Lovely work so far Andy!
GB-55 1/48 B-25D-1 Mitchell - MTO III
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- #222
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks Hugh.
The fuselage has all the bits and pieces installed in each half now so it's ready to glue together. It's important to dry-fit and check everything because a) the instructions are a bit vague as to placement of some of the parts, b) there ARE interferences that need to be taken care of and c) alignment is crucial as things fit pretty tightly. Here, the cockpit is now in and the front wheel strut is installed. I don't like that the latter had to be done but reviews confirm there's no way to put it in later so I'll need to be careful.
At the rear, the lower turret support is now in after fussing with it a bit to make sure it's properly placed. Once I had it right, I blobbed some CA into the corners to secure it so it would not slip. It's important that the section between the gun barrel slots straddles the center seam dead center.
Despite my best efforts, I could not get the rear bulkhead of the bomb bay to meet the fuselage. Others have had this issue and have had to fill the gap, and I'll need to do that too.
I've now begun to glue the halves together. I like doing this a couple of inches at a time, gluing the seams with TET, squeezing them until the plastic melts to form a ridge, and clamping them before moving on to the next section. I've set the partially glued fuselage to dry over night and moved on to the exhaust stack challenge.
The first thing to do was to figure out the odd stack layout. The stack fingers are placed in groups of four or three and are not mirrored across the port and starboard nacelles. A careful look at references provided by Yves confirms that there are 9 sets of grouped stack fingers on each nacelle and that, looking forward from behind the nacelle, they are grouped 4/4/4/3/4/4/4/3/4 clockwise from the right corner. I eyeballed the spaces between the groups and estimated these gaps in terms of stack widths. Then, I had to get the length along the cowl where these stacks would go. To do this, I placed a piece of masking tape on the cowl and marked where the stack limits were against the hopefully accurate panel lines.
The tape was then removed and the length between the marks read on my vernier - 56.8mm.
I then drew up a sketch with the stack layout with the proper number of stacks and equivalent spaces.
34 stacks and 10 total spaces divided into the 56.8mm length gives me a 1.3mm width per stack so a group of 4 stacks is only 5.2 mm wide and the group of 3 is just 3.9mm wide. The Albion brass channels come in widths of 1.5 mm so they MIGHT work I have styrene rectangular rod .02 x .04" but that translates to 0.5 x 1mm. I'll need to see if I can find some evergreen rod that's .05" wide, which would be ideal but failing that, I may just make the individual stack groups by cutting them from card and scoring the seams. I think that hollowing the ends will be a non-starter.
Sorry for the lengthy description but I thought it might be of interest to anyone contemplating making these stacks. I'll now need to test the concept above by laying out bits of card to see if they'll fit and adjust as needed. Thanks for looking.
The fuselage has all the bits and pieces installed in each half now so it's ready to glue together. It's important to dry-fit and check everything because a) the instructions are a bit vague as to placement of some of the parts, b) there ARE interferences that need to be taken care of and c) alignment is crucial as things fit pretty tightly. Here, the cockpit is now in and the front wheel strut is installed. I don't like that the latter had to be done but reviews confirm there's no way to put it in later so I'll need to be careful.
At the rear, the lower turret support is now in after fussing with it a bit to make sure it's properly placed. Once I had it right, I blobbed some CA into the corners to secure it so it would not slip. It's important that the section between the gun barrel slots straddles the center seam dead center.
Despite my best efforts, I could not get the rear bulkhead of the bomb bay to meet the fuselage. Others have had this issue and have had to fill the gap, and I'll need to do that too.
I've now begun to glue the halves together. I like doing this a couple of inches at a time, gluing the seams with TET, squeezing them until the plastic melts to form a ridge, and clamping them before moving on to the next section. I've set the partially glued fuselage to dry over night and moved on to the exhaust stack challenge.
The first thing to do was to figure out the odd stack layout. The stack fingers are placed in groups of four or three and are not mirrored across the port and starboard nacelles. A careful look at references provided by Yves confirms that there are 9 sets of grouped stack fingers on each nacelle and that, looking forward from behind the nacelle, they are grouped 4/4/4/3/4/4/4/3/4 clockwise from the right corner. I eyeballed the spaces between the groups and estimated these gaps in terms of stack widths. Then, I had to get the length along the cowl where these stacks would go. To do this, I placed a piece of masking tape on the cowl and marked where the stack limits were against the hopefully accurate panel lines.
The tape was then removed and the length between the marks read on my vernier - 56.8mm.
I then drew up a sketch with the stack layout with the proper number of stacks and equivalent spaces.
