The Atom Furnace: A 1/72 Martin B-10B - Not for the faint of Heart

For the longest time only the Williams Bro. limited run kit existed. I wanted to build a unique aircraft pre-WWII and the B-10 fit the bill. It was the forerunner of the great bombers that followed and ahead of it's time when initially considered. All metal monoplane that was faster than the pursuit craft of the day. Doolittle is said to have considered it for the raid on Tokyo. It is a challenging build that requires patience and skill to overcome excessive mold flash and fit issues.

The instruction sheet schematic does not follow any numbered sequence, but there is a general order of construction text on the reverse side along with some minimal painting suggestions, Builder needs to rely on historical and museum photos and experience in building military aircraft.

An early decision was to search for after market M2 guns (not included in the kit) for the nose turret and the rear cockpit. Apparently there was a third ventral gun, but I found little evidence and no modeled examples so I discarded the idea and ordered a set of Eduard M2s. Six resin and PE guns arrived. By their length they may be 50Cal instead of the specified 30Cal in the B-10, but the scale was close so I did not worry about it. The difficult part was how to mount them since I could find little detail about that.

I show this pic now in order to see the detail of the resin and installation of the PE parts (I have not yet added the forward sight).

So lets get to the B-10B itself.

This is an example of the molding/flash issue that must be carefully removed.

As with most all aircraft models the interior components, such as they are, must be assembled and painted. I did add some wine bottle foil seat belts!

A particular and time consuming issue was the molding of the canopy and nose turret. Framing was almost none existent in the mold - very difficult to see and; therefore mask for painting. Note the pile of Tamiya in the foreground! Compound curves are challenging and require multiple pieces of mask.

Once painted, the nose turret received her (Eduard) M2. I used a piece of PE for a mounting lug across the turret opening.

I've jumped ahead a bit here and closed the fuselage and attached the greenhouse canopies. The vertical stabilizer has been painted yellow - more on yellow color later.

The motors are molded fairly well and were painted simply with a gunmetal mix and silver push rod highlights. The gear legs are painted aluminum. Rubber tires are supplied and are easy to mount on the wheel hubs (molded in yellow).

And speaking of yellow, I thought the molded yellow was a good color, but plastic parts will look like plastic if they are left unpainted. The color I mixed in the bottle cap was very close and used on the vertical stabilizer, but I wanted to find a proper yellow to spray on the wings. The old kit has some raised panel lines but the the control surfaces have recessed panel lines which took a black wash rather well.

I found a gloss Krylon that was almost the identical color of the mold and when applied was almost like a clear gloss coat. Also note that interior green was applied to the wheel wells.

The tail/elevators accepted a black wash that I rubbed off with my finger and left the raised panel lines highlighted, which was nice!

Before putting the wing halves together I drilled holes for the wing rigging and tied monofilament to a piece of styrene rod and glued it down.

Aluminum foil is glued to the interior behind the holes for the landing lights and intakes.

With the wing closed the foil shows the landing light.

Next I had to mask the wing so that I could paint the engine nacelles to match the fuselage and cowl dark Navy Blue.

I had a nice Navy Blue spray used on my TBF Avenger that would be perfect on the B-10.

The Blue looks good so I continued with application of the kit decals on top and bottom.

With the wings decaled I then inserted the gear and fixed the internal lugs and braces and glued the wing halves together.

The fuselage has been given a coat of the Navy Blue and the tails have been installed.

Next it was time to attach the motors with the props installed and add the cowl halves to the motors. The cowls had previously been given a coat of Navy Blue along with the fuselage.

The single most positive fit was the wing to the fuselage. The receiving flare in the fuselage to receive the wing was a perfect fit. The best design idea in the entire kit.

After attaching both wing assemblies I added the nose turret. I was a little worried about this since there was no real seating for the turret in the molding. A receiving ring would have been a good idea. I was able to get the turret in the best position I could and tacked it down with cyano. I sealed it with window glue (note the 174 decal, added before the turret was installed).

The fuselage decals have been applied and the rear M2 and canopy installed in the gun position. The mounting was tricky. There were resin pieces included in the Eduard kit that I modified to glue to the rear of the cockpit. PE lugs on each side of the M2 are to rest in a notch in those resin pieces so I had to line things up with care. I also had to cut a notch in the cockpit ring for the M2 to be secured without pointing upward at too severe a degree.

The motor and cockpit walkway decals have been applied and Tamiya Weathering applied to the wings. The air intake/exhaust have been painted and added to the nacelles.

View of the underside.

The antenna/mast has been installed and the previously installed radio wires attached to the mast. The B-10B is done. Note the supplied "Winglets" between the fuselage and nacelles have been attached. this was only on the B-10B.

The Winglets up close. Also note the engine intakes/exhaust. These required significant flash removal. Study was required to make sure I was not trimming off actual parts of the intake or exhaust. Also note the haze on the walkway decals. This appeared after a dullcoat spray. I have never has that happen before. A few extra applications of Microsol helped remove some but not all of the haze.