Looking really nice with the decals gradually on, my friend @luftwaffe-birdman! I feel kind of proud that these decals are on your superb model!

Walt @luftwaffe-birdman

These decals really make the Squaw shine. The more I think about it, the more I think this plane might actually be one that my Dad's childhood friend could have flown in. He was a top turret gunner / flight engineer, and I believe I mentioned him much earlier in this build journal. He was shot down over Italy in a similar B-24 named "Chief", and spent the rest of the war as a POW. He flew to Ploesti several times, and someday I want to build up his plane.

Looking really superb, my friend @lgardner!

Louis, @lgardner, that is looking good, and having done the resin know that you just have to build a box around it to represent spars and ribs. The stringers mounted along the top of the wing already looks better then the round tub in the molded wing. Look forward to seeing more.

Looking FANTASTIC, my friend @luftwaffe-bidman! Your paint shades look even more realistic now the decals are on.

Well without too much drama or issues I have completed the application of the decals. The decals themselves reacted nicely to Micro Set and Solvaset. The fuselage at the Waist Gunner position had two massive decals on each side that had to snuggle down over the wind deflector molded into the fuselage. It really did so without much issue at all, it took multiple applications of Solvaset but each one made it a little better. The printing of the decals themselves I would actually only give a B-. They were on register pretty well, but when you look closely you can actually see the individual color dots. I think my biggest gripe is that with all the historical pictures of this plane they managed to not include markings and got key things just wrong. The damage marks have an arrow pointing to them, but when you look at the pictures of the plane, they used a bullet. The yellow surround on the stars and bars is too narrow, and missing on the port side. Another glaring omission is the name the Pyramdiers on the port side of the nose. All that aside though most people won't know or notice and it still offers just so much to look at, and I am so happy to be able to build it.

8 attached images. Click to enlarge.

A wonderful result so far, my friend @luftwaffe-birdman! You are right: per (Hellenic Air Force) quote:

A many will stare, a few will notice...

Over these past few days my building time has been almost non existent.

So I used this precious time to do a little bit more with the scratch building on the main gear wells.

I used some thin cardboard and made a mockup of the two main wing spars. This was a trial and error method, and each time I had to hold the lower wing section in place to make sure the wing halves would still glue together properly, while also checking that the scratch built main gear wells were not too tall / thick, thereby creating interference problems later on down he road.

Then it was simply a matter of making two sets of these spars, and a mirror image of the solid wing rib. I'm also making another second complete set of parts to construct the main gear wells on my next B-24 project. So basically I have made enough parts for two aircraft, and I'm keeping all of the drawings, measurements, and templates for future builds. These parts will fit into both of the 1/48 scale Monogram B-24 "D" and "J" models, (since they use the same wing parts trees in both kits).

I'm liking how it looks now, but there is still a lot of work left to do here.

The rest of the wing spars need to be figured out, as do the remaining 4 wing ribs. The two remaining wing spars have cutouts in them, so the main gear struts and tire will retract into the wing without making contact with the actual wing structure. The majority of the wing ribs left that I have yet to draw / make also have cutouts in them for the same reason.

As always, comments are encouraged.

Thanks for stopping by.