Excellent finish on the Liberator sir! Looks great from here 
glad to see this cross the finish line!
Yes, mea culpa! I looked at the photos and said, āSomething doesnāt seem quite right.ā And I had to verify it with photos and ask someone else to look before I said anything. I would never have mentioned it publicly.
The vertical stabilizers donāt appear to be upside down so much as apparently by design attached in the wrong place. Not your fault about that!
And I agree with Stik. If you want to leave it as is, thereās nothing wrong with that. Itās a beautiful model in any case.
Thanks for not shooting! [;)]
Gary
PS> And you get one free āYouāre Doing It Wrongā call on me. [:D]
One thing Iāve noticed about modeling is that you need a good sense of humor.
Ok, so the tails are not just meā¦ The other Academy Liberator build posted on here had me looking at B-24 photos. But I did not want to say that the Emporer was naked without being absolutely sureā¦
CMK02: Beautiful work on Aries! Love the nose-art and fantastic job all around!
Gee, the fins do appear upside down- and those on my Virgo are the sameā¦ I never thought to check to see if the instructions were right!?! !
Thanks for the comments, guys. One of the advantages of posting here is this kind of feedback. It would be a disservice to the Liberator to leave the stabilizers the way they are. [+o(]
I have a new pair under paint and hanging out to dry.
Mea magna culpa is mine, Gary, for not doing enough research. I need to remember: āTrust, but verify.ā I have double and triple checked the instructions. They are majorly in error. Even the construction drawing shows them installed upside down.
Checkmate - very nice build, and like your choice of nose art. Nice crisp work overall, particularly the problematic decals. [Y]
I never noticed the error on the tail either, mind you the last time I paid close attention to a B-24 was a build I did over 30 years ago.
regards,
Jack
CMK02: Cool, being able to fix the problem there! I assume youāve been able to root up some extra decals for the tail codes.
BTW: Iāve been on the USS NC about a half dozen times now and have a bunch of photos. Probably not terribly useful for you but I can always send you some if they would be useful.
Thanks, Jack. I appreciate it. Canāt take credit for the choice of nose art; it came boxed up for āAries,ā but the Kits-World decals are quite lovely and much better detailed. Academy also released the B-24H for three other planes of the Zodiac squadron (Aquaria, Leo and Gemini, I think). It was probably back in the 1990ās sometime.
I hadnāt done any Liberators for years, either. Given the drama Iāve had with this one, Iām not likely to build any of the others anytime soon!
Gamera: yes, I went through my decal stash and found MicroScaleās ancient sheet for Liberators (the one with Strawberry B*** and The Witch on it; probably had it for 20 years); and I can cobble the serial number from the codes, plus using the aircraft letter from the kit. Hopefully MicroScaleās decal-preservation/restoration potion will work againāand better even. These are my last usable decals, and I donāt have any margin for either error or disaster.
It seems the shattering still happens at the outer edges, so Iām considering using two coats around the perimeter of the image area, and maybe that will work. Unfortunately, the more potion you put on, the thicker it makes the decal. Guess at this stage I wonāt worry about that.
As for BB-55, is she still in her Measure 32/18d camouflage? Apparently she carried two different versions of this: one in the early half of 1944 and a different one after a refit in September of '44ā¦ The Trumpeter kit comes tricked out for her after the September '44 refit. Sometime in 1945, she was repainted in Measure 22.
My wife and I lived in NC in the '80ās (in Hickory), and at that time I never knew BB-55 was in the state.
Rudder revision, part twoānot very obvious in the photo, but the faded OD on the rudder is MM straight from the bottle; main part of the stabilizer is in WEMās OD 41.
CMK02: Looks good, glad you had the spare decals on hand there. The MicroScale/SuperScale decals seem to last for years, Iāve used sets over twenty years old without problems.
Iāll post some photos of the NC when I get some time, as I remember sheās currently in just plain grey. And half of her hull is buried in mud so Iām not sure how youād even paint much of the area under the waterline.
I would like to join in with my 1/24 Hawker Typhoon if I may. I would post progress both here and in the aircraft section where I have already started a thread.
James
James, the GB has now ended. Those last builds were ones that had started before the end date, sorry buddy. How about Mattās Ground Attack GB.
Thanks, Gamera. Iāll look forward to it. As for the hull, Iām building her as a waterline kit, so no concerns about being in the mud.
Glad to hear about MicroScaleās longevity. It might make life easier!
Finished painting the new stabilizers this afternoon. Not going to post photos since they look like my previous effortāexcept these are right-side-up.
Iāll need to clear coat them later today; hope to apply decals tomorrow and get them installed a day or so after that, after theyāve dried out.
So. Many. Stripesā¦ Iāve got black stripes. Iāve got white stripes. Iāve got yellow stripes. Iāve even got a red, white, and blue striped cowling to be done for good measure. Good thing I just got a new roll of tapeā¦ 
can you say gaudy? [H]
Well I forgot about putting an ID stripe on the underside of the wing. After I unmasked everythingā¦ Breaking out the tape again.
Sounds like its going to be colourful for sure.
Well. The wings and tail surfaces came out very nice, just a little bit of touch up will be needed. 
Now the same canāt be said about the fuselage bandsā¦ I screwed up royally on them, especially on the starboard side. They are crooked and donāt line up very well at all. I am not sure if i have it in me to sand them down and go again. I may just try my best to make it work and chalk it up as a learning experience. 
If there is a bright side to it, its that the port side is the far more respectable of the two, and thats the side the nose art is on.
Those fuselage stripes do seem to cause the most problems. I think a couple of guys had white stripes that were not the same width as the black.