TheRealMrEd

Back again. After some more masking and painting, here she is. The cockpit glass area worked out okay: After all the paint dries for a day or two, it'll be time for decal-ling. (The spelling editor insisted upon this word -- looks odd to me...) And on another subject, the difference between the kits "version" wheels, and the Reskit "bomber" wheels: The kit's "version" wheels stick out further at the hub, and appear to be a little more heavy duty. Anyway, more later. Ed

Don't be hard on yourself Billy54. I worked on that area before paint, after painting, and now again, before final (I hope) painting! Ed

We'll try another round on this puppy... First up, all the masking is now removed: A couple more views of the cockpit. The windows will be cleaned with G00-Gone after all the final masking/painting is done: One of the biggest problems with this build is that for the life of me, I could not locate and overhead view or drawing of the glass area of the XA3D-1. Muroc gives you decals to outline the windows, but not any pics or drawings of EXACTLY how and where they fit. In addition, my vacuformed canopy doesn't clearly show clearly the outlines of the windows. So, I solved my problem by scanning the decal sheet, and printing out the needed window surrounds on plain paper: For me, this photo prints at actual size. Your mileage may vary. Next, I put some kubuki tape sticky side down on a piece of plastic, then added some thin two-sided tape atop that, then placed the printer paper outlines atop that, right side up: Upper right photos: with a new #11 blade, I carefully cut around the outlines, taking two or three shallow passes to try to get as clean a cut as possible. At first, I left the paper atop the masking tape masks, but eventually, I separated the two-sided tape and paper from the masking tape and just used the masks, to make conforming to the curves easier. All the little green spots are touch-ups with Micro Mask to clean up the corners, etc. where needed. Punched tiny disc of tape would have worked, but I am lazy... Below, the front view. If any of you ever build this model, these views will be most helpful! Looks like I also need some cleanup behind the cockpit so I'll add some PPP before masking the black anti-glare once again and shooting the final Gloss Blue. That's all for now. Please have a solemn, but happy Memorial Day and remember those who have paid for our freedoms. Ed

Hi Loren, I have that book also, but as you say, it doesn't help much, so I have paddled on with my best S.W.A.G.! Ed

Hello again. This time, back to the fuselage. The resin cockpit and nose gear well are glued to one side of the fuselage with CA, then a layer of a sort of flexible CA as a backup, in this case Go 2 Glue by Loctite. This helps assure that the parts don't come adrift in case I drop the fuselage, etc. -- which I have been known to do! Next, the cockpit (before installing) was done up with that sort of dark green mystery color that we all keep wandering about, along with black colored upper consoles,etc. The black seats were added after the fuse halves were assembled. Also shown below are the vacuformed canopy (trimmed to fit), and the resin master which Muroc thoughtfully provides in case you have to vacuform another copy: The canopy is a different shape from the production models, and is shown above right, after being installed with G - S watch cement, which can be smoothed with 91% alcohol when dry. Next, the fuse only required a small bit of filling at the lower rear, while the drop-down air diverter in front of the bomb bay on production models must be filled in (A below): The nose, tailfin cap and rear turret have been added and faired in. Note that on the prototype, no guns were carried. Next up, the entire fuselage is painted Gloss Navy Blue, after the entire canopy was masked with Parafilm "M": Above the model is shown after the flat black areas (nose, front anti-glare panel and rear of tail cap) have been masked off and painted. Below, the black areas are now masked off, and the wings are glued to the fuselage prior to final checks and final painting: Note that the wing to fuselage joint fits very well, something that I had checked before painting anything! Well, that's it for this time. See y'all later! Ed

Well, hello again! After a long hiatus due to remodeling various kid's houses and generally hiding out, I'm finally able to continue with this build! Actually, I've been sneaking in small bits of work here and there, but just haven't had time to process the photos and write the needed info here. I'll try now to get caught up a bit. The next step is gluing on the wing slats: which gets this part of the wing ready to go. Next up, the engine nacelles. The Muroc Models parts are CA'ed together, and will require a slight bit of filling, for pinholes and the like: The fit is not too bad, and will only require a little Perfect Plastic Putty, where the nacelles join the wings. I glued the nacelles to the wing with CA glue, and when dry, used a tiny rat-tail file to clean up some of the joins, then a coat of Alclad II Grey primer, followed by the afore-mentioned PPP, smoothed with a wet Q-tip, results in this: When doing twin-engine (and most multi-engine) aircraft, I find it difficult to fill the lower wing to fuselage join, and well as the inner nacelle to wing join, so it has become my custom to paint these items before assembly, and to touch up where needed afterward. The next photos show the results of a lot of work that I did not photograph: 1) White primer where the red goes on the front of the nacelles, followed by a coat of Insignia Red atop the white primer. 2) This was masked off, then then whole of both nacelles were airbrushed with MM 15042 Gloss Navy Blue overall. The gloss Navy Blue will provide as good an undercoat for the Alclad II metallics to follow later, on the rear end of the nacelles, as the usual Gloss Black. 3) After several days of drying, everything but the bare-metal parts on the rear of the nacelles was masked off with Parafilm M, and the Alclad II Polished Aluminum was added. 4) When dry, the red and bare-metal areas were re-masked with Parafilm M, and the nacelles were glued to the wings with CA. After drying, everything on the wing was airbrushed the Gloss Navy Blue: Well, that's all for now. Back soon with more. Hope all of you out the are alive, kicking and doing well! Ed

Looking good so far! FWIW, intakes on the American-built B-57A,B,C, and E models looked like this, with the "two-holer" or just "split" lower intakes: , while the B-57G and possibly some (not all?) of the EB-57B's looked like this: The D and F models were, of course, totally different. None of the 1/72 kits that I've seen personally have these intakes correct on the AMERICAN VERSIONS; they all depict the British engines of the original Canberra design. Ed

Actually, the Academy Pacific Theater B-17E box has the right fuse side gun windows blanked out, so that you can cut out either the staggered or non-staggered one as you choose: h Ed

Luka, FWIW, I addressed some of the issues involved with making an early B-17F, when I made my XB-40 conversion: It ended up being a combination of parts, based primarily on an Academy B-17E kit, as well as other wings, etc. As the "E" and "F"were mostly similar except for the nose glass, an aftermarket item could help you there. A read through of the (long) build thread might give you some ideas. Build thread HERE: Anyway, good luck with your project... Ed

Grey Grey Grey If Curtiss didn't think they were as close as they could get to the British specs and just wanted to slap on some paint, why wouldn't they just have painted the undersides plain of Neutral Grey, a darker shade, like all the other U.S. P40's? Oh, and the film from that era tended to shade toward blue, not away from it. Duckegg blue would have been even more pronounced, sort of like the famous photos of the P-51's that looked blue due to the film shift, but were actually O.D. Curtiss was trying tii get as close as possible to Sky Grey... Ed

Something like this on a B-10: Ed

Actual photo from the collection of Col R.L. Smith who was there: No blue to be seen here. A possible explanation from these two pages from Scale Aircraft Modeling #3 "P-36 and P-40" Ed

A more detailed discussion: AVG P-40B colors Ed

Bottoms of the AVG P-40Bs, etc. were light grey. Much info (as well as individual color plates for all aircraft) can be had in Osprey Aircraft of the Aces #41 " Americasn Volunteer Group Colours and Markings", by Terrill Clements, published 2001. Also, be aware that camo patterns varied on a FEW of the aircraft, but most all had differing sharkmouth paintings, etc. Ed

I think you've run into the North American Aircraft Company's mystery green-blue, to be found on several of their early jets, especially the B-45 Tornado. Ed