Honeybee Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 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 29 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 Fantastic model Paul! I really like the weathering and the nose art is impressive. Regards, Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark4700 Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 You've done a fantastic job of this and I really like the nose art Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROBOT Posted February 2, 2017 Share Posted February 2, 2017 Paul, Can't be wrong with a big bird hanging from the ceiling !! (you will be hangig it from the ceiling, will you?!) cool build, lovely nose art! From all the classic american WW2 bombers, I always liked the b 24 Liberator the most, don't know why.... off to ebay, maybe I can pull the trigger on a Revell (Ex matchbox) privateer..... Thanks for sharing, Olli Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honeybee Posted February 3, 2017 Author Share Posted February 3, 2017 Hi Olli No, not from the ceiling. Not done that for years. Regards Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Henry Posted February 10, 2017 Share Posted February 10, 2017 Nice work !! Bob H. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody37 Posted February 10, 2017 Share Posted February 10, 2017 Not sure how I missed this one mate, superb. Applying that nose art don't look much like fun, but you've nailed it. see you Sunday Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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