Guillow 1/32 B-25

By Larry Hawkins

This is the Guillows balsa wood kit of the B-25. I built this as a static model and wanted to do the gun nose version of this bird as seen in the pictures and intel that I had on hand.

I started with the fuselage halves, which were done one at a time and then put together to make a one piece fuselage as per the plans. When this had dried over night I then started on the wings which were built the same way as the fuselage which were spars and strips for added strength as in all balsa wood kits.

After the wings were done I went to the tail plane and decided to build this from scratch using sheet balsa for it and the rudders. This was going to be a D model so everything that came with the kit was used except for the the side glass, tail gunner's station. The glass nose was glued into place before I went ahead and made the cockpit tub from scratch, with all items scratched, seats, instrument panel, center console and side panels. This was all done and put into the cockpit area and then I put the canopy over the tub and glued it into place with super glue. I went to the vac pieces that made up the nacelle's and wing tips, cut them out and glued them to the wings.

I proceeded to glue the wings onto the fuselage and same for the tail plane. I then got ready to cover the whole plane with sheet balsa, which was 1/16th thick. These were put into water to soak for a few minutes and then they were taken out of the water and left to dry a little before gluing them to the fuselage and wings, this took sometime so rushing was out of the question. A lot of straight pins were used here and it really hurts the finger tips when one is pushing and pulling them. The canopy was glued on after the sheet was glued and shaped so to give it the look it needed.

Added spot putty to the plane after it was primered and left to dry. This was done several times before the paint was added, OD and gray. Weathering was done before decals were added from the scrap box and the rudders were painted to the squadron colors. The name of the plane and etc. was done by hand.

The top turret was done using 48th scale guns from the Revell B-25 kit back in the early '70s. They look good after they're gone over and placed into the turret and detailed and added to the rear of the fuselage on all C and D models of the time.

Landing gear and nose gear were scratched, and as always I use R/C tires for the mains and the nose is from the scrap box. The props are from the Corsair kit and the engines are from the same kit also.

This was my second go around for doing balsa and the vac B-25, It will be Dirty Dora when time permits.

Guillow 1/32 B-25

By Larry Hawkins

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