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Restoring a ‘Previously Loved’ Airfix 1/72 B-25 Mitchell


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Looks promising. And I see that you implement 3d printed parts, how awesome is that.

What program do you use to sketch it ? I only use downloaded designs and slice it with Cura, but I also want to learn to sketch my own designs.

 

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Just now, LOX said:

Looks promising. And I see that you implement 3d printed parts, how awesome is that.

What program do you use to sketch it ? I only use downloaded designs and slice it with Cura, but I also want to learn to sketch my own designs.

 

I use Onshape. It’s free to use. The designs are stored on Onshape’s servers and can be viewed by anyone, which can be an issue for some but doesn’t bother me in the slightest. On my Windows pc, when I export the file, it opens an ‘open file’ window which automatically opens Cura. 

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5 hours ago, cobraleader said:

great effort ... have you considered removing the rivets all together and use a rivet wheel to recreate them ???


I did consider removing the rivets and scribing lines and re-riveting.

The problem is the plastic. It’s very old, hard and brittle. I tried my cheapo tool on the old bomb bay part which is the same plastic. I barely made a dent in it using light pressure, so it’s probably best to leave it as it is.

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2 hours ago, Brigbeale said:


I did consider removing the rivets and scribing lines and re-riveting.

The problem is the plastic. It’s very old, hard and brittle. I tried my cheapo tool on the old bomb bay part which is the same plastic. I barely made a dent in it using light pressure, so it’s probably best to leave it as it is.

You could go the route of rivet decals.

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There’s not a great deal to report on last nights going-ons.

First was to clean up the area over the wing where it broke off. There was a distinctive line of filler which the primer showed up, so the nacelle was sanded and the wing was scraped with a curved blade rather than sanded to keep the rivet detail.

 

The next was to add some extra nose weight. For some reason, when the primer was sprayed on, the model went tail heavy🤷🏻‍♂️. It may have returned to normal once the engines and propellers were fitted but to be sure, I prised the nose wheel door off and added two off cuts of the penny weights which are fitted behind the cockpit. The B-25 now sits back on its gear as intended.

 

I did look for the rivet decal as suggested by Thom216, but the smallest I could find (with the quick search I did), was 0.6mm. I got my 0.6mm drill bit and offered it up to the fuselage to compare it against the rivets, but it appeared bigger than the rivets, so I’ll leave it.

 

I also did a bit of final sanding in preparation for painting. The top centre seam needed another smear of filler to sort a couple of dimples. The engines were white tac’’d into position. I filled in the recently drilled exhaust holes because it occurred to me that the raised lines around the engines are themselves exhausts. I quite like them so they’re staying - even if they’re not accurate to the subject aircraft.
 

I had a delivery of the set of Decals I’m intending to use. They’re Techmod ones. I was originally going to depict Grumpy, but I missed the decal sheet listed on EBay (I was distracted on the model at the crucial moment🙄). Now the intended subject is B-25 FW130 MQ-A. 
 

JwYxW5u.jpg

dQjt601.jpg
 

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Tonight I gave the underside centre seam the same attention as the top seam - filler and sanding.

The crew entry hatches were a hideous fit and as such they don’t want to cooperate in making them tidy with clean edges. 
 

I gave the model some pre-shading with Tamiya NATO Black.

Once that was dry, I gave the underside a light(ish) coat of Tamiya Sky Grey and left just enough shading showing though to give some detail.

Again, once that was dry, I masked the undersides off for the Olive Drab to be applied to the upper surfaces.

5U24upU.jpg
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I had a pot of Tamiya Olive Drab, which was last applied to my B-24 Liberator. Initially it came out too dark - especially on a scale model so I mixed some more with white paint to lighten the shade. It was better but not the right shade of Olive Drab. I expected it to be green with a hint of brown?? 

H4hUrum.jpg

 

 

The colour was right for my restored Airfix C-47 Gunship which I rebuilt as a Dakota with invasion stripes on it with home-made decals.

LUMr0vf.jpg

 

I looked at my Mr Color paint chart and found two Olive Drabs (1 and 2). Olive drab 1 appeared to be nearer what I was after for the B-25, so off I went to my local model railway shop to buy a pot (a pot - not some pot!). While there I bought a pot of Mr Cement S as Hobbycraft seem to be out of TET and don’t know when they will get more.

 

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Tonight I had two models to work on - the B-25 and a small repair job to my 1/48 scale Spitfire.

While looking at the Monogram Phantom, during a moment of pondering,  I inadvertently knocked the glass shelf above it and the shelf dropped down at an angle and landed on the Spitfire. At first, it looked as though it had escaped unscathed, but then I noticed the tail wheel was missing. I found it outside the front of the cabinet. 
I offered it up to the stub of the tail wheel and it appeared to fit exactly at the point where it had broken off. I thought it would be good to give the Mr Cement S a try.

Once the wheel was back on I sat the Spitfire on my 3D printed stand for it to set.

k8LTVW1.jpg

 

Now the update on the B-25.

I was looking forward to tonight’s activity as it was time for painting the Olive Drab on the upper surfaces.

The paint was thinned beyond where I would normally thin the paint to enable the paint to be sprayed on in thin coats to show the pre-shading off.

With some trepidation, I started airbrushing the B-25 with my generic airbrush. 
I started with the tail-fins and the results were better than expected as I set a low pressure to suit the thinned paint.

