Dirk's 1/72 MPC B-24 Liberator "Sunshine"

T Bolt · Jul 26, 2012

Should be a nice one with some work Dirk. Here's some bomb bay pictures from the inrernet I had in my files

dirkpitt289 · Jul 26, 2012

Those are very helpful Glen. Thanks

dirkpitt289 · Jul 27, 2012

Interior, Phase 1 - Rib work

Work on Sunshine has been progressing slowly but still progressing. In this phase I prepped the interior of the fuselage by getting rid of the 14 ejector marks and providing some interior detail. My goal is not to crate an exact replica of the B-24 interior but to just crate some illusion of an interior from the few points people can see inside the aircraft. The biggest area being the bomb bay and the waist gunner windows.

Here I had to remove the mounting point for the waist gunners .50 Cal to make room for the rib work. I'll make a new mount later

Measuring out the ribs for the bomb bay

After a few hours this is where we stand. This was very time consuming and of course many doubts and second guessing crossed my mind every time I realized most of this work will go unseen except was shadows from the exterior.

Waist gunner position

Bomb bay

Cockpit and nose

Now that the basics are done its time for a break before the second round of detail goes in. That will include some plumbing, instrument panels, maybe some ammo boxes and such. After that the bulkheads and bomb racks

Thanks for looking

N4521U · Jul 27, 2012

It's my understanding they didn't have pee-pee tubes in the heavies,
they would freeze over and it would just back-up all over you!

You're gettiin the scratch bug eh?

dirkpitt289 · Jul 27, 2012

Actually according to the book I'm currently reading

There were two "relief tubes" on the B-24. One froward and one aft but between the weather inside the aircraft (cold/ windy) and the amount of clothing the crew wore was a poor combination. The tubes would usually freeze over.

T Bolt · Jul 27, 2012

N4521U said:
It's my understanding they didn't have pee-pee tubes in the heavies,
they would freeze over and it would just back-up all over you!

They did have relief tubes in B-24s, but using them was frowned upon by the tail turret gunner. My father said that if they were used a coat of ice would form on the outside skin of the aircraft which would melt during the let-down to landing and stream back and cover the tail turret making for a very unhappy tail turret gunner.

Airframes · Jul 27, 2012

Good work so far Dirk - takes a bit of time, doesn't it?! Far as I know, the B-24 also had an 'Elsan'-type chemical toilet, as did the B-17 and equivalent British bombers.

Lucky13 · Jul 27, 2012

T Bolt said:
They did have relief tubes in B-24s, but using them was frowned upon by the tail turret gunner. My father said that if they were used a coat of ice would form on the outside skin of the aircraft which would melt during the let-down to landing and stream back and cover the tail turret making for a very unhappy tail turret gunner.

NO SH*T!?

Airframes said:
Good work so far Dirk - takes a bit of time, doesn't it?! Far as I know, the B-24 also had an 'Elsan'-type chemical toilet, as did the B-17 and equivalent British bombers.

Think there's one in the Lancaster old boy, need to look!

Night Fighter Nut · Jul 27, 2012

good work on your build and interesting information.

Airframes · Jul 27, 2012

There is Jan, just to the rear of the entrance door, immediately in front of the tail-plane spar, and slightly offset to port. Halifax has it on port side too, just aft of the entrance hatch, and it even has a curtain rail and a black 'privacy' curtain !

Wayne Little · Jul 28, 2012

Done some good work there Dirk!

javlin · Jul 28, 2012

Boy do I remember these kits when a kid I bet she looks good and all when finished for a fraction of the price.

Wurger · Jul 29, 2012

Good work so far Dirk.

A4K · Jul 30, 2012

Great work Dirk!

dirkpitt289 · Aug 3, 2012

Interior, Phase 2 - The Bomb Bay, Part 1

For those following you'll remember that the bomb bay in this kit is nothing more then a gaping hole. While I'm not trying to recreate the area down to the rivet I just want to have some similarity to one.

Here is what we started with

Work commences

First I applied the base color. There has been a lot of discussion over the correct color of the interior of a B-24 but I've yet to see it nailed down to a specific color. I've read the color also depended on which plant the aircraft was built at. To be completely honest I don't know which plant this particular aircraft was built at and even if I did I don' know what plants used what color. So I took some poetic licence and used Zinc Chromate Yellow. The main reason was because I've had this jar kicking around my desk for a long time and never used it. I figured it looked lonely and decided to give it a go. :ha:

Time for some Evergreen

Scratching some custom bulkheads

Opps, While I'm not going uber detailed I found out I had made a big mistake. I built the roof of the bomb bay facing the wrong way.

Back on track

Bomb racks installed

There will be some more touch up work to be done later on after the fuselage is attached. I realized this angle doesn't show off some of the support braces that I put in. I'll post these later.

Perfect? Not a chance. Passable? Should be.

Thanks for looking.

Airframes · Aug 3, 2012

Great stuff Dirk.

Crimea_River · Aug 3, 2012

Nicely done.

rochie · Aug 3, 2012

looks great

Wurger · Aug 3, 2012

With all here.

Lucky13 · Aug 4, 2012

Looks great mate!

Dirk's 1/72 MPC B-24 Liberator "Sunshine"

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