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Converting a B-25J into some RCAF Trainer


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Steve,

The big trick, especially for 1/72, is to find a brass pipe thin enough. I'd also maybe suggest taking a round file to thin out the open end of the vent. That should make it look thin enough to look right.

Cheers!

Mark.

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Hi Mark,

Awesome build! I've got a Mitchell waiting in the stash. I was wondering what you did with the interior? Just leave it as is, or would the Canadian version have been different?

Thanks,

Meg

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Meg,

For the reference of the interior, it's almost "your guess is as good as mine". I did know that the internal framing structure was the same as the J, not much changed there. As for the guts, aside from the obvious, of the upper turret being gone, this one in particular was a bit of an educated guess. What I ended up doing was emulating as best as possible what I could see from the outside - that being, from front to back:

1. The cockpit's unique arrangement of painted and unpainted canopy sections, the lack of ammunition cans throughout, and a cover to the nose section through the access hatch. Futher, I kept all the interior fuselage wall attachments (radio's, equipment, etc).

2. The waist gun positions looking in from the outside are bare. Painted the OD green in there, and nothing much there, aside from where the safety gear is marked off with stencils from the outside.

3. The Tail Gunners position, I removed all the parts of the gun mount, kept the sitting position in there, as well as the armoured plate. From looking up from the ground, it definitely looked like it was still there.

I hope this helps!

Gander! Friggin' awesome! Believe it or not, I had a lot of fun out in Gander the last time I was out there... military? (Just wondering with "Lawn Dart" and Gander... SAR Tech?

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Meg,

For the reference of the interior, it's almost "your guess is as good as mine". I did know that the internal framing structure was the same as the J, not much changed there. As for the guts, aside from the obvious, of the upper turret being gone, this one in particular was a bit of an educated guess. What I ended up doing was emulating as best as possible what I could see from the outside - that being, from front to back:

1. The cockpit's unique arrangement of painted and unpainted canopy sections, the lack of ammunition cans throughout, and a cover to the nose section through the access hatch. Futher, I kept all the interior fuselage wall attachments (radio's, equipment, etc).

2. The waist gun positions looking in from the outside are bare. Painted the OD green in there, and nothing much there, aside from where the safety gear is marked off with stencils from the outside.

3. The Tail Gunners position, I removed all the parts of the gun mount, kept the sitting position in there, as well as the armoured plate. From looking up from the ground, it definitely looked like it was still there.

I hope this helps!

Gander! Friggin' awesome! Believe it or not, I had a lot of fun out in Gander the last time I was out there... military? (Just wondering with "Lawn Dart" and Gander... SAR Tech?

That helps quite a bit! Thanks! I'm not military (yet, I hope to go AVN tech in the future). I'm an AME apprentice. Lawn Dart comes from my cadet days, I had a rough landing in a glider that dug the skid plate in, leaving my tail sticking up at a pretty high angle. My buddy decided I was trying to play lawn darts with a plane, and it stuck :)

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Nice work Mark, as usual

-Al

Al,

Thank you very much, I hope to get more done (possibly finish?) Next week up to the point where I need to add decals and stencils. Because she's going to have most stencils on silver, I'm thinking of scratching that idea and just making decals... dry transfer stencils and silver paint tend not to really mix well.

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Interesting build Mark, one of the more attractive military Mitchell schemes I think I've seen. Looking at the one picture of the nose it looks like you got it spot on. I would suggest you have these pictures handy as a reference if you ever show the model before you present it. Having gone through the "experts gauntlet" once before for building an accurate replica of an inaccurate display airplane, it'll save you a lot of explaining. Looking forward to more progress.

Cheers

Mike

Edited by Skyking
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  • 2 weeks later...
Interesting build Mark, one of the more attractive military Mitchell schemes I think I've seen. Looking at the one picture of the nose it looks like you got it spot on. I would suggest you have these pictures handy as a reference if you ever show the model before you present it. Having gone through the "experts gauntlet" once before for building an accurate replica of an inaccurate display airplane, it'll save you a lot of explaining. Looking forward to more progress.

Cheers

Mike

Thanks Mike! I'm definitely going to heed your advice. The good thing being that this one is going in a display case in the school about 100 feet away from the actual aircraft.

Well, good news and bad news...

Good news, this one's coming along well. All the body work is done (minus the minors like antenna, etc). The foiling on the top is done, and I actually managed to get the white sprayed on the top on the foil. I'll need some touch ups possibly... but the red/white/red lightning bolt should hide the chips perfectly fine.

