Honeybee

Hi Neil rather a nice Lincoln in the Warpaint book. Green/Brown/Black, three turrets, small H2S radome, bulged bomb bay doors and white codes. Gonna do it in 72 at some point, Regards Paul

Miggers, the faded drab is from an Xtracrylic bottle and comes just like it is in the piccie. Wobblyhands, the glazing is clear and what is in the nose is sufficient for me, the desk, 2 chairs, bombing computer, norden bomb sight, ammo box and the controls for the chin turret plus 2 50 cals. If you scratch built every piece of equipment in the nose of a B17 and put it in this kit you'd not see much of it so go with the kit bits and save a few bob. Or is that just me being a tight Yorkshire man, Regards Paul

Cheers guys, I guess the piccies are being kind to me again. Regards Paul

Hi Guys I have built this kit straight from the box with absolutely no extra parts from anywhere and can say without hesitation this is a great kit to build, unless you're me and you prefer doing it your own way and not the Airfix way. There is only one bit of the kit I decided to do my way and I'm saying don't do it. The belly turret cannot be fitted after assembly and painting is complete. my mistake. Won't do it again. Other than that there is nothing much to say. The fit of the parts is excellent, the wheel bays look really complicated in the instructions but aren't, same with the engines. It took me only 4 weeks to complete which for me is fast, there is only a little issue with the painting instructions where they indicate the prop hubs might be Green or Blue, A two second search on the internet for 100th BG says they're Green. Model painted with faded Drab for the tail and anti glare panels on the engines, the bands and rudder are Revell Anthrecite, the main silver is Halfords Aluminium with some panels painted Revell Silver (90) which gives a different tone, could have gone further but did this after the decals were on. The Green is Humbrol 131 from an old tin I got at Doncaster Aeroventure last month. I don't think I like the glazing panels for the nose area but then again I didn't fill and sand so that's what they look like on the kit, next one I'll do a proper job. I'm musing building a B17G1 which uses the F style glazing and and am hoping the Revell F will fit the Airfix G, although I suppose I could just use the Revell G and swap them as the F I intend to build has the cheek blisters. Anyway, on to piccies, Regards Paul

Nice Build so far. A little info I can offer on the bombs. Not sure which book I read this in but I bought it at Cosford and it's in my collection. The bombs were disposed in the sea as mentioned and the crews were advised to drop them from 4000ft, that is until one went off. They were dropped from 10000 feet from then on. I also recall that one of the types, at least, went on a normal bombing raid with 14 x 1000 bombs, the majority of which I assume were open to the elements. Regards Paul

