A Tale of Two Liberators - Build Log - COMPLETE 29-December-2025

[Aggieman]

I have embarked upon my next builds, Consolidated’s venerable B-24J Liberator. It will be a comparison of the only two kits in 48th scale (to my knowledge). First up is Monogram’s 1976 boxing.

I first got this kit as a child for Christmas in 1976. I probably built it by the end of that Christmas Day, in an era before I had discovered hobby paints - although that discovery was right around the corner. The kit contained the Shep Paine diorama booklet. I acquired this original boxing in the last couple of years, but it didn’t come with the booklet (nor decals as evidenced by the writing on the box). I do actually have most of those booklets, acquired via eBay over the years, so that wasn’t really a factor in my decision to grab this kit.

Next up is Hobby Boss’ new kit.

The comparison I will make is not really a fair one. While the Monogram kit does contain a fair amount of detail inside that big fuselage, it pales against the detail in the Hobby Boss kit. One difference I’ve already noted is the inclusion of grab bars inside the rear of the Hobby Boss kit. While this detail won’t be visible once the build is done, there simply is nothing comparable in the old Monogram kit. It is not a deal breaker, though. The Monogram kit is a good one.

My plan is to build one PTO Liberator and one ETO Liberator. As noted, the Monogram kit did not come with decals. I acquired a set of US insignia and the colorful and perhaps R-rated “The Dragon and His Tail” decal set, which I will use on the Hobby Boss kit. The Hobby Boss kit comes with three options, so I will use one of those on the Monogram kit. The one I initially chose was “Over Exposed”, but upon further research, that nose art belonged to an F7-A, the photo reconn version of the B-24. That would have required a bit of scratch work to effect the cameras and windows for the lenses - nah, I want a heavy bomber. So scratch “Over Exposed” for “Witchcraft”.

There will be some minor differences in interior painting. “The Dragon and His Tail” was an actual Consolidated build, either Ft. Worth, Texas or San Diego, California. Consolidated tended to coat wheel wells in yellow zinc chromate, so that’s what I’ll go with. For “Witchcraft”, a B-24 produced by Ford at the Willow Run factory, they tended to coat the wheel wells with interior green or leave them unpainted aluminum. So that will explain the difference once I get to that part of the builds.

[mrb865]

Great choices! I will be following with interest.

[Aggieman]

My progress is going to be slower on these builds. I mean, they are big models. While the Monogram has roughly 6 sprues, the Hobby Boss more than doubles that count. With previous experience building Monogram’s Liberator, I know to expect fit issues around the nacelles. But today I discovered another one.

All of the parts were still on the sprues. When I took the fuselage halves off the sprue and dry fit them, this is what I discovered.

The halves are clearly warped. The front of the nose turret does not want to meet naturally. This is going to require some careful assembly to get the parts as closely connected as I can, but I am expecting significant work to fill seams.

This is what I have done to see if I can force the parts to conform better to each other.

I aligned the parts as best I could then slapped the architectural rules around the parts and rubber banded them as tightly as I could. I know that I can use hot water to effect the plastic, but I’ll only use that as a method of last resort.

And this is what awaits me on the inside of the fuselage halves.

Lots of mold release spots. Most will not be visible, but any in the bomb bays will be.

Finally, the wings have a bit of a warp as well, but I don’t expect much problem getting them to set together properly.

[Aggieman]

While the Monogram fuselage sits for a while under that rubber-band/architectural rule pressure, I’ll be spending much of my time on the Hobby Boss. Like the Monogram, the Hobby Boss displays a lot of mold release points in the fuselage. Visible or not, they have to go.

I spent the bulk of today’s football game between Oklahoma and Mississippi working on just the port half of the fuselage. First I got rid of all those mold release points. Then I installed the vast majority of the detail pieces on that side of the fuselage.

I added the one window located in the back of the fuselage because an axe (or something) fits right over it, meaning it would be impossible to install after the fact. Otherwise, I left off all the clear parts. I also need to add the waist gun mount and the window covering for that gun location. I will likely add the mount tomorrow, but the door will wait until after I’ve painted the interior.

Interior painting will follow Hobby Boss over Monogram, which suggests the interior should be fully interior green. That may have been accurate in 1976, but not so much now if my research is anywhere near correct. The rear of the fuselage and the radio operator/upper turret section will indeed be interior green, while the bomb bay will be neutral gray. The cockpit and bombardier sections will be dull dark green. The nose gear well will vary between interior green (Hobby Boss) and yellow zinc chromate (Monogram).

[MR_TOM_SCHRY]

Your B-24 progress is moving right along and is looking very good. I “tip my hat” to you for undertaking such an immense project. Good luck Aggieman.

[GAF]

Quite ambitious, doing two 1/48 scale Liberators!

Funny, I’ve just been deciding on what to build next. The choice is between two 1/48 Corsairs or a Revell 1/72 B-24D. Your builds may decide me.

