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Classic Wings Magazine WWII Naval Aviation Research Pacific Luftwaffe Resource Center
When Hollywood Ruled The Skies - Volumes 1 through 4 by Bruce Oriss


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PostPosted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 12:51 pm 
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My dad has been busy:
JollyRoger wrote:
Hello all, I haven't posted in awhile. We have been seeking for a long time a decent looking 1/144 B-24D. Being spoiled by CafeReo's beautifully mastered B-24J's didn't help the situation. Hobby Master does make a nice looking rendition but they are expensive and would be a shame to change the markings on them as our intentions. We came across this one from RV-Model.com. They are very similar to Hobby Master but are not as detailed.
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The wing is one piece and made of metal while the rest is plastic. We bought 2 at a very good price. The box from Japan arrived crushed. The models box's were damaged but the planes were ok. I guess seeing that this B-24D was painted up as a formation ship it gives the company a reason not to put any guns on it. Some other things we noticed were the prop's and hubs were on the thick side, the landing gear were too long, the nose glass sat incorrectly and a few other minor flaws. With taking all of this into consideration this model is still a beautiful base starting point for a decent looking "D" model.
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Matching it up next to a CafeReo B-24J shows that is a very good contender as far as the overall shape fits in perfectly. The shape of the canopy and nose section is done correctly which is one of the most important things.

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Keeping up with our 90th Bomb Group collection of aircraft we plan on putting this B-24 in the markings of the first "Shark mouthed" B-24 of the 320th's Squadron. It was named Moby Dick.
These are just a few of the pictures I took of the tear down and re-build of this plane. This last picture is of how it is up to this date. The inside of the fuselage had been thinned down where I opened up the windows, much weight was added for it to sit on its nose gear by itself, the landing gear was shortened to give it the proper stance, the glass was cleaned up some so it fit better against the body, antenna and nose masts were thinned to proper thickness and shape, the props and hubs were reshaped a bit, a few of the guns have been added and paint has been applied.

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After putting a few stars on I was researching where I had to drill a hole in the starboard side of the nose glass for a gun, I then realized I made a mistake by cutting in the side nose window. The B-24D did not have the window on this side. I had to fill it with putty and fix it
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While I was waiting for the Solv A Set to work on the star on the bottom of the wing I thought I would do a little pastel shading on the wings, exhaust pipes and the super chargers. As you can see I didn't seal up the hole for stand just in case I wanted to use it in the future.

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Once it was able to flip back over some more pastel shading was added to the top portion of the aircraft, and the right nose gun was inserted.

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This picture has a few vehicles for a touch of realism. Will post another update soon as the rest of the guns and markings are added.

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Well this set of homemade decals is really testing. My son Chris did a fantastic job of redrawing and sizing them. (We seem to work on a lot of model projects together that’s why I always make the reference of “we” in my posts). We decided to try something different this time, seeing that we would have had to use white decal paper for the mouth and tail’s and clear paper for the words and eye’s so we opted for just the white paper. (We didn’t want to go thru the situations of the see thru images with the clear paper again). We got away with this by Chris putting a green background around the whole image. It wasn’t an exact match of the OD on the model but I figured I could brush paint the OD close to the image and hopefully make it blend in. I ended up printing them on the decal paper twice after several test shots on regular paper. The first batch's ink was kind of light so I flipped the decal paper around – put in a new color ink cartridge and this time it printed solid colors. I put 3 coats of decal clear on and after it dried I found the solid colored ones bled a little bit. The light inked ones were not that bad to use after all. (I ended up using a combination of both sets). We have to find and try a Laser printer. With that you don't need a clear sealer. It seems when I cut around the decal there still is a slight jagged edge no matter how sharp the scissors are and this is where ink started to come off during the process of putting them on the model. Anyhow I ended up using just the main image’s of the decal’s. On 1/144 the image is so small you really can’t see the small fine black lines around the eyes and mouth.

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It took quite awhile to do just the port side. Because of the small jagged edges in some places you end up having white decal visible so I bottle brushed O. D. around the image on the nose and tail to try to make it blend into the fuselage color, a little bit of the red on the tail and mouth also needed touchup. A small part of the bomb score melted a bit but it still could be acceptable. I take a rest and let it sit for a bit of time and then go back to look at it again and decide whether to leave it or try to rip them off and start again.

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Here are some shots of the port side, the portion of the decal that sits over the nose side window still has to be cut away and Krystal Clear put in along with the port machine gun. If it looks ok when I go back to it I’ll finish the starboard side and put in the tail guns.

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Keep Em' Flying,
Christopher Soltis

Dedicated to the preservation and education of The Sikorsky Memorial Airport

CASC Blog Page: http://ctair-space.blogspot.com/
Warbird Wear: https://www.redbubble.com/people/warbirdwear/shop

Chicks Dig Warbirds.......right?


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PostPosted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:56 pm 
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Nice work!

Tom P.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 05, 2016 12:36 pm 
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Thanks Tom!

My dad went back to look at the aftermarket .50 Cal waist guns once more. They are really molded nice and just a tad oversize. He reworked a pair down to where they looked adequate enough for him to be installed in the waist windows. These two pieces were the last items that were needed to put the aircraft in the showcase.

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_________________
Keep Em' Flying,
Christopher Soltis

Dedicated to the preservation and education of The Sikorsky Memorial Airport

CASC Blog Page: http://ctair-space.blogspot.com/
Warbird Wear: https://www.redbubble.com/people/warbirdwear/shop

Chicks Dig Warbirds.......right?


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