1/72 Academy B-24J |
Gallery Article by J.C. Bahr
on
Nov 21 2003
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This
model is dedicated to the memory of David A. Nelson Sr. who flew some of his 27
missions over Europe aboard this aircraft as the radio operator and tail gunner,
while serving with the 578th BS of the 392nd BG at Wendling, U.K. towards the
end of World War II.
I
took on this project as a favor to my good friend David A. Nelson Jr. when he
started telling me about his father and how much he'd like to have a model of
one of the aircraft he flew on. Dave provided me with the model, some
photos of the aircraft/crew and some background information on his dad and I was
off and running.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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The
build itself was not bad, but could have been better. This kit seems to
have been released after the break-up of Minicraft/Academy and I think it shows
in the quality. I have several of the pre-break-up B-24 kits and they are
much better than what I worked with here. I'm hoping that maybe this was
just a one-off that got past QC, but I'm not holding my breath. Most of
the work required removing a lot of flash, sanding out various blemishes on many
parts and trying to fix mis-molded details.
This
was the first model I've used 3M Acryl Blue glazing putty on and I must say that
it's now my favorite putty. It does not sand quite as easily as Testors
Red, but has a much finer grain so it sands out a lot smoother and takes paint
much better as it is not dark in color (its light blue). I also did not
notice any low-spots in the putty as far as residual seams still showing
through. I highly recommend it as it comes in a fairly large tube that
should last for quite a while.
Painting
consisted of painting the black de-icing boots first, masking them off and then
carefully trimming the excess tape with a sharp Xacto blade. I used Model
Master Acryl Aluminum for the finish and then used Olive Drab for the anti-glare
panel.
The
markings were another first for me as I created them on my computer and then
printed them out with my ink-jet printer on decal paper available through Micro
Mark Tools. They did not come out nearly as well as I would've liked, but
I learned from the experience and will make other attempts in the future.
I
got this model done just in time to present to David Jr. for Veterans Day, which
is not too far away. He was very appreciative and proud of the model and
related to me how he'd been told by a relative that his father even has a
few kills to his credit as the tail gunner, but unfortunately the records
apparently do not exist anymore, so we cannot find out just how many he got
exactly. Dave also said that his dad was shot down once somewhere in
France and has a picture of some of the wreckage of that aircraft which looked
similar to this one, except that its individual number was 495.
I
really enjoyed building the kit and getting the details just right according to
the photos of the original plane... the look on Dave's face said it all when he
got to see it for the first time!