface panel lines engraved and removal of the raised lines, the lower cowl flaps improved, and test-fitting a resin engine to check spacing and clearance etc.
I've decided that trying to remove the large areas of casting blocks is a "No Go", which means the front of the gear case will need to be drilled out, to accept a plastic rod prop shaft.
The resin engines do fit into the nacelles with the casting block in place, but the rear surface fouls the kits moulded-in prop shaft retaining post, and the bottom cylinder is affected by the lower cowl attachment lip, causing the engine to be pushed out of line.
This is simply rectified by sawing off the post in each nacelle, and lightly filing down the bottom edge of the attachment lip.
The upper wing/nacelle has been dry-fitted to see what's needed in the way of detail around the exposed area of the port outer engine, and framework, oil cooler ducting and exhausts will be scratch-built for these areas once the engine is fitted.

All being well, I'll be back with another up-date sometime tomorrow.


 
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