The Paragon kit includes replacement gun barrels for all the gun positions and
it’s time to start looking at these. Starting with the top turret I cut off
each gun barrel flush with the gun housing. Using my Welder’s Tip Drill the
gun housing gets a shallow mounting hole drilled and the resin gun barrel is
sanded lightly to slide into the hole. With a little superglue the barrel is
installed and aligned. The same procedure is followed on the Brownings for the
waist positions. The guns are painted with Gunze-Sangyo Burnt Iron, given a
black wash and dry brushed with Model Master Steel before getting the Polly
Scale dull coat.
The crouching gunner is superglued into position and the Browning on the
opposite side is taped in place again to position that gunner. He gets his feet
superglued down also. The Navigator is placed in the nose compartment and the
fuselage sides are test fit. Everything is looking good. I set that aside for a
few minutes and put a final coat of Future on the propellers. The Hamilton
Standard logos were put on the other day and set with Micro-Sol. Those are Mike
Grant logos by the way. I also put a coat of Polly Scale clear flat on the hubs.
Two of the hubs are done in dark green and two are done in dark sea gray. Now
I’m back to the fuselage. I wanted it to set aside for a few so I could come
back to it and look once again to see if I was missing anything before gluing it
together. All the clear parts that needed to be installed from the interior have
been placed and I will put Fast Frames masks on them after the fuselage is
together. The tail wheel will be installed later in the retracted position.
Earlier when I had test fit the wings I found that the front “L” peg
interfered with the cockpit bulkhead and had to be cut down about a quarter inch
for the wings to lock into place properly. Everything still looks good so I
begin the glue process at the underside of the tail and work my way around with
Tenex 7R a couple inches at a time making sure everything is straight, aligned
and tight.
After the fuselage had a few hours to set up I went over the seam with a razor
knife to clean off any large pieces of plastic that may have bubbled up from the
glue. There was very little need of putty along the seam. One spot behind the
cockpit needed a little and there were two or three spots along the belly that
needed just a dab. Anywhere that putty was applied I used a Q-Tip dipped in
acetone based fingernail polish remover to smooth out the putty and to remove it
from any raised detail. This will greatly reduce the sanding required and save
the most detail possible. The seams were sanded with progressively finer
sandpaper until they looked good under a close inspection.
The next item to install is the remotely operated belly turret. This is a
two-piece Paragon resin assembly and I am installing the upper cup. The edges of
the cup are sculpted to meet the contours of the kit fuselage but are not
correct and the fit into the fuselage is very loose. Either there will be a
large recess to the front and back or a raised area to the left and right. I
chose to lift the part so the front and back edges met the kit part and then
will grind off the raised area. I painted the interior area of the cup Green
Drab then placed a small drop of superglue to the back edge of the resin part
and tacked it in place. Once it was positioned properly I placed a few more
small spots of glue to secure it in place then worked around the edge with a
heavier bead of superglue. This was hit immediately with accelerator. I used my
Dremel with a small tear-dropped stone to grind off the excess superglue and
resin until the parts edge is nearly flush with the plastic. I shifted to a
diamond needle file to finish to basic material removal then cleaned it up with
fine sandpaper. There are still a few small spots that need some putty and then
it will be ready for primer. |
|
The top turret guns are installed into the glazing and I place Fast Frames
masking material on the glazing. The interior areas are covered with Grumbacher
Liquid Frisket material. The turret is installed into the cockpit roof, the
clear piece that comprises the cabin windows is glued in using Testors Clear
Parts Cement and the entire assembly is installed onto the fuselage. A wee bit
of putty is applied at the seams and smoothed out with acetone. The Fuselage
seams are brush painted with some primer gray and so are the outside areas of
the new nose window frames to seal the putty that was placed there early on in
the build. All the remaining clear parts have been Futured and allowed to cure
for 24 hours and now are installed. The previous modeler destroyed the clear
part for the side door so that needs to be reconstructed. Both new nose windows
need to be fashioned and the waist gun window areas need to be masked off. All
the kit windows are covered with the Fast Frames masks.