Gary

[Aggieman]

I’ve actually done a more ambitious project, roughly 6 years ago, in doing two Monogram B-29 Superfortresses, including one as the Enola Gay. Of course, that necessitated cutting away the molded in turret fairings to smooth out those openings as that aircraft, a “Silverplate” -29, had a flush surface.

[MR_TOM_SCHRY]

Awesome & amazing work Aggieman! I guess it’s true about everything being bigger in Texas, even model building projects!

[Aggieman]

Finally got some bench time today, but didn’t get much accomplished. I put together a few more interior parts (attaching tables to bulk heads, installing railing in the bomb bay) on the Hobby Boss. Also verified that my rubber banding tactic on the Monogram fuselage did make a slight impact on its fit, for the better. Dealt with a couple of mold injection points in the bomb bay on those parts.

[dadoffour]

This is a cool project. It would be nice if Tamiya, Airfix or Eduard would bring a new tool liberator.

No decals for the Strawberry B*tch? Rumor has it she’s haunted…

[Aggieman]

I made some progress over the weekend. Nothing too impressive, just a bunch of interior paint work. And to be honest, I haven’t felt terribly motivated to get to the bench in the last several days. I do hope to complete both of these big bombers this year but sit here knowing it’s possible that won’t happen. But the good Lord willing, they’ll get finished at some point in the near future.

I planned these out per who actually manufactured the bombers that I’m building. The Dragon and His Tail was a Consolidated build, while the Witchcraft was a Ford build. I believe I already mentioned the painting research I’ve done on these two. Between the two plants, there were some differences, which I believe I’ve captured with this paint work.

Monogram

Hobby Boss

The Hobby Boss is definitely a busy kit, to the point that it is almost intimidating just in the number of sprues and parts. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t been motivated to get to my bench much lately. I typically like to have what I call a “to-build” stash, which as opposed to my regular stash, is what I have “on deck” (baseball terminology). Rarely do I pick a random kit out of the stash to just build. I’ll spend time considering what I want to build over the next x number of kits. This year was always going to close out like this, with a couple of B-24s and with Eduard’s new B-17F Flying Fortress. I’m not expecting to get to the Flying Fort this year, and now I’m thinking that I should re-evaluate my to-build stash. That to-build stash currently includes the Flying Fort, as well as HK Model’s 1/48 Avro Lancaster and Italeri’s 1/72 Short Stirling. I’ll keep those in the to-build stash, but just push them out to later in the coming year. I need some quicker, simpler builds after I ultimately put the finishing touches on these Liberators.

[GAF]

I can see why you’ve lost motivation. The Hobby Boss itself is a max-out of parts! Maybe you should just concentrate on one and put the other aside until you get the first to a point with which you are comfortable (such as ready for painting). I’m currently doing two Corsairs, which with the similarity of parts is confusing enough. I can’t imagine doing two B-24s!

Gary

[Aggieman]

Over the last couple of days, I encountered a major problem with the Hobby Boss Liberator. I believe it is mostly of my own doing. The kit instructions have you assemble the entire interior structure (nose area, cockpit, radio/navigator area/bomb bay/belly turret and waste gunner areas, rear area) and then insert that into the fuselage half before closing everything up. I’ve only put the bomb-bay structure together with the nose gear well ceiling and a portion of the belly turret mount. The bomb bay is very detailed, with a gang plank that traverses the length of the bay. This is where the bomb racks mount as well. Everything that I’ve put together is glued. I’ve been dry-fitting the gang plank between the bomb bay bulk heads and trying to insert this into the fuselage. I’ve tried this repeatedly with multiple approaches to getting that gang plank into position, but I have not yet been able to close up the fuselage with that part in position.

This is unfortunate. I really wanted this one with an open bomb bay. It is far more accurately detailed than the Monogram (which is not bad given its age). I am definitely closing up the bomb bay and leaving all of that detail out. I am also considering building it wheels up, but this will depend on the quality of the wheel doors. The Monogram does not include the entire strut door, so building that one wheels up requires additional work to close up a big opening where one of the strut actuators mounts. I haven’t inspected those parts real closely on the Hobby Boss.

I expect to spend a little bit of time at the bench this afternoon. I have some more interior paint work to do, and I’d like to make a final determination on how I’m going to proceed with the Hobby Boss.

[Aggieman]

Some progress, although it might not look like much.

This photograph has become quite important to me, as it has informed a decision I made earlier this week to build at least one of these in flight mode. Currently, I am building the Monogram kit with struts retracted. Why this photo is so important is that it clears up a question that I had regarding the kit, which is molded with two areas on the outboard side of the inner nacelle where the strut and actuator attaches. Decades ago, I built Monogram Pro-Modeler’s B-24D. At that time I had very little space, so that one had to be built with the struts retracted. At the time, I did not have much in the way of resources such as I do now, and assumed those openings should be covered with a door. So I filled them with modeler’s clay (this was very early in my return to the hobby, so I used whatever I could get my hands on). I always thought it looked terrible. More recently I built another one as an Assembly ship, but I left those openings as they are with no modifications at all. That was mostly due to lack of funds to purchase any sheet styrene with which to cover those openings.

