Revell-Monogram 1/48 scale
B-24D Assembly Ship

by Yrjo Knuuttila

Revell-Monogram's 1/48 scale B-24D Liberator
is available online from Squadron.com for less than $32.00!

Here is a very colourful Liberator!

I had almost 30 year break making plastic models. I started again in autumn 2007 and this is the fifth model I have finished.

I made this 1/48 scale B-24D assembly ship from Revell 85-5625 B24D. I used as a main reference a great book "Assembly Ships of the Mighty Eight", Atelier Kecay (Jacek Jackiewicz and Robert Bock). Also James Mathews B-24D on HyperScale was a great help and a starting point for the whole project!

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Thumbnail panels:

I used True Details wheels, Squadron clear parts, Koster's rear turret and Eduard etch set in cockpit, engines, wheel bays and wheel bay doors.

Acrylic paints I used were Tamiya for the black. Orange color was done so that I painted first layer using Lifecolor LC05 Orange and then a layer of LC04 Dark Yellow on top of it.

The Pin-Up is a decal I made from the reference book and weathered it to fit better. It was my first self made decal. All the markings are painted. I made a lot of different masks. Insignia blue I mixed from several different blues with hint of black.

For the gray colors I used both Vallejo 047 US Gray (underside of the wings, different shades were used tuned with white) and Xtracrylix XA1133 neutral Gray (tuned roughly 30-40% with white) for the US insignia. For the final finishing I used a coat of Xtracrylix Flat Varnish.

It took about half a year to get this done and it was a great fun.

A Pin Up was copied from the book Assembly Ship of the Mighty Eight. It was more or less in scale and good enough. I tuned it with different olive drab colors as the plane was originally in olive drab/gray camouflage.

Squadron clear parts are must. Not easy to used but they look so much better than than ones coming with the Revell kit

16 White squares in the back are lights. Antenna cables are made from two very thin copper wires which I plaited using drill at a very slow speed.

Engine exhaust fume stains are made using air brush and very much thinned bark brown shades .

I tried first time to make some highlights. Some of them can be seen in orange and black. I did not correct the angle in the main wheel gear retraction strut. It was fun to make masks to all these markings. I tried to make the plane to look partly a bit weary as these assembly planes were old and maybe the engines were not at their best anymore!

Koster's rear turret is really great but not that easy to build. This was first time I used this kind of accessory part. A lot of Koster parts waiting for my next B17 and B24H projects.

I detailed the back of the engines using the idea's from James Matthew's model. It is really worth it!

I added to the engines prop governor and linkage.

Images and Text Copyright © 2012 by Yrjo Knuuttila
Page Created 30 January, 2012
Last Updated 8 February, 2012

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