Middle River Stump Jumper 1/48 scale

[LorenSharp]

As I'm sitting here watching paint dry on an F4U for the Corsair GB I start thinking, I know Dangerous, then I start what-ffing,, even more hazardous, then I start plotting.... Catastrophic. End result.... I have an old Monogram B_26 Marauder I disassembled a long while back for restoration. THis is an old kit, built 

waaaaay back in the last century. Not in the best of shape, cracked pieces, real glue marks, not CA. Probably should be tossed in the bin, and it may still, BUT lets see if it can be resurrected into an XB-26H. Otherwise known as the Middle River Stump Jumper.

And I'm just certifiable enough to try and do this because I ain't never not done it. So if you feel brave to follow along if only to watch me flail about, or to offer pearls of wisdom you are most welcome to join. Extra refreshments have been stocked and seating have been arranged.

Lets begin shall we? As always Comments, suggestions,and general anarchy is welcomed.

[LorenSharp]

First off an inventory of what I have is in order.

Like I said, not in the best condition, but then it is almost 30 years old.

Originally I used Testors paint stripper to take a majority of the paint and decals off before it had gone into storage.

Still need to remove more and clean up the excess glue drips.

[LorenSharp]

This time I used a clean cloth and Lacquer Thinner and gently removed the last of the coating. Can't use too much otherwise or rub too hard because I'll damage the plastic.

then a light sanding to remove the raised panel lines. Those will be re-scribed. I will have to probably print some parts out. but we'll see.

[SAT69]

Considering what you started with, that cleaned up nicely. This is going to be very interesting to watch as I don't know that anyone has ever tried modeling the "Stump Jumper" before.

[LorenSharp]

First time for everything. 😎 What I like is that it was a test bed for bicycle landing gear used on the Martin B-48 and ,B-51. Also Boeing's B-47. There's a test video on you tube of them doing quick turns on the tarmac. Looks more like a teenager trying to do donuts in the school parking lot. I still have a long way to go on clean up and prep work.. One thing missing are my props. I think I put them with my Martin Mariner vac. So I'll just make new ones.

[Marklo]

Oven cleaner is supposed to be good. Haven’t tried it myself. Good luck with the build.

[LorenSharp]

Oven cleaner does a good job, but being causstic soda(lye) needs to be used in a well ventilated area with protective gloves and eye wear. Two other items available here in the States Simple Green and Purple Power do excellent work and are safe for clear plastic. Bleac-white tire cleaner or brake fluid will work and strip chrome from plastic,but those will also soften plastic.

[AdrianMF]

Took me a second look before I realised what's going on! I'm hooked...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[LorenSharp]

Welcome back to the home of the Happy Stump Jumper. After cleaning the exterior up some I commenced to working on modifying  the cockpit from the original. Since I'm converting this from a tricycle landing gear aircraft to a bicycle aircraft might as well stuff some detail in.The B-26 wasn't a bad kit when it was  released in 1978. It has about the same level of detail as the Monogram B-17G and B-29. Great for the time period, not so much for today. 

I started by redoing the interior side panels on the port and starboard. . I would have liked to have used Martian's Idea with the textured Styrofoam plates for sound deadening material, but unfortunately here in the states plates are all smooth. At least that I've found so far. To overcome this I simply took some  card stock and drew the lines in. Tried to score the lines at first and use a black wash to highlight but I didn't care for the result. The pencil gives a faux look, not that you can see much once the windscreen is installed. Also added small card for various boxes and made microphones for both sides as well.

[LorenSharp]

Then redid the cockpit floor adding additional bracing  And modified the  seats into a proper look with milliput. The bulkhead I ground off the moulded fire extinguisher and made a new one from a cotton bud stick and the tip of a toothpick.An small pice of resin saned down completed the look for the pressure tank behind the pilots seat.

The pilots steering column I changed from the bowtie(which is correct for the co-pilot) to the half-moon wheel.

Cleaned up the clear plastic, scraping off the old glue marks then lightly sanding with 2000 grit paper and using plastic polish to buff out the scratches

And a little bit of milliput to repair damage to one of the nacelle covers.

 

 

[LorenSharp]

Added to the internal bracing. not much of this will be seen  but it  will add to it a little bit.