I have done some further research, which led me to the above photograph. I finally got into a ChatGPT conversation about those openings. Ultimately, the AI said those areas have nothing to do with the landing gear, but are vents for the inboard engines. Hmmm. As a software engineer, I am well aware of the limitations of large language models and AI overall, so I’m not 100% confident that this answer is correct. But I’m going with it. I’ll remove the mounting holes for the struts and paint those a darker color that the neutral gray for the underside painting to come, which should match what the photo shows.

Here is where I am on the Monogram. I’ve completed the interior painting and assembly and have begun to put the fuselage halves together. In the photo, you can see the bad warpage that I’m facing with this 1976 kit. I’ve started by applying glue only to the underside bomb bay; everything else is simply taped together for the time being. I’ll work my way through this assembly a small section at a time, hoping to keep everything aligned and flush so as to minimize seams and ridges. For the wing shot, you see what modification I’ll need to make on the landing gear door to make that small section flush with the wing.

The Hobby Boss is coming along much more slowly. But it is starting to take shape. At the moment, I still plan to build this one wheels down.

[Aggieman]

After last night, a literal black Friday - an ugly loss to the most hated rival where I watched the Longhorns stuff the Aggies in a locker in the second half last night, ugh - I didn’t sleep well and got up early this morning. Went to my bench to do some relaxing work on a Liberator while watching the first Christmas movie that I’ll watch over the next 26 days or so (Fatman, with Mel Gibson as Kris Kringle).

The Monogram is moving along a lot faster than the Hobby Boss, so I dedicated today to the Hobby Boss to catch it up. That was quite an undertaking, and it’s not yet fully caught up, but it’s getting there. I had to paint the interior structures of the 4 gun turrets, then assemble all of that finicky, fragile stuff. I’d say Hobby Boss over-engineered all of that, with some difficult fits and a lot of detail that frankly will not be visible.

I used the masking set included in the Hobby Boss kit to mask the clear surfaces of the ball and the rear turret. The ball turret was particularly important since I needed to install it prior to closing up the fuselage. In the end, I had to leave off a bunch of parts that prevented the fuselage halves from fully closing up, and this necessitated a different approach to mounting that ball turret. I was always going to mount it in the retracted position, which per photographs means you can see a small curve of that turret hanging below the fuselage underside but that’s it. I ended up with a slightly retracted turret due to having to glue the gun barrels into the slots on the fuselage underside and the rear of the turret to the turret opening.

And I’m glad I slowed down a bit to remember that the B-24 is a notorious tail sitter. I filled a tiny Ziplock bag full of BBs, cramming that into a compartment behind the nose gear. Thinking this might not be sufficient, I recalled a weight that was included in the Tamiya Dornier Do335 kit that I built a few years ago. I don’t recall why I didn’t use it on that build, but it was sitting in my spares box. So I used CA to mount it inside the bombardier’s station. It will probably be visible through the little windows on the nose of the fuselage, but I’m not bothered by that. After all of that set up, I started closing up the fuselage. Thus far I’ve only glued the joints along the upper half behind the cockpit. I’ll go out to do a bit more at a time over the next day.

You can see the tail turret in one of those shots. I can’t fathom how these manufacturers think it a good idea to mold those in two halves. There is an ugly seam running right across the top of that turret that cannot be eliminated. Plus, with all that internal structure in there, I couldn’t get the parts together without a lot of clamping pressure. Somewhere along the way to getting it together, I managed to get some glue where I didn’t want it, so there is an ugly glue spot right there, front top and center where it cannot be hidden away.

For the nose turret, it is the same deal - two part construction. But I managed to located a one-piece turret cover on eBay made by Cold War Studios - their site is active but they never responded to my requests for when they would produce more of these things. I have one for each of my Liberators.

[cbaltrin]

Love That Photo…!!!
Love That Photo…!!!

[Mobious]

Massive detail on the Hobby Boss kit. Lots of bulkheads to get lined up to get the fuselage halves together. Nice job.
Sorry to see the trouble with the rear turret glass.
Just a heads up, be careful with the weight make sure that nose gear will support it.

[cbaltrin]

Looks like a fun project. I love B-24s. Build the Monogram D back in the 80’s. Working on the 1976 Airfix “J” currently… Will be watching your builds!

[GAF]

Too bad about the glue spot on the turret. I hope it can be polished out.

Gary

[dadoffour]

Wow @Aggieman lot’s of great work there. Good thing you remembered about it being a tail sitter! Nothing more annoying than getting your model all together and then trying to find a spot to add ballast.