My Monogram Models Collection

A Monogram Fan's Homage to Monogram Aircraft Models...

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North American B-25H Mitchell

Ahhh, at last. My favorite aircraft from the World War II era, the B-25H Mitchell. With 8 .50 caliber machines guns facing forward, as well as a 75mm cannon, top and rear turrets, waist gun positions, and up to a 3000 pound bomb load, it was for me, the ultimate ground attack bomber! I have not built this baby in a long time, and I had forgotten that the fit was not the best around, but in the end, it looks like a B-25.

In the Beginning…

Opening up the box, one will find that there are quite a few parts to this medium bomber model. The molding is the reissue from 1997, thus all the parts are molded in a Dark Olive Drab, except for the clear pieces. Again, like all the previous kits that I have reviewed on this website, the panel lines are all raised. In addition to the usual parts of wings, fuselage, and tail, you get a really nice OOB 75mm cannon (which is mostly hidden once you glue the fuselage together, and put on the nose piece), fairly well detailed cockpit and aircraft interior, and three 500 pound bombs for the bomb bay area. The directions are old style Monogram, with diagrams of part assembly with written instructions for that step. After making sure all the parts were in the box, the fun began.

Main Assembly…

Construction begins with cleaning the kit parts in warm water, with dish detergent to get rid of any This is picture 1 of the B-25H Mitchellmold release agent that may still be on the parts. After this, I began to assemble the cockpit. The cockpit is sort of on a small flight deck type of section, which is separate from the nose and bomb bay sections. There is quite a bit of detail here OOB. There are two seats, with molded in seat belts, as well as Instrument panel, joystick, some side wall details, and throttles. After all these parts were assembled, I painted the whole area US Interior Green (although other reviews I have read said that the have used a paint color called Bronze Green). After the cockpit was pretty much done, I remembered that the B-25H did not have a co-pilot, and thus, the extra seat that is in the cockpit was not needed. I left it in, as I had remembered this fact after I had already glued the fuselage together.

After the cockpit area was done, I assembled and painted the various parts of the upper turret; I then assembled and painted the different pieces of the tail gunner area, and the various small pieces of the interior fuselage. The bomb bay area assembly was done at this time, as well as the three bombs that come with the kit. After all these sub assemblies were done, everything got a coat of US Interior Green, then all the details parts that had a different colors than green were picked out and painted.

After all the interior parts were done, the instructions call for the fuselage to be glued together, with the top turret to be installed at a later stage of the build. It was at this stage that I deviated from the instructions. Having grown up building Monogram models, I remembered this one quite well. If you wait to install the upper turret until after the fuselage is assembled, you will tear your hair out trying to get that turret in! The main reason for this is the "Locking piece" that holds the whole turret assembly in place. This locking piece also allows the turret to rotate without coming off. It is located near the bottom half of the fuselage and it can be accessed by aThis is picture 2 of the B-25H Mitchell small entry panel at the bottom of the fuselage. But unless you have very small fingers, or are really, really good with small tweezers, you will have a terrible time trying to get that locking piece in place. So before I sealed my fuselage up, I put the turret assembly (minus the transparent piece) in the aircraft, and glued the locking piece in place. Because I do not use an airbrush to paint my aircraft, this would not be a big problem for me down the road.

After I got the upper turret in place, I sanded down any high spots on the fuselage halves, and glued them together. I then put the wings and tail sub assemblies together, after much sanding and scrapping, both of these components were attached to the fuselage. In addition to the wings and tail, I also created the engine nacelle pieces, which also house's the landing gear when it is retracted in flight. The two nacelles were the hardest to fit to the wings, and they required a fair amount of sanding to get a good fit. I also lost the fuel dump pipes at the end of the nacelles during construction, and I plan on replacing them later in the build, with stretched sprue or .010 piano wire.

After all the seam work was done, I washed the model in warm water to remove residue, let it try for a day, then proceeded to brush paint on Flat Aluminum from the Pollyscale Acrylic Railroad Colors line. I do this for the both the aluminum body effect as well as a basecoat, which does change the topside color appearance a little bit. I also plan to try using 1200 grit sandpaper for weathering paint chipping and fading. After I was pretty happy with the aluminum paint, I let it try for at least 3-4 days.

Paint and no Decals…

After the aluminum paint was dry, I painted on the Neutral Grey underside color, and then the OD on the upperside. As usually for me, I use the Qtip method for applying these colors. After this part was done, I let the paint dry for at least 2 days. When I felt that the paint was try enough to be handled, I did touch up painting, then I put a coat of Glosscoat on the whole model, using the Testors brand in the spray can. I let the Glosscote dry for a week.

This is picture 3 of the B-25H MitchellAfter the Glosscote was dry, I went to whip out my aftermarket decals for this kit, when I realized I had no aftermarket decals for this bird! I am not sure why I thought I had new decals, but after thinking about it for a minute or so, I decided to try the decals that came with the kit. Surprisingly, the decals went down pretty good. There was a little clouding on the tail numbers, but nothing really bad. I did the “Dog Daze” aircraft, which was part of the 12th Bomb Group, attached to the 10th air force in the CBI. The decals were then brushed with Microsol for the bigger decals, and Microset for the stencils and smaller fuel location and warning decals. I let the Microsol and Set do their magic, then I redid the decals that had cloudy areas or air bubbles that I had missed before. After this was done, a coat of Testors Dullcoat out of the can was applied to seal it all up.

Weathering...

To fade parts of this aircraft, I did a wash of flat white over all upper surfaces, as well as all the flaps that where made of fabric. As I stated above, I also had planned to show the peeling paint on this aircraft by painting aluminum as a base coat, and then using 1200 grit sandpaper to expose the aluminum as if it has peeled. Well, that did not work out so well. Either the end result did not look good, or I took off too much of the paint and damaged the under coat of aluminum So, I went back to the old tried and true method of dry brushing. I dry brushed Floquil's Flat Aluminum on the leading edges, as well as certain high spot areas on the upper wings and fuselage I then toned it all down with a wash of grimy black all over the aircraft. I then added oil and gas stains, as well as exhaust residue. I then muddied up the lower fuselage, as well as the tires. Since I had already applied a final squirt of Dullcoat, I painted the landing gear oleos brightThis is picture 4 of the B-25H Mitchell silver.

Finishing up...

After letting the weathering paint dry, all the clear parts got attached with Microscale White glue, as well as the pitot tube and radio antennas. Normally, this is the point in the build that I paint the dreaded canopy panel lines, but this time around I did it early, so as not to drag the end of the build out to long. One last once over, and this long project was done.

Conclusions...

Unlike the few aircraft I have built over the last few years, the Monogram B-25H has quite a few parts to it. Although I love all the 48 scale World War II Monogram aircraft (and I do have them all), the cannon armed B-25H is my favorite. I still have my original Shep Paine diorama sheet for this kit that I got back in 1978, and it still makes me feel kinda sorry for the aircraft in that diorama.

Until next time...
 

 

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