Boxed in for the rear gear placement, After cutting out for the Box a closer inspection of shows that the rear gear may not have been designed to be retracted. after all this was just a testbed  for the feasibility of landing, take off and taxiing a plane with bicycle landing gear. If need be I can reattach the pieces I cut off to begin with. But that won't be for a while.

The wing bracing also need to be fixed. The original bracing broke during disassembly, so I cut them off and glued thick card to replace.

 

[LorenSharp]

After the weathering black wash dried I added the interior and Bomb  bay panels. 

Some of the smaller window glass I replaced with thin clear plastic taken form a pack of cookies.🥴

Glued the halves together and filled in the seam with glazing compound. The Stump Jumper didn't have  the  rear gun turret, so I put a piece of plastic card to cover the hole from underneath then filled it with MIlliput. I'll let this dry over night  then begin the sanding down and smoothing out. 

[Martian]

Not that I ever tried very hard bit I never could resist the weird and wonderful. I'm in.

 

Martian 👽

[LorenSharp]

Welcome aboard Martain, I can always use our friendly neighborhood Multi talented and tentacled Martian as a kibitzer. You never know what rabbit hole I may follow down.

[Colin W]

Great project under way here. Good to see some proper modelling going on. 

Looking forward to seeing the finished result. 

 

Colin 

[RODH2]

Weathering is a bit overdone.............       😆

[corsaircorp]

Hello Loren !!

Never heard of the stump jumper before !!

Thanks for the explanations !

I'll follow on if you don't mind it !

Revival of old kits is always interesting for me...

Sincerely

CC

[Nikolay Polyakov]

Very interesting choice, @LorenSharp! 👍 As always.

 

18 minutes ago, corsaircorp said:

Never heard of the stump jumper before !!

I’m agree with you, CC! It’s something unusual.

[Marklo]

I too like the esoteric. And much as I like them ( I have a MK IX that I’m planning on building ) thank goodness it’s not another Spitfire build.

[LorenSharp]

 

Following up a bit, modifying the main gear front and rear I didn't add much in the way of  detail as from what I could gather from limited resources the the bays were completely ,or mostly enclosed. which makes sense I suppose for the Stump jumpers main resaon for exisitance was to test the feasibility of a bicycle landing gear set up. so aside of touch and go landing and the occasional drifting on the tarmac

But I don't know what it must have been like to put that plane into a drifting slide on the runway, but it must have been intense., to say the least.

[LorenSharp]

And the beginning of the outrigger  gear. The original main gear framing was used as the basis  for the outriggers. The lower portion  went to the main bicycle gear.

The riggers have more detail they actually retracted those.

[LorenSharp]

The longitudinal stiffeners were added (They were needed on the original because of the stresses on the frame from testing.

Enclosed the rear gunners position with a little bit of milliput. Once everything has dried I'll sand down and prepare for priming.

[LorenSharp]

Managed to get  a little bit more done inbetween rain drops and high heat. Started the pre-shading process. I'm going try and not do as much weathering as usual but with the age and condition on the model it might be necessary to cover-up "irregularities". I built this model originally 28 years ago. Time and the original build have not been kind. But no matter.

And painted the undercoat for the metallic surfaces. On;y the bottom of the wings and the engine nacelles were bare metal on the actual test vehicle.

 

[LorenSharp]

A light coat of olive drab on the upper surfaces and the bottom on the bottom of the fuselage and bottom leading edges of the wings

Once dry masked off to lay a coat of duralumium to the undersides

Added the main centerline tyres and the outrigger pogos once the finished printing, 

Not happy with the fit of the bomb bay doors or the nose wheel door. I think this was the original reason I had both open on the original build. I would leave nose doors open but from the images I have it looks like everything was permanently closed except for the outrigger doors.

 

[LorenSharp]

Nice happy accident , because of the gear arraignment there was no need to put 50gm of lead weight to keep it from being a "tail sitter" I thought that might be the case but wanted to get the gear on before needing to adding the weight

And added new landing lights to the wings. I am going to have to make a new small window for the Starboard side as it fell inside the now sealed fuselage. And waiting for the printer to finish a set of engines and props . the kit engines are laughable at best and I lost the old props and can't see paying a small fortune for another kit just for the props. Also have to mask off the canopy,nose and rear tailgunners position glass so they can be added next. With luck I'll have those images up in a few days. If you have any questions, comments ,or suggestions please feel free to shout them out.