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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
mold 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 a 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.
After
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 bright
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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