I progressed with each panel from the tail forwards spraying light coats section by section until I was happy with the result.

Once I’d covered the upper surfaces, I was more than happy with my work with what I consider the right amount of weathering.

jyUkg5A.jpg

OX4DPR2.jpg

Edited by Brigbeale
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Tonight, I went round and touched up a couple of areas which I noticed during the day were a little too light on the Olive Drab, namely the port engine leading back down the nacelle under the wing, the fuselage under the wings and the air intake on the port engine leading backward owner the wing nacelle.

 

I let that dry for an hour while I had a cup of tea and some biccies - low fat of course!


Then came the moment to kick my brain into gear. INVASION STRIPES!

 

A quick look on Wikipedia told me allied twin engine aircraft had 24” stripes starting 24” outside of the nacelles and 18” forward of the tail wings. I simply multiplied 24 x 25.4 (inches x millimetres as 1 inch equals 25.4mm) and then divided by 72 (the scale) to get a figure of just under 8.5mm per stripe. Using the same calculation, the fuselage stripes start 6.3mm ( I rounded it to 6.5 for ease) in front of the horizontal stabilisers.

 

I cut 8.5mm strips of tape to mark out the wing top stripes and placed a thicker piece of tape either side to set the overall width. The same was done on the fuselage using the rivet detail as a guide to set the initial thin strip of tape straight. Larger areas either side of the masked areas were covered with more tape.

 

Tamiya XF-2 Flat White was thinned and the pressure dropped to lightly airbrush the stripe areas, but not too heavily as I wanted it to be a bit weathered and not solid white. That is now drying and hopefully, tomorrow night, I’ll airbrush the black in a similar fashion.

 

This is where the B-25 sits at the moment.

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vJz1B9O.jpg

 

It looks a bit strange with just the white at the moment so I dug the C47-come-Dakota out to help visualise the effect I’m after.

2cFF2Xr.jpg

NSIWKeV.jpg

Edited by Brigbeale
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Just a simple one for tonight’s thrilling instalment😆

 

The white areas were masked off the same way as before fir the addition of the black stripes.

They were painted with Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black gradually to show a bit of weathering although not a lot shows in the photos.

 

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YHGfFx5.jpg

i6fNmBQ.jpg

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Looking good in paint!

BTW, the "tail wings" are the horizontal stabilizer. They actually do not provide lift to hold the aircraft in the air, but provide a downwards force to keep it balanced. If they provided lift and the airflow was interrupted (ie a stall) the tail would drop and it would be impossible to recover. When the wings stall, the nose drops and it can be recovered using the tail surfaces. (aerodynamics 101!)

 

Ian

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Tonight, I looked at a photo (IWM Photo, CL107) of FW130 taken from another B-25 while on a bombing run. I noticed that the most forward white band in the fuselage invasion stripes have a gap which is an Olive Drab section with the squadron code in it. However another B-25 in the same photo has the squadron code painted over the forward white stripe.

I remember reading that the stripes weren’t supposed to be painted over the aircraft identification codes so maybe they were repainted back on top of the stripe??

KfdIKhx.jpg

 

Anyway, I remedied the forward stripe by measuring the height of the decal which goes there and adding 1mm top and bottom. I then cut some tape to suit and applied it over the stripes. Olive drab was then painted over the exposed section of the white stripe and the tape removed, achieving the desired effect.

 

Once that had dried for about 1/2 hour, I applied a coat of Humbrol Gloss Cote ready for the application of the decals.

 

While that was put aside to dry, I started painting the replacement wheels. The tyres were painted the usual Revell Anthracite and left to dry.

IQXY5tZ.jpg
tlzJnIS.jpg

 

Unfortunately, the Gloss Cote highlights the repaired crack in the top of the port wing. Hopefully, once the Matt varnish is applied, it’ll hide it better.😕

Edited by Brigbeale
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Interesting that there is no individual aircraft id letter on it in the pic, only the squadron code. Also, there's a small window in the rear fuselage!

I'm sure the matt coat will that that repair again.

 

Ian

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There’s not a great deal to report tonight and nothing worth taking photos of.

 

I masked the leading edge icing boots on both wings and all stabilisers and hand painted them on. A couple of touch ins are needed but on the whole they look fine.

 

I also painted the wheel centres Aluminium. They have a bigger hole in the centre than the diameter of the axle in the landing gear, so I’ll 3D print an adapter to suit both.

 

I’m in two minds as to whether I will open up the windows in the rear fuselage in front of the horizontal stabilisers. It seems simple enough but the plastic is quite tough and brittle and I don’t want to ruin the good work done so far.

 

That’s about it for tonight. 
I did say there wasn’t much to report……

Edited by Brigbeale
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Just wondering have you considered painting in the windows instead I'd you are worried about cutting them, you could paint them an then add a gloss coat to give ghd illusion of a window, this could work with ghe size of ghe window and the location???

Chris

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Well I decided to go for it!!

 

I practiced on the scrap Grumman Duck? It turned out well but it’s a different plastic to the B-25…..

i9vKD2Q.jpg
 

I started by marking the size with strips of masking tape

4lFy0rZ.jpg

 

No turning back now….

RiOH5IG.jpg

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That went well so I did the other side the same way.

7QMIG5r.jpg
 

I filled the windows with Elmer clear glue using a cocktail stick. Hopefully, they’ll be dry so I can start decalling tonight.

LTUPawA.jpg

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