Voir et Savoir 35 - B-24J

Greg Baker
I decided I wanted to do a warm-up project before tackling the B-17 and B-29, so trying to get four engines going in a B-24 seemed like the way to go.

Treehugger
I wonder how long a flat 3V battery would last if powering four tiny motors. Maybe it is very very long. I think if I can justify the hassle of changing the battery every once in a long while, I might try that, and maybe not have an on off switch assuming there is some easy access to the battery itself.

Torsten
Watching 🙂

Erik De Smet
Greg, this seems to be a companion for the Me 262 ? @ treehugger : I have used a 3V button cell for my C130 motors : it lasted 15 min. With two alkaline 1.5V batteries the motors can run for hours. The main advantage of a 3 V supply is that you don't need resistors to protect the motors , as Greg does, because he uses a 5V power supply.
The drinking straw protection is a clever idea Greg

Greg Baker
Thanks Erik! The straw protective casing had the added bonus of allowing me to swap out one extremely whiny motor on the fly. It's so snug it holds it in place very nicely without getting CA glue all over the drive shaft. The 3V batteries are nice, I use them for testing motors and LEDs so I don't have to fool around with resistors. However, both them and the 1.5V AAA batteries can be difficult to hide unless you plan to build an extensive base. Most of my builds are 1/144 with a base as small as can be (my Voir er Savoir project bases are actually wooden chopstick rests...), so using 5v USB connections made the most sense. Yes, you do have to put resistance into the circuit to protect the motors or LEDs, but that's not hard (and usually easier to hide than a battery). As I said, having a wired cord for each build soone got out of hand, but wiring in a micro USB plug (the same kind you plug into your cell phone) solved the problem nicely. On the shelf, there's no cord, but I can plug/unplug them very easily if I want to display them with power on. They're also portable because you can always plug them into a USB charging battery.

Greg Baker
Oh, I forgot to mention... I got all four motors into the wings and spinning! Yay!

Brian Eberle
Watching (and learning)

Greg Baker
Scratched up a bit of a cockpit. Not sure how much will be visible as this is my first time building a B-24J. But better to be safe than sorry, I say.

Greg Baker
All glued together and I drilled out some holes for the gun ports. Started to putty and sand... everyone's favourite part!

Greg Baker
Pilots seated and ready to go. Is the section behind the nose gun turret really open to the elements on the real thing? Or is there some sort of internal barrier? I'm trying to figure out how best to represent that at 1/144 scale and "wide open" doesn't seem like the best idea to me.

Matthew A
looks like some sort of rudimentary fairing [img1] [img2]
[img3] [img4] [img5]

Matthew A
Looks like a bit of a gap behind the gunners hatch [img1]

Christian Bruer
Intersting project and still time to take a seat 🙂

Matthew A
[img1] [img2] hiddenmelbourne.com.au/B-24

Matthew A
no gap - doors on the inside too - see the nose view on the above link 😄

Greg Baker
Leave it to Matthew to answer a relatively simple question like that... 😄 Thanks! That's extremely helpful.

Matthew A
That'll be my ADHD

Spanjaard
how can i miss a project from Greg, specialy when i have the kit in my stash...?😉

Matthew A
Nice job painting - the panel lines on the wing look particularly good

Greg Baker
Thanks guys. Roland, I do have a bit of a reputation for my output... but it's probably because I usually build in 1/144 scale. Paint jobs get done pretty fast at that scale. I'm glad to hear Matthew approves though... he's a tough audience~

Treehugger
Haha the propellers are spinning in photo 16 🙂

Matthew A
I'm a perfectionist with zero skills so I never get anything finished

Greg Baker
Yep Treehugger - I had to make sure they still worked! The amount of times I've got to that point and checked the connections only to find an engine/light dead is too many to mention.😉

Greg Baker
Matthew, I'm too lazy to be a practising perfectionists. Case in point, the picture this build is based on calls for a yellow "5" marking on the nose... but the kit came with a yellow "S" so... good enough for me.😉

Alex K
So nice seeing the first models of this collection coming to completion!

Spanjaard
i have a B-24J in my plans too... i hope it looks half as good as yours