The Atom Furnace

We'll do an unboxing and complete build, with photoetch extras, after I finish a few other things....

Cue The Doors

And remember, don't get off the boat....

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First up, what do you get? How is the quality, detail, and realism for this 30 year old kit?

Molded primarily in an OD styrene, along with 2 small trees, 1 black rubber, 1 clear styrene; waterslide decals, not yellowed (we'll find out later how they've aged); US flags (2) printed on matte paper; a short length of nylon "rope". I'll be adding the Eduard photoetch detail kit, we'll see later what that adds or replaces.

The hull is a clean one piece cast with only one sprue attachment point along the keel, easily removed. No flash or other blemishes to speak of. The area above the waterline is ever so slightly textured

We'll see if and how that affects the final finish, which I plan to look well-used. No rusting, since it's a 'glass boat, but, well, river water....

The main deck also serves as sprue "E" and contains the transom plate that hold the steerable water jets that propel the boat. The light texturing has also been applied to the deck surfaces, a nice touch. As this is a MKII boat, it models the aluminum rail that wraps around the edge of the deck, taking the abuse of bumping into docks and other boats, an opportunity for some chipping and wear.

The 4 man crew is on a separate sprue, along with personal equipment, weapons, and some small stowage items. The figures are flash free and well molded, and should be capable of taking some good miniature painting. They're all wearing their flak vests, some with t shirts, some without. There's one black beret, one headband, and 2 designed for helmets, a nod to Apocalypse Now perhaps. Four helmets are provided if you want to modify. Two more sprues of structure, details and weapons round out the kit, including more stowage. Mold quality is uniformly good, with no flash to speak of.

Given the number of bumps and recesses on the finished model, I may paint it in stages to ensure those recesses get both painted and weathered while accessible.

Basic hull and deck go together quickly and easily, great fit and alignment, no flash.

This gets us through steps 1, 2, and 3 in the instructions but by having to wait for the PE to arrive, I may skip back and forth a bit to keep making progress.

But it is starting to look like something. Plus I'm a big believer in test fitting early and often.

One thing I've been mulling over is markings. Searching for period photos shows, to date, no examples of boats with any distinguishable markings. Restored examples and models show boat numbers forward on either side above the waterline, which is what the decals/instructions show, but have found a total of zero examples in country. Only exception is on close up photos of crew where you can see boat numbers in black on the life rings, usually OD to match the boat. Will continue the search...

In the mean time, I continue to work on subassemblies that don't use the PE that's coming. Sprue stretching will be necessary for the radar mast, and a small pin vise drill if you want radio antennae rather than the supplied stubs.

The canopy and superstructure are not yet glued in place.

The Eduard detail kit arrived!

Two sheets of photoetch and 1 clear/black instrument panel insert. The etch quality is very good, with no evidence of over-etching. Some of the parts look very delicste and will need to be handled with care. Most of the details are weapon and ammo related, a few brackets, panel details, and radar, antenna, and searchlight bits round it out. It should add some nice granularity to an already respectable level in the base kit.

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I settled on a base color, based on "eye" and availability. I used Modelmaster Dark Green FS34096.

it was applied in three sections, hull, cabin, and canopy, to ease in detailing. With this laid down, work on the helm area could proceed.

The Eduard 3 piece control panel covers the stock panel. Back painting the black over clear instruments is a nice effect, when topped with the photoetch panel. The rest of the details shown are stock. It gives a nice detailed look to the already good Tamiya helm. Of course, with the armor shield and canopy on and crew in place, little of this will be visible ;-)

Meanwhile, we have a kit within a kit using the Eduard PE details on the forward gun tub.

I started with the ammo feed tracks, as they need to go in before you put the top on and mount the guns. You replace the molded rubber parts with a PE track which requires 4 folds. First two are easy. Second two required building some tooling out of brass stock. Once complete, use metal blackener for a nice effect.

Much nicer than rubber. Of course, we still need a belt of .50...

More folding.

looks good in profile. These get installed, and we move on to the PE gun cradle which replaces all but the shafts of the kit plastic part

Nearly a kit in itself of 10 parts. This drops into the kit mounts.

Now for guns. PE flash hiders were provided, but I couldn't guarantee a flawless installation so I opted to drill out the kit ones. Other than that I used the Eduard PE on these as instructed.

Some of these parts are VERY small. Beware the Rug Monster, and work well over your bench while folding. Caution, when rolling the heat shield, work it in stages from larger to smaller to the final diameter, the last over a cone. The perforations cause it to want to fold rather than roll. I mixed Modelmaster chrome silver and flat black for a parkerized look, which I will shade with black wash and silver highlights later.

Add the kit spotlight with PE trim ring, and drop it in for a test photo. Yes, not too bad.

The stern .50 follows.

PE sights front and rear, PE pintle, PE heat guard, PE grips and trigger. I drilled and pinned the pintle so later I can position the gun to match the gunner. The gun shield was kit, but the ammo box and tray, ammo, and guide all PE.

Together it makes for a nicely detailed mount.

Now to spend some time on crew, small arms, and stowage.

All but the bow gunner were assembled (his arms go on after he is "installed" because I mounted the guns already) and primed.

A quick trip out to my militaria collection to check on colors for jungle fatigues...

In sunlight, I settled on Vallejo green grey 70.886 for fatigues as a reasonable match, which I will lighten for highlights.

Indoors, next to the green primer, it looks too gray.