Hi Olli No, not from the ceiling. Not done that for years. Regards Paul

Hi Guys at the last Scots Nats in Perth I got a book from John Adams with a picture of a B24 of the 36th Bomb Squadron named Beast of Bourbon. It had the best nose art I can remember seeing and so I decided to go for it and build it. I looked it up on the net and found several pictures of it plus a model of it on some tribute forum, not sure which. Anyhow, I purchased an Academy B24H from a friend and contacted another mate, who is big into 8th Air Force, for help with the noseart. He had some information for me and as he is a bit of an artist he said he'd do the decals for it. Some may know Rob Gray from several 48th scale assembly ships he built several years ago that appeared at the Donnington Nationals, In fact I think he won a catagory with his 'Pete the pom inspector'. He also supplied some colour information from the B/W photos as he's colour blind and sees in greyscale I presume. Not that I ended up painting the upper nose surface in Post Office red as he originally instructed me to. I changed the Academy front turret for one out of an Hasegawa kit and pinched the forked antenna on top of the fuselage from the same kit plus the two antenna on the nose. I was going to use the rear turret from the same kit but it was too large so went with the Academy offering. The wheels are resin from True Details and I also bought a set of Aviaeology stencil decals. The kit was sprayed with Humbrol Aluminium (56) from a can. I originally didn't like it as I thought it was too dark but it's grown on me. I sprayed the control surfaces with matt varnish, masked them off and sprayed the whole kit with clear Laquer from Halfords. I also bought a Squadron canopy set mainly for the bulged blisters as the Academy set doesn't have them, at this point I didn't know I had the Hasegawa kit in stock but in fact that had the blisters as part of a complete panel. The rest went in the spares. Having never used a set of Robs decals I was unaware how they'd behave but apart from one little annoying bit they were fine. The annoying bit was the hole for the little blister windows. Rob had sealed the decals with decal coat and I applied them as supplied. I then had to cut the window out and the coat acted a bit rubbery, in hindsight I should have cut them out before I applied them to the kit. The model was finished using pastel chalks for a light weathering, still might add to that at some point. I bought a copy of Squadron of Deception by Steven Hutton and it has all manner of information about the aircraft of the 36th including details of radio fits. It seems Beast of Bourbon had several types fitted but I couldn't figure out when so I went with 8 Mandrel antenna, 3 under each wing and 1 under each tailplane. B24H 42-50385 R4-H 'Beast of Bourbon' joined the 36th Bomb Squadron on 4th July 1944 at RAF Cheddington and served until crashing on take off on 19th February 1945 at Long Marston. Of the crew S/Sgt. Carl E Lindquist (21) Pvt. Fred K Becker (20) and Pvt. Howard F Haley (20) were killed. RIP [URL=http://s82.photobucket.com/user/Honeybee_02/media/20170123_164311_zpshtytyeaj.jpg.html][/URL] Hope it meets with approval. A very big thanks go to Rob Gray without whom I doubt my version would look so good. Now about that 48scale set........ Regards Paul

Chrish, There was no build thread, I take too long to build owt it'd drive people mad waiting for updates. There are no daygl panels cos none came in the kit, as far as I recall anyway. Regards Paul

Nice start Woody but please, a white Halibag. What are you thinking man? I quite like them actually so looking forward to watching the build. Richard and I had tought of swapping the ailerons over, did you give any thought to that? If nowt else it'd make the filling and sanding harder to see as it would be underneath, Regards Paul

Hi Not a very good piccie but at least its a Type IX. Not very icy either Regards Paul

Hi Very chilly out there. There is a small ommission from the boat though. When transiting ice a false bow was fitted so there would be no damage. As per this picture Regards Paul

Hi Guys, thanks for the replies. Bill, Glad you could add some piccies. They look great. The one low down shows of the H2S radome a treat, I never took one of it when I'd finished, Regards Paul

Hi all Long time no post. Anyway I built the Historic Wings Hasting for the 80th Anniversary display on the BC SIG table at Telford this last weekend. Nothing major about the build other than I didn't get a canopy with mine and it's only the third vac form kit I've made. I pinched the undercarriage from a new Revell Halifax, not 100% accurate but better than the kit offerings. I had to make the H2S blister from scratch using the plans in the Warpaint book to guide me, I used car body filler and 10thou card to form the shape. When it came to the canopy I had assistance from a Mr George Munro who crash moulded me one using his kit as a template, cheers George. It was supposed to be painted silver but that was far too bright so I painted it Aluminium and matted that down to a dull finish, again not 100%. The decals were going to be a nightmare as the roundles were cracked so they had to come from spares. I was sure the window decals would be the same but surprise surprise they worked fine. Finished as TG521 of the Bomber Command Bombing School at RAF Lindholme. Altogether it took me about 12 months on and off to get it done but I'm happy with the end result. Sorry there's only the one picture. Regards Paul

At Telford during the weekend I got talking to a guy from overseas who asked about my 48th scale Halibag and B17's. He wanted to know about the build probems with the Halifax and whether or not I would like to see some new kits of 48th scale British 4 engined bombers. We discussed the available kits and he then asked what I think would be the best plane to produce a model of. I told him that a Stirling would shoot of the shelves as at least there were injection moulded kits of the other two and only the Sanger vac form for the other. He thanked me and walked off saying you never know. Take from that what you will, I just wished I'd asked who he was. Regards Paul

I've got a Lincoln conversion. Mmmmmmmmmm