Further, got one of the landing gear completely done, AND I managed to find a perfect pattern to match the bricks to mount this on a display base. As well as having a lot of the finer details waiting to go, all I need right now is to go out and get the right red colour, along with white decal paper, and clear decal paper.

The bad news - my camera battery is dead and I'm waiing for the charger which is on order right now. Worst comes to worst, I'll borrow one.

But yes! Progess is coming along well!

Cheers

Mark.

Edited by Kostucha
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Something I forgot to write in yesterday:

As a quick side note - this Mitchell has different MLG wheels.

The kit comes with wheels that have a diamond tread on them. Further to this, not only are the rims themselves a tad larger in diameter on the NAV Trainer, but the rubber is too. Looking closely and going through a few spare kits, I did come across something that will work though, and hit two birds with one stone. The -61 I want to make has a diamond tread, where it's kit tires are bald. So I'm going to swap the B-25 kit tires for the P-61 Tires.

The other thing too - if you look very closely (something that will be a challenge when mounting this 1/48 kit on a display stand), is that the actual aircraft is suspended! I had to take a closer look at her this morning just to be sure... love this job... going to look at a Mitchell before I start work... and sure enough, the MLG and nose wheel are suspended on the mounts about an inch and a half above the ground. Causing more grief - the B-25J comes with weighted tires... lucky for me, the P-61 tires aren't weighted.

The nose wheel though still needs to have a new rim put in as neither tire matches up.

This leads me to ask a quick question of our experts out there - Is it just this one Mitchell that has different rims and tires compared to the B-25, are the kit tires wrong, or was it all Canadian Mitchells that had different rims and tires?

Thanks again for looking.

Cheers!

Mark.

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Pluggin' along. Got both cowls done again... took 'em off to paint them, and as I was looking, I noticed something interesting... the cowl humps... there's 4 missing on the Mitchell... starting from the upper right (when looking from the front) of the modified intake on top, the 4 (going clockwise) are covered over... small details, right?

I've got everything I need to get this one done... just a matter of time. Tonight the LH side of the wing (from the pilots point of view) was skinned, and the outter wing painted Red. The colour hit the nail on the head when comparing it to the actual Mitchell. Lesson learned though, red is a PITA when sprayed both ove foil and plastic... Tomorrow night I'm hoping to get the other wing half skinned at least, and hopefully painted as well. After that, it's a matter of fine tuning the nose, and then painting the tail with it's appropriate red colour top and bottom... take time for touch ups, paint the canopy by hand, add the flat black bit to the nose (oddly enough, the engines are a gloss black?), finish off the framing around the tail... decals, dull coat, weathering, finish up the landing gear, and make the base to mount this thing to.

IPMS Winnipeg is having a contest 17-19 September, so I hope to have her done, entered, (along with the M10), and then that Monday present this thing to the school. Good riddens! Finally (hopefully) one completely finished this year.

Pictures tomorrow I hope.

Cheers!

Mark.

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If info gleaned from the web is correct, Mitchell 5203 is actually a 3PT (Pilot Trainer). She was a B-25J-30/32NC (44-86724), TOS in 1951 by Training Command in Trenton, finishing her career at CFS Saskatoon on 1961. Sold by Crown Assets and ferried to Kamloops in 1962. Returned to the CF in 1974 for restoration.

The Nav Trainer variants (3AI & 3AIA) had a pointer tip to the nose.

The 3AI's had the AN/APG-33 radar and were used for training CF100 backseaters and the tip was usually painted red.

The 3AIA had the AN/APG-40 radar and was used to train transport navigators and the tip was usually painted black. There was also a large astrodome installed in place of the upper turret, a couple of windows in the nose as well and a few more antennas.

I'm not sure if the 3AI had the astrodome or not.

I've got 3 Mitchells in the stash to convert to RCAF variants.

:thumbsup:

Edited by Cadfael
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Pictures of progress.

First up is the Mitchell as it is right now. The reds, whites, and silvers are sprayed on, with some of the main decals on and clearcoated. What I'll be doing from here is hand brushing the frame in silver to match up around the frame of the cockpit canopy and the tail gun position, along with the tail itself. Reds need to be touched up around the tail as well. The complexity of the shapes and angles made it difficult to mask it all in one go, so I said to heck with it, and simply will brush the areas needed.

