**** DONE: 1/48 P-61B Black Widow - Pacific Theatre of Operations II

[Wurger]

Having a close up look at them I would say you might be right.

 

[mikewint]

OK, here's my train of thought, the real plane was painted gloss black and while the entire kit was indeed cast in black polystyrene it did not look like paint sooo... I decided to paint the roses red! The reason behide paint before join was because of the cannons sticking out of holes in the belly. Had I painted after the cannons were installed they (cannons) and all those small spaces behind would have been either missed or covered in black paint.
Sooo to make a short story long every exterior surface got painted gloss black. The joints (good meeting all around) will be touched up and smoothed and then a quick airbrushing to blend in.
Quite possibly backassward but it seemed reasonable

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Smart thinking Mike and some very fine detail your doing. Looks good.

 

[Crimea_River]

I still have bits and pieces of that kit in my spares box from when I built it 30 years ago. Good work Mike.

 

[N4521U]

It's the old addage............
If nothing is tried, nothing changes???? Something like that.
You approach seems to have a bit of merit. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Great work so far, and the pictures look great!

 

[Wayne Little]

Good logic Mike, keep up the good work sir!

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

Sorry I've been out for awhile. Built a few of these myself. Let me know if I can help with anything. Just glanced through the other posts so I'm not sure, Mike are you going to have this standing on it's own with radar showing or not? How do you plan to weight it down?

 

[mikewint]

NFN, going to try. The old olive drab P-61A does stand on its own. I had to fill the nose with lead and put lead in the one non-detailed engine cowling and it still barely balences. Thinking I may try the new tugsten weights at 19.3 g/cm3 (lead 13.4g/cm3) they are quite expensive, but then I can get the same weight with less volume. Definitely a bridge to cross

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

Mike, as long as the weights are ahead of the rear wheels, it will help keep it balanced. A couple of other places to put the weights are behind the gunners station, if you have not attached the wings yet, and up in the forward wheel well between upper and lower decks. If you have not attached the nose cone yet, there is a little room behind the control panel. You could check my build for pictures of where I stashed weights in the Night Fighter group build.

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

From the pictures, it doesn't look like you have gone that far yet. On your decals, what color is the girl's swim suit, blue or red? It should be blue. Be careful also of the plane's tail numbers on the side. Many decal makers have gotten those numbers wrong.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Lots of food for thought there Mike.

 

[mikewint]

Going to look into the tungsten weights or some lead shot which I can pour in and drip glue to hold in place. Meanwhile back at the ranch: wings painted and together and detailed, not sure what the silver part is, see I even got the fussy little marker lights red, green, and yellow; radar unit done; they say to leave the nose cone off to show the radar in place but I'm thinking of glueing it open, any one know if the nose opened up or to the side? The "B" version had the wing tanks. Devided on neutral gray so they would stand out more; and smoothing out the joint seam
These are the decals, should be correct

 

[Wurger]

Mike you need to make them smaller. Try to make files of 107-110KB and then upload.

 

[N4521U]

Mikd, when I did my Havoc I had to use a hammer in little fishing weights to flatten them. Then I could stack and got about 30 percent more weight in the same volume.

Lookin good man.

 

[Wurger]

 

[mikewint]

Finally got the pics to load

 

[Wurger]

A PM sent to you.

 

[Catch22]

Nice work Mike!

 

[Wayne Little]

going great guns there Mike!

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff Mike.