Steve N
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Posts posted by Steve N
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Well, to be honest this place is kind of running on fumes these days. As you may have noticed, the main page hasn't been updated in nearly three years, and no one seems to know where the site owner is, or his status. The Moderators are doing an admirable job of keeping the forums going, but that's not gonna last forever. I fear that one of these days ARC will simply vanish into the ether.
SN
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My general rule of thumb with B-24s is: anything ahead of the bomb bay Dull Dark Green. Bomb bay Neutral Gray on camouflaged aircraft (same with landing gear and wheel wells) and bare metal aft of the bomb bay. I'm not sure about the bomb bays on natural metal aircraft, but I would assume bare metal as well (again, along with landing gear and wheel wells.) Modern restorations and even museum aircraft are painted with an eye towards long-term preservation and corrosion protection. This wasn't really a major consideration during the war, when the expected service life of a given aircraft was months or even weeks. They were mostly concerned with cranking them out in vast numbers as quickly as possible.
The missing photos earlier in this thread are available on HS. I've been asked by the original owner not to share them anymore.
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Well, the D-model is out in England, and it's confirmed: Airfix provided the wrong cockpit canopy. Instead of the standard canopy (provided as an option in the B-24H kit) only the armored canopy is included in the B-24D kit, which is specific to the H, and incorrect for both markings options provided with the D. This is especially frustrating because Airfix tooled the correct canopy, then proceeded not to include it. Yes, it may be possible to modify the armored canopy, but for the price of the kit we shouldn't have to. No word yet on whether Airfix will provide a correct replacement part, or if they're even aware of the issue. It's odd that such a screw up would happen, considering they provided everything else to make an accurate D-model, including a different aileron and rudders to account for the differences in trim tabs.
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Looks like they haven't added any detail to the nose compartment, but overall the kit still has a much better interior than Hasegawa, especially in the highly visible waist section. Airfix also gives you the correct A-6A tail turret, unlike Hasegawa, which uses the later fully-enclosed A-6B for all their B-24s.
Someone pointed out "another forum" that the unboxing video shows the kit only including the armored cockpit canopy, which I don't think was ever used on the D-model. The B-24H kit includes both the armored and standard canopies. Why Airfix would include the wrong one with the D-model kit is a bit odd.
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Works fine in Firefox for me, using the same bookmark I've used for years.
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20 hours ago, ST0RM said:
New Parts and decals...
How's the basic kit they're going to be using?Beautiful! I'm building the B-24H now, and the forthcoming D-model is basically the same kit with a new nose. It's very much on a par with the Hasegawa 1/72 B-24s. The Hasegawa kits have slightly better and more well-defined engines and cowls (the Achilles heel of most B-24 kits) but Airfix has a vastly better interior. My only quibble with the upcoming B-24D is that the computer renderings show the nose compartment as pretty much empty. I suppose it's possible the renderings are only preliminary, and there will be more interior detail in the final kit. If not, a little modest stracthbuilding will sufficiently busy it up, and I'm sure there will be plenty of aftermarket sets.
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I already have vastly more kits than I'll ever build, so my wife got me something I've actually needed for years: a spray booth. Of course, it's as much for her benefit as mine, as she's tired of me stinking up the house with paint fumes. 😄
Steve
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From what I understand, Elvis signed the paperwork to buy it but never actually flew on the aircraft and may never have even seen it in person.
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I wish I could, but by the time we realized it was the week after Nats, what few accommodations were left were way too expensive.
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Here's a photo I took of Adm. Nimitz's barge at the National Museum of the Pacific War, restored to its 1942-44 appearance, and the accompanying sign. Hard to make out, but it says CINCPAC headquarters at Pearl Harbor had a three-boat flotilla: two 40-foot boats, one with a blue hull for Nimitz and one with a black hull for his Chief Of Staff, and a 35-foot gray officers' motor boat for CINCPAC staff. The sign doesn't mention a timeframe, so I have no idea if this was the situation at the time of the attack.
Cheers!
Steve
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Great pic! I was curious about if any paint was used. I understand some of the internal structure of the wings was painted for fire resistance. I presume that was why parts of the wheel well were painted. Of course, with three different plants building thousands of them over a three-year span, I'm not sure how much consistency there was.
SN
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They look pretty darned close to me..certainly any dimensional difference is negligible. Granted, the side intakes aren't as deep as the real thing, but that can be chalked up to the limitations of the molding process. They're still by far the most accurate cowls of any B-24 kit in any scale (except maybe the upcoming Airfix kit..we haven't really gotten a good detailed look at it yet.)
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Here's a CAD rendering of the upcoming Airfix B-24H. The cowls don't look quite as refined as Hasegawa, but the shapes are still better than any of the other B-24s (in any scale.)
