Its been a fair while since i have built any aircraft (moved over to those tin cans with guns) so i’m a bit out of tune with the kit situation for aircraft …
i’m wanting to build a B24 Liberator, however the only kit i can find is the Revell-Germany kit. Basically just wondering, to anyone who has built this, is it a good kit ? Or does it require work (seam filling, etc) If not, are there any other kits out there ?
Also what would be a good but easy Cold war era Jet? looking for something like the F101.
That B-24 kit is the same one that has been in and out of the Mongram catalog for years. I built one many years ago and remember there being some fit problems, but nothing major. It has good detail in the interior, raised lines on the outside. Plus it is cheap by 1/48th bomber prices now a days. The F-101 is a good kit right out of the box. It has some of the same Monogram fit issues but builds up into a good model. Again, decent cockpit/fuselage detail, raised panel lines. I nice cold war era US jet is the Tamiya F-84 or for that matter the ProModeler one looks good in the box, but I haven’t built one. The Tamiya one goes together like a dream.
As Wayners said, the B-24 is a re-box of an old kit. I haven’t seen the current release, but I assume the same fit problems are still there. I built one of the old releases, before the re-release. The problem areas I encounter were major seams around the engine nacelles and the horizontal tail plane – and the resulting loss of panel detail from filling and sanding. The ball turret blank-out panel really fits poorly and requires a lot of filing and filling. The tail turret has a seam right in the middle of the clear portion. There’s lot’s of clear part masking. Some pre-cut masks are helpful. The fuselage halves on mine were bowed. I had to clamp them together so the interior bulkheads could be glued.
With all that, it’s an impressive model and worth the effort.
Are you talking 1/48th or 1/72nd. If 72nd, the kit is very basic. Acadamy makes several versions that are much better. In 48th, the kit is as stated by the others above.
The F-101 was made in both 72nd and 48th by Revell/Monogram and both are good kits. The 72nd one is hard to find and goes for too much on ebay. Matchbox also made one in 72nd but no cockpit detail at all.
hello iluv3ggs i finished revell monograms b24d in december and it turned out great they have updated quite a few parts since the last release of this kit (new machine guns crew figures in action positions) plus some parts were included from the old b24j kit (ball turret parts and the tow tractor) the instrution sheet is kind of vague so if you get this kit do your research and take your time and you shouldn’t have any problems with fitment or seam filling almost forgot the new kit also has weighted tires and if you do a late model with a ball turret you will need to get the turret halves from monograms b17g kit and i recommend after market decals (i did “jerks natural” from the ploesti raid) good luck and better results i will provide pictures if you would like to see the finished model.
I forgot — The B-24 is a real tail sitter. You need to add a bunch of weight to keep it off it’s tail skid. I recommend Terry Dean’s nose weights - http://www.njipms.org/Reviews/Terry_Dean_Weights/noseweights.htm He’s a 1st class guy with great products. Takes all the guess work out of weighting the model.
The only thing I’d like to add, is that the way Monogram has the engine nacelles designed, it makes it rather hard to assemble the engines and props after painting, so I cut them free of the wings, and reattached them, after paint work was done.
I’ll post this again, if you haven’t seen it. And it does take a load of weight, to get it on its nose.
This is the 1/48 scale kit from Monogram, and my mix of “desert pink”.
thanks for the links and the heads up ! Might pick it up and make it a long term build or something [:)] BTW, vintage, thats a great peice of work you’ve done there, i’ve bookmarked it for future reference. Thanks. thats also a very nice looking B24 Leon [:D] Pictures are always good P51mustang [:)]
I’ve got the B-24J and D versions waiting in my “to-do” pile, and I’ve added 2 Koster update packs, mainly for the transparencies, but also to give me some options on the ball & nose turrets, as I’m not fond of the D version.
I also picked up the Flightpath updates, which provide lots of additional detailing for the bomb-bay in particular, engines & cockpit. Well worth the money if you can get hold of them. Finally, I got some after-market bombs to jolly up the completed bomb-bay, and the Squadron main canopies, as the Koster kit doesn’t include those.
I think there’ll be quite a bit of filling & sanding to be done, but I’m intending to re-scribe the whole plane, cos I hate raised panel lines. I’m also a glutton for punishment, as I’m also a newbie at this hobby, having taken a 25 year sabbatical until recently. [;)]
