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

Great details Dogsbody

Thanks, Red Two.
Still bimbling along, should have some pics in the next day or two ...................

That's all beyond amazing!! Beautiful work!!

Thanks very much, glad you like it.

Nice update Terry. Always a joy to see your work.

Thanks Andy, much appreciated.

Although there's not much to show just yet, I am making some progress, if a little slowly. This is mainly due to some rather fiddly detail painting, and figuring out the best sequence of fitting and painting small items, and scratch-built areas, as some items will need to be attached before the fuselage area is painted fully.
These include the already made vertical ammo boxes and the ammo chutes, which will need support brackets, and the flexible ammo feeds to the waist guns, which can only be finally attached to the guns once the fuselage halves have been joined, and the guns themselves installed.

I'm currently working on the main oxygen tanks, and the "walkaround" oxygen bottles, which are 3D printed items from Eduard, and a bit fiddly to handle and paint.
These are shown below.
The main tanks have had a the first of what I know will be a few coats of yellow, over the black resin, and I hope to install some of these soon.
The "walkaround" bottles need to be installed in the waist gun position, one each side and then, later in the build, ln the nose, cockpit and radio room. Eduard provide tiny decals for both the main and "walkaround" bottles, but I haven't yet decided whether or not to use these. The colour call out for the "walkaround" bottles is also shown as yellow, which is logical for the period, but all references I've seen have these in a bright green colour, so I've gone with that.
It will be noticed that some very fine resin dust has settled in the paint, but this can easily be removed once the (gloss) paint has fully dried, and re-touched as needed.

A word of warning for anyone wishing to use these items - they are quite delicate in parts (mainly the regulator on top of the "walkaround" bottles), and are attached inside the neat plastic case by an adhesive pad, which sticks like sh*t to a blanket, so care is needed when removing them from the case.

Back when there's more to show........................

Nice little bottles, this 3D is just turning modelling on its head.

It sure is Vic !

I'm now waiting for paint to dry, so can't go any further until it does.
The (black) resin on the main oxygen tanks is being a real paint to paint, especially in yellow. I rinsed the parts before painting, but they have a slight texture to the surface, rather like a fine, silk weave pattern, which seems to reject paint, making it "oily", and after two, brushed coats, the black is still showing through, patchily.
However, patience and perseverance should get the darned things painted - eventually !
I don't think I'll achieve a perfect paint finish here, but, as the tanks will only just be partly visible, it should be good enough.

Meanwhile, I hope to complete the first of the "walkaround" bottles tomorrow, and get them fitted to the waist tub, and and then fit the tub, and the vertical ammo boxes, and start work on the ammo chutes to the rear turret.

Great work so far Terry!

Busy, busy, busy

Thanks chaps.

Some progress has been made, but I need to buy a new tin of matt yellow, to re-paint the main oxygen tanks.
It seems the problem is actually the paint, and not the resin the tanks are made from. The current tin is Humbrol matt 154, "Insignia Yellow" ( I normally use their "Trainer Yellow" ), and no matter how long it is stirred, it remains "oily" and almost translucent. It's as if the pigment is not being fully dissolved into the carrier emulsion, and brushes rather like melted butter, so maybe it's just a bad batch.
I'll see if the local art shop has some "Trainer Yellow" when I go into town, probably on Friday, then strip, or at least thin the current coating, and re-paint the tanks. The pic below shows the horrible finish, and brownish tinge left after three brushed coats.

Anyway, things are moving forward on the starboard fuselage half, with the "walkaround" oxygen bottles painted and attached to the waist gun "tub", and the "tub" and vertical ammo boxes installed into the fuselage. I opted not to use the decals supplied with the Eduard bottles, choosing to paint the regulator dials instead.
The "tub" and rear fuselage section have had some paint scuffing added, showing wear into the zinc chromate base coat, and some paint chipping and wear revealing bare metal. The lighting in the photos makes this appear a little harsh, but it looks much more convincing to the Mk1 eyeball.
Representations of the (empty) ammo chutes to the rear turret have also been made and fitted. The real chutes had stainless steel tubular outer edge frames on a flat "track", but for simplicity, the chutes were made from "Evergreen" channel, and painted in a bright silver finish, which, considering they will only just be visible, should be good enough. I omitted any support brackets for the same reason - they won't be seen !
The tracks deliberately lack any ammunition, as the diorama will also depict an armourer preparing ammo for loading into the aircraft, as it is brought from the tractor and trailer already shown much earlier in the build.
I still have to install the main oxygen tanks (once re-painted), and the flexible ammo feed chute for the waist gun on this fuselage half, as well as the scanning windows (when I've made them) and the open waist hatch and entrance hatch, and also carry out some detail painting, before moving on to the port fuselage half, which has less detail to fit and paint.

Pics below show the progress to date, and I'll be back with another up-date soon(ish).

You're doing some amazing work on this Terry.

Wow! Looks superb!

Great stuff.

With all, love it Terry.

great stuff Terry

Thanks very much chaps.

I wasn't able to get any Trainer Yellow, but I found some gloss Yellow in my paint stocks, so I'll just go ahead and install the oxygen tanks as they are, and then give them a brush-over with the gloss, to tidy them up a bit.
Although not ideal, and far below my own standards, this should suffice, as the tanks will only just be visible - if leaning at 68 degrees, at 15.00 hrs, on a Tuesday !

I hope to get the rear fuselage area of the starboard side completed later tonight, and I'll post pics when it's eventually done.
Thanks again to all, for the kind comments, "likes" and encouragement.

Took a lot longer than intended, but the rear section of the starboard fuselage half is nearly complete, with just a couple more oxygen tanks to install, and some re-touching and tidying of some of the detail paintwork.
The gloss yellow I'd hoped to use on the tanks didn't work out - the paint had turned into a rubbery mess in the tin, so had to be binned. Instead, a thinned coat of the existing yellow was applied, giving some slight improvement, which is good enough, as the tanks can only be partially seen at certain angles. The painted-on retaining straps are a bit rough, but again, they won't be seen, so I'm not wasting more time correcting them.

The scanning windows have been fitted, made from thin, clear plastic from packaging material, cut and filed to shape and attached using beads of CA gel, and have since been cleaned and polished since the photos were taken.

The entrance hatch has been painted and fitted in the open position, as has the waist gun window hatch. The aft "bar" to the "star & bar" national insignia partially overlaps the hatch window area and, rather than cutting-up the kit decals, I opted to paint this instead. The hatch was first painted in white, then masked for the "bar" area and painted OD, before removing the masks and painting the blue border. The kit window was fitted using TET, and then the hatch set in the open (up) position, and attached with drops of CA gel.

All being well, I'll get the remaining oxygen tanks sorted and fitted, and the flexible ammo feed for the waist gun, and possibly get the port fuselage rear section completed over the weekend, and then turn attention to the forward fuselage.