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Rodney J. Williams
171 articles

B-26 bomber

July 18, 2020 · in Aviation · · 23 · 2.4K

I built this model in 1985 and I remembered that I hand painted on the sharks mouth. I use a bare metal paint called; "METALIZER."

I was brand new @ model building .
I knew nothing about "re-scribing" panel lines.
I have no idea how I came up painting a "P-40's Shark Mouth" on this model.
The value price was given for my special insurance back then.

Enjoy...RJW!

Reader reactions:
8  Awesome

6 additional images. Click to enlarge.


23 responses

  1. That's a beautiful B-26, Rodney.
    I love the hand painting!
    Have hand painted myself some stuff, too, like an 1/32 Israeli Squadron fin emblem for an F-15 Raam, or the black stripes of an F-104G Hellenic tiger.
    It all depends to the thickness (or I might say thinness?) of the paint and the paint and brush quality, of course.

  2. WELL!...Again...I have no idea what brand of paint I used. It did not run off the model, so I guess it was thick enough to stay in one place when I applied it with some kind of paint brush. I still have the model in one of my 90+ plastic covered boxes that I got at the local Walmart store in Cortez, Colorado before we moved to California in 2016. RJW.
    here is how I packed my model in the boxes, using 1" foam & toothpick's.

    2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

    • I love this idea of packaging! I guess this packaging makes transporting the models a less frightening experience.
      If only I knew this before moving to my new house...
      ...I would have had less pitots, AoAs, radio wires and landing gears broken!

      • All 90+ boxes of models were put in a big moving van for shipment from Dolores, Colorado to Irvine, CA. Upon arrival here, I was shocked to find out that several of them got broke.

        Go see my story on "www.largescaleplanes.com."

        RJW

  3. Rodney, @f2g1d
    I have 3 of these 1/48 Monogram B-26's in the stash...one is the Pro Modeller version that came with a few extra resin parts inside the box from the factory. There have been several occasions where I pulled them out and looked at them, only to "chicken out" and box them back up again. But each time I have shied away from building them because of all the bad publicity they have received about the fit on some parts.

    Now having seen how beautiful yours looks, I might just have to go take another look...

    Thanks for sharing another masterpiece with us !

    "liked"

    • Louis G...suggest you put glue to styrene on one of those aging Marauders. They build-up nicely; some hitches at nacelles and rear gunner but no big deal. No need to re-scribe as once painted look super from 12 inches, especially when painted olive green.

    • If you want one like Rodney's look for the Ertl/ESCI 1/48 kit. One of the releases is "Big Hairy Bird". It also builds up nicely but the interior details are a bit softer than Monogram's. (But it does have a full interior.) I suppose you could always find decals too.

      1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

    • I was a "Brand New Modeler" back then, so the kit must have been real easy to build...just follow the instruction's for putting it together then paint it and put it in your show case.

      Or, make me an offer and buy mine and you can't go wrong with free shipping.

      Rodney

  4. Very nice and under represented. Just got one of these on EBAy! My old man used to escort them out of Corsica so has to be done.

  5. Incredible that it survived since 1985.
    Had some models myself back then, but non survived.
    It still looks fantastic.
    Very nice handpainting job indeed.

    • I got back into modeling in 1977 with one of our grandson's. One time we played "airplane-war" out in our front yard with about 75 models and destroyed all our models. We shot them down verbally then stepped on them so they looked like real crashed airplanes. The drug store was selling new kits for a buck or so.

      Later in life I bought a jewelry case with a light in it and started saving our models and putting them in the show case...the rest is history. "rjw."

      2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

      • Nice story, Rodney. @f2g1d
        Mines also got lost while playing 'war' when I was still a kid. We hung the planes in trees and used an old airgun to shoot them down.
        I only remember that I was happy to build them, lacking quality ofcourse compared to current days, and later on using them as air targets.
        With the time I'm currently putting into building I will be much more careful with them.

        • Hey John:
          I played "Tarzan" in our trees and jumped out of them into our nearby lake with a Tarzan call like Johnny Weismuler back in the 1930-60.

          There was not much quality in my models as they were taken out-of-the-box Friday night and finished by noon on Saturday.

          I used to keep a record of my time when I built for customers. One model took 1,500 hours and I got 900 bucks. The price escalated upwards after that and I still got customers. Those customer models were posted on LSP years ago. raw!

      • Nice model ! Vintage kit and builders rule !

        Your story reminds me of my youth.

        Bunkers from the Atlantic wall were all around where I grew up. (Most are gone now)

        Even though they had all been de-mined a lot remained in the munitions shaft and tunnels and Cordite rods skinny and fat ones laying around loosely. Grazing Cows continuously exposed bullets and up to 40 mm shells and potato masher grenades

        We collected the gun powder , bring out our old model planes and tanks and set it all alight while firing lit matched from sprinloaded toy cannons ! We even wore belts, helmets and gas masks !

        I still love the smell of gunpowder and Kerosene. The latter from waiting to board C-130’s All toxic stuff but the memories it brings !

  6. Very nice job, Rodney.

    I don't think i ever saw this model before. The Monogram was and still is a tough kit to build well!

  7. Great build Rodney. Like other modelers here I have one in the stash am tempted to dig it out and have a go.

  8. Great job Rodney. That's one very unique looking B-26.

  9. Nice work. That is one of the tougher Monogram kits. I’ve never seen one in the box that didn’t have a badly warped and twisted fuselage. You beat that one into submission. Two thumbs up!

  10. 🙂 … Greetings … 🙂 :
    A looker for sure, nice work Rodney.

  11. TO EVERONE:

    Many thanks for your comments. Looking at the"26" I see a pilot in the cockpit, so there must have been a nice pit to go with the kit.

    My next model has 2 rudder's...no...it's not a P-38, nor a F-82.

    Again, thanks for all the pro/con comments. RJW

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