Louise Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 I've always admired the lines of this a/c yet never built one. This Hasegawa B-26 F/G boxing arrived this week so that I could utilize some more options on the Xtradecal sheet X72-107 that I'd purchased some time ago for my Wellington X. I will be building this OOB. Roll on the 28th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliffB Posted May 28, 2011 Share Posted May 28, 2011 Hi Louise and welcome to the GB - I look forward to watching your progress with this one. Cliff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F111Fan Posted May 31, 2011 Share Posted May 31, 2011 Look forward to seeing this, very nice looking kit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted June 3, 2011 Author Share Posted June 3, 2011 Started....... ARGH... the rear gunners canopy is missing, so I've had to order a replacement from the distributor. Meanwhile, I built up the cockpit after adding some sidewall details (evergreen strip and various stock) based on photos I've seen of other builds. This also included using some blue-tac for the pilots seat headrest. That has all gone in now and today I spent much time joining the fuselage halves in stages due to the difficulty aligning the thing. This model is going to be wheels up so the cockpit will have some figures soon. The cockpit has also been given a wash which isn't shown in the photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 Very, very nice. Impressive detail painting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Marshall Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 That's looking nice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted June 5, 2011 Author Share Posted June 5, 2011 Fuselage is now joined and a long pain in the rear end that was. It's not exactly "shake 'n' bake", I started on the top seam, front to rear with thin Tamiya glue and tape to hold things together. I couldn't use clamps as the curve caused the clamps to flex the parts too much. A day later I did the lower seam. On the third day I had to run thin glue back over the top seam in front of the tail as it had moved. The liquid glue is great for softening the join and allows movement and then resets quickly. I then brushed on a layer of Mr Surfacer 500 on the seams and the two sink marks on the upper starboard fuselage. PJ Production RAF pilots were painted and installed in the cockpit. The canopy was masked with Eduard's tape which doesn't match up with all the kit's details... it's not for the B/C version and yet it's not for this F/G version. Anyway, I think when I remove these masks I'm going to have to do some painting to thicken the frames. I usually don't mind spending the $$ on these masks for large complex models, but in this instance I would have been better buying a coffee and doughnut and doing it myself. There are two internal braces on the upper inside of the canopy and these were simply done by using self adhesive metal foil on the inside. The seams have been sanded down and the bomb doors attached. That was not a great fit so I've had to fill a fairly wide gap on one side with clear white glue (Weldbond). I've started to manipulate the front gear doors to fit in the closed position. I'm still contemplating how to make a better fit; probably have to add some styrene bracing along the edges to give support. Lastly I've built both wings which went together very nicely and on test fitting match the fuselage very well. I might leave these off until after painting. Meanwhile the engines were airbrushed steel and given a black wash and will be built up today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted June 5, 2011 Author Share Posted June 5, 2011 Very, very nice. Impressive detail painting. Thanks, it comes and goes. I don't know if you have seen the huge build article on the B-26F by Andrea Vignocchi in "Sky Model, Volume V, Issue 23 and 24", 2010. The guy went overboard and it's a pity it's all hidden inside the kit, but very inspirational work. I won't spend the time super detailing if you can't see it at the end of the day, there has to be a compromise; time/effort/life. I only have one good eye, the other is termed a "lazy eye", so it doesn't focus near or far. It hinders me greatly when modelling because I have no spatial depth of field and can't see shadows well. It's sometimes funny as I'll work on a seam and it will look perfectly smooth to me, I'll paint a particular colour and it will look smooth and opaque, then I'll take it outside or change the lightning and all of a sudden my good eye will pick up the faults..... builds take a long time! A lot of repetition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted June 9, 2011 Author Share Posted June 9, 2011 Been busy with this one. On the whole it's going together well. I think I'm making work for myself having this wheels up as the u/c doors are not designed to be closed. The doors are in place now and needed plenty of CA to fill the gaps and profile with the fuselage and/or engine pods. It's gone through the first round of sanding in these areas. The poor fitting of the engine pods to the wings required a lot of trial fitting and sanding to obtain a "best fit" which isn't too bad, just a couple of gaps to sort. However, the rear casting that protrudes out of the back of the wing is a completely different profile to the engine pods..... so the next stage here is filler and sanding to match them up. Not quite the Hasegawa build quality I was expecting. I also decided to use the QBoost cannon pods on the sides as the kit parts look crap. Luckily the QBoost pack comes with 4 cannon pods, I only need two on the SAAF a/c, so my SAAF B-26B/C can the rest of the set. The tail assembly is also a really poor fit, needing a lot of scraping to fit between the fuselage sides. Aside form the time working on these major assemblies, she's soon going to be ready for priming and filling, panel line re-scribing and painting. Test fitting the wings to fuselage looks good. Not having to do all the work on the u/c sure saves some time. Of interest I've got one of those Valom Mk.1a to make as well, and it has a much smaller parts count to Hasegawa. Be interesting to compare builds. Here, the u/c doors/fuselage have been sanded to match. You can see the dark lines that are CA. Some panel lines now need to be re-scribed and I have to glue the resin cannon back on...typical, if it can be broken it will. Here the engine pod also CA'd and sanded to blend the profile. The red arrows show where the profile between the engine pod and rear bit (name?) is very poor. This will need something like milliput to form a smooth blend as the profile is wrong on all axis so that you actually have a valley where the joint line is! Good view showing the nice sleek lines of the closed engine pod..... having u/c down really does some planes no justice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPNGROATS Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 L. Your Marauder is comming along nicely, the B-26 was a sleek looking a/c. Cheers, ggc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliffB Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 It's great to see your progress Louise. I've only ever made one Hasegawa kit myself (a 1/72 Starfighter) and I must admit that I was disappointed too with the fit of some parts - no worse than many other manufacturers, but not as good as I was expecting given the reputation and price. Cheers Cliff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 Looks really labour intensive, but as others have said, the Marauder has a certain 'presence'... looking forward to seeing this progress. Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted June 13, 2011 Author Share Posted June 13, 2011 I sprayed the sub assemblies with auto primer to show up where I needed to do some puttying (utilized either CA or white putty) and re-scribing. For the latter I just got hold of Hasegawa's Trytool set of templates which are rather nice. I sanded the whole painted surface to make it smooth for the next stage primer. The main problem areas are those with all the grey plastic showing through! I glued the sub assemblies together, the wings with 25sec CA to allow for some movement/positioning, followed by running liquid cement along the seam line. The join on the main wing to fuselage is pretty good. I believe just a coat of Mr Surfacer will suffice. The tail unit is OK'ish, just as well this isn't going to be ANM. For those following this thread, you'll notice(?) that I've gone knocked off the other resin canon from it's pod just to keep equilibrium. Next time I'll not add these parts till painting time. She's looking nice, I'm very glad to have this wheels up, such graceful lines for a bomber. I hope to get through this build this week as next week I'm off to climb in the Rockies for a month and I ain't taking any kits with me and could do with the fresh air to clean out all this toxic crap from my lungs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPNGROATS Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 Looking real smooooth..! Cheers, ggc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Such a lot of filling and sanding. It would drive me nuts. I admire your persistence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vulcanicity Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Good work on what looks like quite a tough kit. So much for Hasegawa's "fall together" reputation! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 Good work on what looks like quite a tough kit. So much for Hasegawa's "fall together" reputation! Well she's built now, certainly not a shake 'n' bake kit. The worst bit, probably is the tail unit due to it being done in clear plastic. That stuff just doesn't melt like grey plastic, it's too brittle and the joins are not strong. I keep breaking open the seam at the foot of the tailplane and the rear stabilizers keep opening up. Noting is producing a good melted join; MEK, Tamiya, Faller , nothing! I can't understand why Hasegawa did this entire fret in stupid clear plastic! I have read there's a similar issue with their B-24 kit's, where the nose is an all clear plastic casting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 The MK.III is getting there, I finished filling/sanding and gave the bird a coat of grey primer decanted from a rattle can. While I was doing this the joint of the tail assembly split open as did the trailing edge seam of the stabilizers. So, CA, sand, paint..... fracking thing opens up again, oK, clean the joint, use MEK instead, clamp, buff, paint, umgh.... not so sure that's really going to last, so I also decide to spread a thin layer of extra thin CA.... sand, buff, prime. What a pain in the bottom. I have read that there's a similar problem with Hasegawa's B-24 clear plastic nose casting. Well we all know that clear plastic is not the same stuff as grey plastic, so why they decided to do the entire tail assembly fret in clear brittle plastic that just won't melt to create a good join is beyond me. I know if I knock the tail end again, it's going to split, so I better be careful. Basically the build is finished, I've only to add the completed engine assemblies and props, attach the resin guns, add the windows plus the blister dome window on the top which is not provided for with this kit - the decal sheet shows the SAAF having this dome. Mine comes from the unused item in the Hasegawa Lancaster Grand Slam model, just so happens it's the correct width/height. For painting I pre-shaded the panel lines with grimy black (Floquil solvent). I used Vallejo Air dark sea grey for the undersurface which was shot with a couple of thin layers with various additions of dark grey blue and white to alter the shade. The upper surface applied the same way with Vallejo Olive Drab, later mixed with camo green and white to add depth. I like the effect at the moment prior to decals going on, but will I think do some more weathering and paint chips. The a/c had patches of "fresh olive drab" around the nose and tail, so this was done by adding more green to the olive drab and less thinner. I'm letting the paint fully cure before a gloss coat goes on. I need to photo this outside as the current photos are taken under poor lighting, apologies for this here as it's really hard to actually see the OD variances with this yellow tinged lightning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killingholme Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Looking good, very good indeed! The tail sounds quite frustrating- I always assumed that at the price they ask, any Hasegawa kit would be unimpeachable. Will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Such a superb looking machine. Great work thus far, Louise. Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 The bird is decaled, exhaust stains, some paint chipping and all the remaining bits on. I'll not say she's finished as I'm contemplating trying out the salt weathering technique....... it does need that OD broken up a bit more. I had used Vallejo paints, the grey underneath, though looking like that on decal sheet is too dark. Today, I came across the Pollyscale OD, OD II and Neutral grey that I had gone purchased for this kit and then gone forgot that I'd gone purchased them for this kit. Hiding they were. Well that neutral grey really is a very light grey isn't it? Ooops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deacon Posted July 2, 2011 Share Posted July 2, 2011 Cracking build Louise. Did you try any more weathering or leave well alone? Deacon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted July 4, 2011 Author Share Posted July 4, 2011 Cracking build Louise. Did you try any more weathering or leave well alone? Deacon Not until I return home 25th July, then I will. Meantime I'm in the UK in Dorset visiting parents and looking at the old bombing ranges around Fordingbridge and Godshill, which is where the RAF did the test runs on the bouncing bombs and Grand Slams.... there's still a bit of the old concrete "submarine pens" and other structures up there plus the huge crater from those Grand Slams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Not until I return home 25th July, then I will. Meantime I'm in the UK in Dorset visiting parents and looking at the old bombing ranges around Fordingbridge and Godshill, which is where the RAF did the test runs on the bouncing bombs and Grand Slams.... there's still a bit of the old concrete "submarine pens" and other structures up there plus the huge crater from those Grand Slams. Sounds a fascinating trip. I like the Marauder. Looks good 'in flight'. I must have a go at that one day. The stopped props hinder the illusion a bit for me but that aside it looks great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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