I am using the clear plastic packaging material from a package of Xacto blades
to construct my new windows. It’s a simple matter of cutting out some
rectangular pieces and trimming them to fit the openings, dipping them in Future
and allowing them to cure. I place a bead of Clear Parts Cement around the
interior edge of the window opening and use a thin strip of masking tape placed
across the new windows to hold them in position. The Paragon replacement nose
cone has been trimmed up, Futured and masked with strips of masking tape and
liquid frisket and is glued in place with the Clear Parts Cement. A single strip
of masking tape is used to help hold it in position until the glue sets up.
After the glue has dried I place another bead around the seam on the nose to
blend in a slight step from the fuselage.
The wings are not glued in place but simply held in place
by the plastic lock tabs. They will be glued shortly.
The kit tail-gun is just plain lame, there is no other way to describe it.
Ground-crews had dressed up this gun to look as formidable as possible to scare
off attacking aircraft but the kit gun would not scare of a Cessna. Fortunately
Paragon as provided plenty of replacement .50 caliber barrels in the conversion
kit. I needed to find some way to recreate the large flash suppressors that the
real guns displayed. I used a piece of 1/16 inch (1.6mm) Evergreen rod and
drilled it out with my Welders Tip Drill to make hollow tubing then sliced it
off the end at an angle. Two of these were super-glued to the resin barrels then
the barrels replaced the kit pieces and I now have a very formidable looking set
of Brownings to place on the aft end of this bomber. The tail gun assembly will
be installed after the model has been painted.
I’ve pulled the wings back off and touched up a few more areas along the
leading edge with some sandpaper and fit them to the fuselage again. The
Starboard wing fits fairly well but the Port wing has a large gap at the back
end and bulges out along the bottom seam. I run a few drops of Tenex 7R into the
Starboard top seam and hold the wing in place while it sets up. After a few
minutes the model is set down with some bottles of paint laid onto it in crucial
areas to hold the wing position and given a few hours to fully cure then the
lower seam is glued. The Port wing is done in the same manner until I get to the
lower seam where I apply some small bar clamps to hold the wing in place and
flex the plastic into the correct shape while the glue sets up completely.
A day has passed and I am cleaning up the seams at the wing roots now. First any
excess plastic that has been pressed up from the glue is trimmed with a leaf
blade in a #2 Xacto handle. Next, the seam gets puttied. This process is the
same as I have described in the Seam
Repair instructional. I’m using the
“Fencing” technique to lay a very small bead of Squadron White Putty into
the seam then smoothing it out with some acetone based fingernail polish
remover. I do this in a four-step process; Starboard wing top, Starboard bottom,
Port top, Port bottom. After it has had a few hours to dry the seams are
finished with some fine sandpaper. The picture below right is after the acetone
treatment but before sanding. As you can see there is not a whole lot of sanding
necessary to finish that seam.
The belly gun sighting blister has been installed and I cut four small
rectangles of clear plastic for the offset sighting windows. These are all
installed with Testors clear parts cement and held in place with strips of
masking tape until the have dried. After the tape was removed the small windows
were brushed with Future. The larger bubble was dipped in Future before
installation.
After the Future coating had cured for 12 hours I masked off the small windows
and wrapped a strip of tape around the upper edge of the blister. The rest of
the blister was masked with liquid frisket material. The waist gun windows had
masking tape laid overtop them and burnished into the edges with a toothpick
then trimmed with a fresh razor knife. The tail wheel bay had some tissue paper
stuffed into it and the only opening not masked or filled is the window in the
rear crew door. The plastic piece for this the previous owner of the kit had
trashed and I will replace it with some new clear plastic but because of the
thin wall around this window I think it will be best to do this last. |
|
Things are really going to start moving now. I’ve taken a strip of masking
tape and rolled it into a small tube to slide over the top turret gun barrels to
protect them from the paint. First the entire model is coated with Model Master
gray primer. I go over the model looking for defects and find a few around the
engine nacelles, which are quickly filled and sanded. Next all the deicing boots
get coated with Testors flat black. After they have dried for a few hours I mask
them off with thin strips of tape and then shoot the upper surfaces with Polly
Scale dark green acrylic. This gets a few hours to set up then the camouflage
pattern is masked. This is done with wide masking tape that I’ve put a
squiggle cut down the center. Once the masking is complete I shoot it with Polly
Scale dark sea gray and remove the camo masks leaving the deicing boot masks in
place and the clear parts masks in place.
Matt
|