As I said, I think the red came out just perfect. Only difficulty with silver over red was the split showing through the decals, so I used a small bit of white decal sheet cut into a circle, and placed that on before the roundells on the wings:

DSCF0980.jpg

DSCF0981.jpg

DSCF0982.jpg

Here is a quick shot of the upper turret cover. The panel lines will be dulled down on the fuselage using white/light pastel chalk, and the rivets will be put in on the panel cover shortly:

DSCF0983.jpg

DSCF0985.jpg

To give an idea of what the panel lines and rivets will look like once done, the Port engine cowel is done completely. You'll also see on the third shot the 4 patched 'bumps'

DSCF0976.jpg

DSCF0978.jpg

DSCF0979.jpg

And lastly, the landing gear. The wear and rust stains aren't on there yet, but the P-61 wheels I used are workin well. The trick will be to slip the metal support mounts that keep this Mitchell suspended above the bricks, and do it so it's strong enough to keep this Mitchell in place securely:

DSCF0972.jpg

DSCF0974.jpg

From here there are minor things to do here and there...

-exhaust pipes on both engines

-the antennas

-the flat black anti-glare area to be painted on the nose

-as mentioned the frame work on the canopies

-the clear plexiglass windows over the waist gun positions

-the other two landing gear legs

-putting the cowls on

-finish the decals

-painting on the deicer boots that were painted on the leading edges

-weather the crap out of this thing

-make the display base and mounts

-present it to the school

Thanks for looking, and cheers!

Mark.

Edited by Kostucha
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Thank you John & Mike. Greatly appreciated. I've got some more progress done tonight as well. The anti glare panel, yellow air vents, one of the de-icer boots on the wing, and a few other small details and touch ups. Never the less, I'm at a near stand still. Aside from the other two landing gear, and mounting the other engine cowel, along with the de-icer boots remaining, I'm waiting for the rest of the stencils so that I can get underway with weathing this thing until it's crying for mercy.

Here's a few pics:

The Starbord side of the nose, not bad brush painting I think... been a while since I've done any brush work:

DSCF0987.jpg

Port Side, showing the added vent, and yellow air vent as well:

DSCF0988.jpg

The tail with the frame painted accordingly, along with elevator mounts...:

DSCF0994.jpg

The Wing, with boot and aileron mounts done up... a lot of brush painting going on:

DSCF0990.jpg

And finally, the thinned out plastic around the cowel flaps, and exaust:

DSCF0993.jpg

The lack of panel lines on the nose is only temporary. Once the rest of stencils and what not are added, the lines will be put in (along with larger rivets) just prior to weathering.

Input and criticisms welcomed!

Mark.

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Thank you guys!

It is fun too, to scroll through the threads of your own build and watch it progress. Especially when you've hit a bump in the road or something on the build really frustrates you... I find myself going through the Stuka thread and doing a lot of that.

Steve, ya! I tried the decal itself first (had 1 spare to try) and boy or boy was it frustrating. At first I didn't think the red would show, however... low and behold, under the sun it really did. The trick was to get the round silver decal just centered to avoid a raised line being seen. So I went with the exact diameter of just the white centered under the decal. There is a bit of a line, but the blue circle hides it very well.

Cheers!

Mark.

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Turning out nicer then the one I finished did. My error was not fixing the upper gun hole well enough. There is a photo of it in the Canmilair site.

Thank you very much.

Yes! CANMIL does have a couple good shots... problem is that it was a training platform when the RCAF had a lot of aircraft, thus, not so many picturs of them were taken (vice a lot of Gonzo pics these days).

Keeping in mind though, I'm lucky to have the exact aircraft at my finger tips. This is great for another reason too, the rebuilt one is close to what they were like, but not exact, and being able to make references to those subtle differences is great. There are a few things about this on that aren't correct when compared to the flying Mitchells from a while back, such as the painted on deicer boots.

All in all though, this one is a world of fun.

Cheers!

Mark.

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So, while waiting for decals I decided to take care of some of the other minor points. Props...

Here's what I started with:

DSC04916.jpg

Not bad at all to say the least. It's pretty darn good. Just some mold lines to clean up, that's about it.

I added the small pipes along the leading edge of the prop using thin brass pipe, and the rubber boot on the edge of the prop blades using my favorite high heat metal tape:

DSC04919.jpg

And a close up view:

DSC04922.jpg

Here's a comparison of the finished prop with the original Mitchell (in the same alignment). Thoughts?

DSC00285.jpg

DSC04923.jpg

Cheers,

Mark.

Edited by Kostucha
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