That, and they're all wearing flak vests, which are nylon covered and a different shade of green. Let this dry and then back out for another color comparison.

In order to "green up" the fatigues and give ut some depth, I'll make a wash with Vallejo Refractive Green 70.890 and apply that generally. To match the slightly yellower tone if the vest, I'll have to mix. Starting with Japanese Uniform 70.923 I added Refractive Green until it got the color I wanted, about 1 part Uniform to .75 part Green.

Uniform notes: PBR sailors wore a variety of things under the heavy flak vest, from a Fatigue jacket like the helmsman; OD t-shirts on the after gunners, or nothing, like the bow gunner. For t-shirts I'll use Modelmaster acrylic OD, FS 34087.

Helmets in Brown Violet 70.887.

The helmsman wears the distinctive black beret. I'll have to print a decal for the TF-116 patch that should be on its side. Jungle boots in black and green. It will take a few coats to get good flesh coverage.

Jungle boots are two-tone, black leather and green nylon side panels, which seem to fade quickly in use. As my crew is salty, they'll get faded boots. I used Vallejo green brown 70.879, as seen on the sr NCO.

Here's the crew before mounting:

the gunner for the ywin 50s won't get his atms attached until he goes in the seat.

Now we can't have too clean a boat, so we'll do an oil pin wash followed ny some oil streaking using the wilder oil paints and enamel thinner, just like on armor models.

Sharp eyed readers will notice the lifecring is not stock: I took the supplied ring and added the straps (wine bottle foil) and grab lines (heavy thread) brfore painting and mounting. The canvas canopy got a sprayed on coat of P3 Traitor Green which gives it a slighyly khaki-er color, a nice contrast. Run up the colors! Next, bumper tires above the water line.

It is the 19th anniversary of 9-11 - moment of silence..............I am still waiting for the decals for the P36 of PJ Phil Rasmussen, so I go to the storage box and pull out a 1/48 P51 that my father and not my brother had built. I am not sure of the age of the model, but it is in relatively good condition and decals look solid and not faded. It needs a cleaning, and by the look of it, some touching up, but nothing major. It is something to do while waiting for decals. This is the P51 as it came out of storage.

Looks pretty good, but up close it needs some sprucing up. My first issue is the olive color on the wings and fuselage. I think it is what showed on the kit box cover since after a little research I found other kits, some with the olive. However; I did some research on the "Bald Eagle" itself. The current Bald Eagle is alive and well, although a P51D, it is painted as the Bald Eagle except the color is the dark Navy blue as was the original P51B Bald Eagle of the 361st Fighter Group that straffed and bombed on Normandy, June 6, 1944.

The conversion to blue begins. Originally that color area was white and black stripes like the underside and fuselage. Many of you WWII aircraft history buffs will recognize the stripes (which I recently learned about) that distinguished allied aircraft ("If it ain't got stripes, shoot it down"). The topsides got repainted later as a camoflage effort but the underside remained striped.

The wings are now in the Navy blue, but this photo shows two things. First is the conversion of the initial "birdcage" canopy of the P51B to the "Malcolm Hood" that the P51B/Cs received in order to increase the pilots all around view. The Malcolm Hood was developed by the RAF for the Spitfire and others. The second reason for the pic is the 8 white circles within which there should be little Swastikas for the eight victories of the Bald Eagle. The circles were too stark for me. I had to try something.

While not really Swas. one can interpret as such if you don't look too hard! One other thing to notice is the condition of the white stripes on the fuselage. Cleaning attempts failed and paint is required. I will attack that later. As I stated about the advantage of the Malcolm Hood, many pilots preferred them over the later Bubble canopies of the P51D; However the Ds advantage was it had 6 - 50Cal guns in the wings as opposed to 4 in the P51B/C - which also liked to jam; however, that issued was remedied later.

But first I had to add four 50 Cals to Dad's P51, since all I saw were holes in the wing edge!!! What to do? Well back to a previous kit sprue. Note the ends of the prop shafts of my USS England that were not used. They were the perfect size.

Here the prop shafts have been snipped and trimmed and "guns" have been glued in Place. Paint comes later. Let's move along.....

..........This is the tail number of the original Bald Eagle in 1944, flown by Robert Eckfeldt of the 374th Squadron of the 361st Fighter Group. Note the blue and yellow stripes. These had to be carefully touched up with the Navy blue and fresh coat of yellow (this was a decal that was a bit lopsided).

The same was required for the wing tips.

The nose yellow was also "freshened up" as this was the nose of the 361st Fighter Group known as the "Yellowjackets". The one thing I did not mess with is the blue/yellow decals above the exhaust manifold. They are in perfect condition. In this pic notice the guns are painted as well as the exhaust manifolds, as they were a mite "rough" looking.

Recall I mentioned earlier about the white stripes? Besides needing a freshen up, the Star on the fuselage is supposed to be centered on the middle of the three white stripes. I think that the fuselage stripes maybe slightly narrow and too far forward, combined with the placement of the decals over the stripes, creating a difference in the white of the star portion (over the black stripe) since it is not centered on the white. My first attempt at a solution, after touchup/repaint of the white stripes, will be to touchup the star also. Should I totally FUBAR the look, then I will have to start over and try and order new decals - which I would rather not do!! The plot thickens!

I got my new white paint. It was nice and thin and allowed me to push it around where I wanted and even wipe off, which I did at first until I refined the technique. It turned out OK!