Super result so far, my friend @gblair! I agree with keeping both exhausts at the same length. Also, a wise decision to move on with "the panel line situation", looks excellent already.

I can imagine the rough weather, here in Greece we have less aggressive phenomena and I sort of enjoy the few times the weather gets more idiosyncratic, but, I understand, the weather situation in Texas this time of the year is not always fun.

Looking forward to your progress!

Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten) and John (@johnb). I could tinker and refine things on this model for another month, but at some point I just need to move on. I also used to enjoy the rain and even thunderstorms, but the weather has definitely gotten worse here.

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
I have been absent here on Imodeler lately. I'll try to go back and read your journal from the beginning, as time permits.
It looks like you are well on your way with this one. It is also the very first conversion I have seen done like this. Thank you for sending me the pictures.

I have plans to someday build up another family tribute build, for a B-25J pilot named "Tommy" Smith.

He was killed on a training mission near Palawan, Philippines along with 7 other pilots (and two enlisted crew) in a B-25J on April 8th, 1945. The unit commander was flying the plane at the time, and he was teaching them how to evade AAA from enemy ships, and also practicing "skip bombing" techniques. According to the MACR crash report, the B-25 did a "Split - S" into a cloud, and the next time they were seen, nothing was left other than a floating debris field and an oil slick on the water. No survivors were seen in the water, which is close to 10,000 feet deep in this area.

None of the crew were recovered when the B-25 hit the water and sank in the Sulu Sea. This is his tombstone on "Gardner Hill" in Pennsylvania. That is supposed to be a B-25 drawing, and the inscription reads "Lost Somewhere in the Sulu Sea".

He was a 1st LT, and flew with the 42nd Bomb Group, 100th Bomb Squadron as part of the 13th AF.
He was the son of one of my Grandfather's older Sisters. Grandpa was the youngest of 7 kids.

I'll try my best to keep checking in. Looks good !

Great progress and momentum build-up, my friend @gblair! Great details added, after your thorough research. Looks you are close to getting to the paint shop!

Those added details are greatr, George @gblair
To me your momentum seems quite okay, take your time and enjoy this great kit, I would say.

@lgardner, looking forward to that build.

Sunday is the day we go to my daughter's house, have lunch, and play board games. But the star of the show is my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter. When I got back to the bench this afternoon, I was ready to tackle some of the remaining problems. I finished the engines and cowlings. I added the tail gunner's glass and used some putty to smooth the attachment. I wanted to add the green section to the pilot's canopy. I was able to handbrush the Tamiya Clear Green onto the gunner's glass in one stroke, which produced a perfect tint for glass. The pilot's canopy proved to be a problem child. Because of its size and shape, it took more than one stroke of the brush, leaving some bad streaks. After this first try, I discovered that you could soak the canopy in alcohol for 20-30 seconds and the green would disappear. I tried diluting the green and brushing it on with poor results again. I decided to airbrush it for my third try. I used a portable airbrush I got during the Christmas sales on Amazon a couple of years ago. It was only $20 on sale. It works great, is easy to clean, and sprays great..providing the paint isn't too thick. The green seemed to spray fine, but it had some large white lines after it had dried. I think it had something to do with the alcohol. My last try was with full strength green from a new bottle. It did better, but there are some dark areas that I want to try to fix. I plan to let it dry completely and then use alcohol to eliminate the dark spots. If it doesn't work, another alcohol bath is in the future. This clear Tamiya is very sticky until it is dry, so I completely disassembled my airbrush and cleaned it to be sure none of the Tamiya dried in the nooks and crannies of the airbrush.

Last thing I did was dry fit the top of the nose section. The bottom of this section was pinched in at the top when I assembled it to the fuselage, but I thought the fuselage would fix that. When I checked the glass, it was significantly wider than the most forward part of the nose compartment. I can use my dividers to hold the compartment at the proper width while the glass dries. Hopefully the glass will be strong enough to hold the compartment at the proper width.

Well, more tomorrow. I hope to get everything ready to paint tomorrow. Yeah. Cheers.

8 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Thanks, John (@johnb). I haven't glued the glass on the top of the forward section yet. I am hoping the glue bond between the glass and the lower section will be strong enough to fix the problem. If its not, I may need to put something non-scale to hold the sides apart. More fun.