34 stacks and 10 total spaces divided into the 56.8mm length gives me a 1.3mm width per stack so a group of 4 stacks is only 5.2 mm wide and the group of 3 is just 3.9mm wide. The Albion brass channels come in widths of 1.5 mm so they MIGHT work I have styrene rectangular rod .02 x .04" but that translates to 0.5 x 1mm. I'll need to see if I can find some evergreen rod that's .05" wide, which would be ideal but failing that, I may just make the individual stack groups by cutting them from card and scoring the seams. I think that hollowing the ends will be a non-starter.
Sorry for the lengthy description but I thought it might be of interest to anyone contemplating making these stacks. I'll now need to test the concept above by laying out bits of card to see if they'll fit and adjust as needed. Thanks for looking.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
To steal a line from one of the Forum Elders, nice looking innards.
Vic Balshaw
Major General
In the words of Sherlock Holmes, "Elementary, my dear Watson." I say "beautifully calculated" and worth a gold star. 
- Thread starter
- #225
Crimea_River
Marshal
Note all the eraser marks. I actually screwed up the first time and only realized it as I was writing my post. Had to deleted the pic, change the calcs and insert new pic.
Vic Balshaw
Major General
If you'd not said anything, we would never have know!
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Good stuff Andy. Lots of fettling ahead, but it'll be worth it.
Most interesting Andy....carry on....
Totalize
Tech Sergeant
Nice stuff Andy.
- Thread starter
- #232
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks guys. Not much to show for the last few days as I had neither the will nor the energy to spend time at the bunch. However, a couple of things:
Engines done. Some accuracy issues with these as the ignition harness ring doesn't really exist in the molds, some bolts on the gearbox were missing (painted in instead), some of the push rods are missing, and the spark plug wires don't all reach the right places. However, these will be good enough to bury within the cowls.
Still mulling over how to add the exhaust fingers, given the fact that the cowl flaps are molded closed. In addition, the removable panel lines go right up to the cow flaps whereas in reality they are set back a bit.
Compare the above to the diagram in post 216.
Finally, AM seems to have taken some lessons from old Revell:
That blatant advertising has since been removed.
Bye for now.
Engines done. Some accuracy issues with these as the ignition harness ring doesn't really exist in the molds, some bolts on the gearbox were missing (painted in instead), some of the push rods are missing, and the spark plug wires don't all reach the right places. However, these will be good enough to bury within the cowls.
Still mulling over how to add the exhaust fingers, given the fact that the cowl flaps are molded closed. In addition, the removable panel lines go right up to the cow flaps whereas in reality they are set back a bit.
Compare the above to the diagram in post 216.
Finally, AM seems to have taken some lessons from old Revell:
That blatant advertising has since been removed.
Bye for now.
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Nice work on the noisy, round things Andy.
- Thread starter
- #235
Crimea_River
Marshal
Maracas?
Vic Balshaw
Major General
Brilliant work especially the engines.
Nice work so far Andy!
- Thread starter
- #238
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks gents.
Looked closely at photos and what seem to be decent plans and decided that the molded panel lines behind the cowls are all wrong so I started filling them. The large notches for the large B-25B exhaust inserts have already been filled with card and Tamiya putty and roughly shaped.
Moving on to the carb intake, I know from early heads-ups from Yves
CATCH 22
that the intake needs to be widened, which I will do but what's up with the large notch in the cowl where the scoop goes? I don't think it should be there - confirm?
The notch seems to allow the scoop to sit almost flush with the cowl but I think the upper cowl surface profile should be kept all the way underneath the scoop and the scoop should be raised a bit. Thoughts?
B-25J:
Earlier photo from Yves:
Looked closely at photos and what seem to be decent plans and decided that the molded panel lines behind the cowls are all wrong so I started filling them. The large notches for the large B-25B exhaust inserts have already been filled with card and Tamiya putty and roughly shaped.
Moving on to the carb intake, I know from early heads-ups from Yves
CATCH 22
that the intake needs to be widened, which I will do but what's up with the large notch in the cowl where the scoop goes? I don't think it should be there - confirm?The notch seems to allow the scoop to sit almost flush with the cowl but I think the upper cowl surface profile should be kept all the way underneath the scoop and the scoop should be raised a bit. Thoughts?
B-25J:
Earlier photo from Yves:
Vic Balshaw
Major General
Your assumption with the air scoop seems correct Andy. It doesn't look too hard a job to remove it, fill in the trough and replace the scoop slightly raised. The question is, do you feel the effort would be beneficial to the final look.