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On 1/10/2024 at 5:57 PM, Murph said:
Looks like Airfix may be taking care of it.
Yep, that announcement really knocked my socks off! And the photos I've seen of built-up test shots look nearly as good as Hasegawa, and with far more interior detail. It also looks like they've molded the nose section separately, which bodes well for future releases of other variants. I'll definitely be adding (at least) a couple to my ever-increasing pile of 1/72 B-24s.
On 1/30/2024 at 12:48 PM, Robertson said:The Hasegawa B-24s are incredibly good. The B-24 has extremely difficult shapes to get right, particularly the canopy, and they knocked it out of the park.
Indeed. So far, Hasegawa are the only one to even try to get the complex shape of the cowling right. Every prior B-24 kit just did them as "oval with a little half-moon intake on each side," when the real thing has some really complex contours. I just watched and unboxing video of the new HobbyBoss 1/48 B-24, and the cowls are just atrociously misshaped and simplified. The cowls on the forthcoming Airfix B-24H look pretty good too, although like Hasegawa they didn't add the horizontal "splitters" that bisect the intakes. A forgivable omission in 1/72, fixable with a few bits of styrene sheet if one so desires. Here's a photo I took many years ago comparing the Hasegawa and undersized, misshapen Academy/Minicraft cowls.
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The wheel wells on wartime B-17s were unpainted aluminum. Restored warbirds tend to be painted inside for long-term corrosion protection. That wasn't really a concern during the war, when factories needed to crank them out as quickly as possible, and the average combat plane's life expectancy was a few months at best.
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Here are a couple photos I've taken of that area on the Ju 87R at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. I'm not sure if that outside cover was originally a solid door, or a window that's been painted over. In any case, it appears that it folds up out of the way during a dive.
Cheers!
Steve
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I once posted something on another forum about a certain classic British model company, and the auto-censor changed it to "French." 😄
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On 10/5/2023 at 8:18 AM, DavidRezabek said:
FYI: The Academy engine nacelles are too small.
To me, that's by far the biggest issue of the Minicraft/Academy B-24s. I've always wondered why Quickboost never made a set of replacement nacelles and cowls. They've made all kinds of other aftermarket bits for the kit, like turbos, bomb bay doors, gun barrels, etc. And Squadron did resin wheels and vac clear parts nearly 30 years ago. As far as I know, the only aftermarket cowls are from someone who made resin copies of the Airfix cowls it a bit of modification. I went the same route making my own back in the 90s, but never got around to finishing the project.
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Concur: Hasegawa. It's not without a few errors here and there, but still the best of the bunch by far. Academy/Minicraft is so-so. Less accurate and detailed than Hasegawa, but much cheaper and easier to find.
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My wife and I managed to get a room in the convention hotel. We plan to fly down the previous weekend and spend a couple of days sightseeing before the show.
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Thanks! Like I said, I wasn't really concerned about any delay, just wanted to make sure I had all my ducks in a row on my end!
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Hi!
I ordered some decals a couple weeks ago, but I'm not sure if the order went through. I used PayPal, and the amount was deducted, but I never got any kind of confirmation. This isn't a complaint, I just want to make sure I placed the order correctly!
Thanks!
Steve
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42 minutes ago, admiralcag said:
Hatch's Hobbies in Aurora, CO. They've been gone for at least 30 years now. The second one was Coplar Hobbies. They are still going strong.
So many stores have gone out of business in the Denver metro area. Very, very sad.
Vern
I lived in the Denver/Boulder area back in the early 80s. I recall tons of great hobby shops..Colpar being the Gold Standard. We visited the area on vacation in 2017, my first return in over 30 years. I was shocked to discover the first hobby shop I had visited when I lived there was still a going concern: Thompson's Hobbies in Lakewood. I have no idea if it's still open or not. Their bread and butter seemed to be primarily craft stuff, so hopefully they're still afloat. I made it a point to buy a couple things when we were there, just for old time's sake.
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The R.J. Shop in Hillsdale, MI. In the County Seat, about 20 miles away. Might as well have been on the moon for us kids not old enough to drive. My friends and I could usually talk a parent into taking us once a month or so. A tiny little shop, part hobbies, part crafts, and part photography supplies, named after owners and operators Bob and Jean Elliott. That was where we discovered incredibly exotic things like Airfix kits and Pactra paints. I don't think the place lasted past the mid-80s when the owners retired, but I still have very fond memories. I recall how honored I was when they agreed to allow me to display one of my finished models in the window as a teenager.
SN
B-17 Flying fortress Memphis Belle cockpit colors.
in Props
Posted
"Interior Green" (tinted Zinc Chromate) was not used on the fuselage interiors of wartime B-17s. If it was painted it was Dull Dark Green. If not, it was bare metal (or covered in green fabric padding.)
SN