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Eduard (Hasegawa) 1/72 B-26 Marauder "Hangover Hut"


elger

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Thanks Josip and Dana for that input! Meanwhile, I finished the engines. Here's one:

 

DY6lWqY.jpg


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And there's two of them. Painted with black primer, then the cylinders with Vallejo Dark Aluminium. The crank case was painted with Vallejo grey blue, and details were painted with other Vallejo colours. Then I gave it a black filter/wash, and weathered it with a bit of oil paint - I used a colour called "starship filth". And then I misted them with some "star ship filth" from the Ammo Shaders range.

 

neLKvWt.jpg

 

Looking at period photos (including a colour photo of Hangover Hut) I've concluded that the inner wheel bays and the inner gear bay doors are aluminium, but the legs look like they were neutral grey. All colours here are Mig Ammo, except the chrome which was added with a Molotov Liquid Chrome marker

 

JR2hnzR.jpg

 

Finally the main gear.

 

Looking forward to the rest of this build - I've assembled the wings and glued them to the fuselage so I can continue with that. The fit of the wings wasn't great to be perfectly honest - upper wing fine but quite a gap between the lower wing and the fuselage but perhaps that's somehow my own fault.

 

Anyway as always thanks for looking; comments are always welcome. Stay safe everyone!

 

 

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Those engines looks sexy AF, as the kids say.  😎

 

I think you've made the proper call vis-a-vis the gear and gear bay colours, but I'd suggest going much darker and more matte in the little triangular holes in the main wheels.

 

Tyre treads look smashing as well, I've forgotten whether you went with aftermarket or just did a good job with the kit units.

 

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1 minute ago, Jackson Duvalier said:

Those engines looks sexy AF, as the kids say.  😎

 

I think you've made the proper call vis-a-vis the gear and gear bay colours, but I'd suggest going much darker and more matte in the little triangular holes in the main wheels.

 

Tyre treads look smashing as well, I've forgotten whether you went with aftermarket or just did a good job with the kit units.

 

 

Thanks! This Eduard kit comes with resin tires - so technically from the box, but not the Hasegawa box ;)

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Main construction finished, masked & getting ready for painting:

 

gbinj9D.jpg

 

I realized yesterday that masking wheel wells has to be my least favourite part of a build. Don't suppose there's a market for precut wheel well masks like canopy masks? :)

 

Hope to get some painting done next weekend.

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I had been thinking about using the blackbasing/marbling technique for painting as I have for all of my builds of the last few years, but looking at colour photographs of B-26s I thought that that effect simply wouldn't look right. B-26s chipped heavily, but the paint looks very even on all panels. But I did want some colour variation to avoid too much of a toy like appearance, so I'm trying to get some variation by masking individual panels and painting them in different shades of green. The new base coat was Mig Jimenez's RAF dark green, which to me is a very unpleasant colour somehow. Control panels were painted Earth, and then some individual panels Medium Green and RLM02.

 

hOGEDIf.jpg

 

I'm going to apply Olive Drab next in thin coats and using Mig Jimenez "Transparator" product - and see if some of this work will have the desired effect. Updates to follow :)

 

 

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11 minutes ago, Tbolt said:

Looking great. 

 

You're brave with those gun barrels fitted, I'm too clumsy and would break them all off before I got to the end of the build 😜

 

brave or stupid :) I already snapped off the barrel of the fixed machine gun when I fit the nose cone (the hole did not quite line up) but yes, I fear that the other barrel is also just a matter of time...

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5 minutes ago, elger said:

 

brave or stupid :) I already snapped off the barrel of the fixed machine gun when I fit the nose cone (the hole did not quite line up) but yes, I fear that the other barrel is also just a matter of time...

 

Yes I wish they would design things so you can easily add the barrels afterwards. On my B-26 I've cut them all off and I'm adding resin ones at the end if I can get them to fit 😉

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  • 2 weeks later...

Interesting read and I like the tone variation added to the main colours. With this kit added to the stash last autumn, it's one I want to build at some point soon... and with a chipped finish. Engines look wonderful too. Great work

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Decals are on. It was a bit of a journey!

 

cLB0opA.jpg

 

The Superscale decals sheet depicts the aircraft quite late in its career. The mission to Leeuwarden was Hangover Hut's 41st, so I simply cut away the bombing mission markings that would not have appeared yet.

 

I also added something resembling the name of the pilot, W M Sanders, underneath the pilot window by cutting individual letters from the crew names of a 1/72 decal sheet of the Memphis Belle. These yellow letters were so small I almost couldn't see them on the backing paper as I cut them out and if you look closely it doesn't actually say Sanders, but from about 30cms away you could be convinced it does say so.

 

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I had never actually used Superscale decals before I realized. I don't know if it was because they are 20 years old, but they required to be soaked in water for a long time before they came off the backing paper, and several tore in the process. This included the yellow/black stripes on the tail, two of the stars, and the name "Hangover Hut". Needless to say because of this applying these decals was a bit more stressful than usual, and I'm going to use that as the excuse for messing up the order of the code letters on the right-hand side of the fuselage. Instead of reading F-FW I put the decals on as F-WF (FW-F is in fact on the left hand side of the fuselage, as in the profile in the instructions). I had already put on a coat of Microsol before I realized so all I could do was first curse a little and then to decide what to do. I decided I couldn't live with the order being wrong, and thankfully I had some 1/48 RAF 30" code letters in Medium Sea Grey which were exactly as tall and just about the same colour as these 1/72 USAAF code letters. The font was slightly thinner, and I had to make the W out of 2 Vs (the W on the sheet looked wrong) but it could work. So I peeled away the codes I had put on incorrectly and applied the 1/48 fighter letters and it looks just about okay.

 

Another annoying thing that went wrong was one of the walkway lines - after positioning it it somehow drifted backwards and as it has dried it no longer lines up with the panel line. I really should paint walkway lines in the future.

 

OcmmNTB.jpg

 

In any case, the left hand side of the fuselage looks quite pleasing with the nose art in place and the other markings. Heading towards the finish line with this one I reckon!

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Adding some figures. These are from CMK - USAAF pilots and US Army drivers. Replaced the drivers' heads, one with another CMK head from a ground crewman and one from the old Airfix figures set because I really wanted him to wear a hat instead of a helmet.

 

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I used oil paints for the faces for the first time - some of the faces turned out better than others in the experiment, but overall I'm pretty pleased and will be using oils more.

 

kEmNopF.jpg

 

I'm also finishing the Autocar tanker truck from the Airfix USAAF support vehicles set to go with it. A bit of flash on the parts but boat loads of fun to assemble and paint. Will post a photo of that too when it's done.

 

Thanks for looking!

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