1/32 B-25 Mitchell Detailed Construction Description & P

[Coreyeagle48]

Greetings Friends,

As many of you know, I have been hard at work the last couple months on a 1/32 B-25 Mitchell model that I am going to display with my Xtreme Wings planes. I want to first of all express my gratitude for the support of my project, as this is the most intense project I have ever done. I would secondly like to apologize for the mulitple posts, but I am very excited this airplane turned out so well. Now that the airplane is finished, I wanted to post a detailed construction description as well as finished photos. Please read and enjoy.

This project started when I came across this airplane on ebay. The model was orginally a design by Aurora and used for their gas powered model. Looking at the model closely, you will notice the tails are angled, the engine nacelles contain motor mounts and the plane had wire landing gear. This airplane was made for control line flying. Upon finding this plane, I thought the idea of a 1/32 B-25 would be possible from this model. The plane looked in reasonably good condition, so I made the bid and won the item.

Upon arrival of the airplane, I saw some work would have to be done. The most noticeable problem was parts were missing, most notably the top turret. Some of the parts were also in less than ideal shape, some were scratched, the tails were badly bent, and the landing gear metal wires had rusted. There were also dents in the plastic nose piece. This B-25 was modeled after a solid nose, late war model. I originally planned to build this airplane. In my search for a top turret, I found the Guillows balsa kit, which is just slightly larger than the Aurora B-25. This allowed me the clear top turret.

When disassembling the model to be repainted, I ran into a severe problem. The plastic nose cracked and shattered due to brittle plastic. Since the Guillows kit gave an option of a solid nose or a clear nose, I thought I could use the solid nose in the Guillows kit. To no avail, the solid nose in the Guillows kit was slghtly larger. I had a big problem on my hands.

At this time, I decided to take a gamble, I decided to try a modified clear nose using the pieces from the Guillows kit. Since I live near Reading, I have always adored "Briefing Time", the plane owned by the Mid Atlantic Air Museum. I decided to try to build that airplane. The plastic nose after experimenting with a second Guillows kit for a test, worked. I solved the problem of the nose being slightly larger by using a piece of cardboard coated with superglue as a ring around the tab which held the original Aurora nose. Then I glued the Guillows nose to this framework. During this time, and before fitting the nose, I painted the airplane olive drab and light aircraft gray. "Briefing Time" uses a darker gray, but I elected on using the lighter gray for better contrast. Now that the plane is finished, it looks great.

Upon gluing the nose, I set to work on the various framing for the canopy. I painted the frames by hand and used cut down guns from 1/18 figures that had the correct size barrels for the guns. I elected not to do the waist guns because of room inside the aircraft. I detailed the cockpit and placed figures into the cockpit seats, bombardier and tail positions. For the figures, I went with figures from the 32X P-51's and P-47's.

The front engine nacelles were a challenge. Originally, this plane is supposed to gas engines. I originally planned to use testors .049 propellors but then looking at a picture of a B-25 and Corsair, noticed both planes used the same three blade prop. I then found two 1/32 Revell Corsair kits, pulled the props from them, and used them. They look much better than what I was going to use. The landing gear was cleaned, polished and painted with steel enamel.

After reassembly, a real challenge as the plane was slighlty warped from age, came time for decals. I used photos of all the planes original markings and used a Vita Cal decal kit to make the decals. They turned out beautifully. To make the tail lettering on decal paper that is clear, I printed out the decal, painted in the numbers, then sprayed the sealer over them and used the decal that way. The stars came from one of the Corsair kits.

After that I did some final detailing and touchups. The little wing lights are simply small little craft beads. The radio anntenas came from the two Corsair kits. Little pieces of tape painted to match cover the fuselage openings on either side that were for the control line gas powered model. The barometer came from a 32X P-47 and the headlights are also painted tape, which came out ok.

The custom made nose is a little noticeable as it doesn't quite line up exactly on the underside of the airplane. And there are little mistakes throughout, as this was my first major model project like this. But in short, I am extremely impressed with this model, the time I put into it and the end result. It looks very nice sitting with my 32X aircraft. The landing gear does not retract, doing that I don't think would have been possible. I'm just happy an old model with faded decals and beat up could be turned into a beautiful airplane such as this.

Links to photos.

Mid Atlantic Air Museum B-25 Mitchell (model based off this airplane)

http://www.maam.org/airshow/b25.htm

Construction and Finished Model Photos (Look in B-25 Albums) (There is a great photo next to the 32X 190 for comparison)

http://community.webshots.com/user/coreyeagle48


Enjoy!

Corey

[Coreyeagle48]

Tempest

To answer your question, the tires and wheels are the original ones from the Aurora kit. The tires and wheels took some time and effort to get apart without cracking them so I could do the painting, cleaning up and detailing, but they did work and it was accomplished. The wheels and tires in the Guillows kits are terribly done, the original wheels were much more suitable as were the rubber tires. The gear was redone and painted and cleaned up. The only parts in the Guillows kit in the landing gear are the fairings for the front wheel. The original Aurora plane did not have that detail and the two halves for the front wheel were used from the Guillows kit, after they were trimmed and fit together.

If I remember correctly, I think I paid around $80 for this airplane in its original condition. I have seen mint, original airplanes go for hugh prices. I was always looking for a restorer and finally found one at a price I could afford. A little steep I suppose, and I probably put about $200 worth of work into the airplane counting model kits, extra parts, paints, decals. So figure there is a total of $300 worth of work in this airplane. Well worth it in my opinion seeing the end result. I've never spent so much time on a model airplane and custom until this project.

Also, in case anyone was wondering, the plane was originally tail heavy. There is weight hidden in front to keep her down on her gear. The added crew members helped that as well.

Corey