ICM B-26B Marauder 1:48

The Build

After opening the required holes, construction begins with the fitting of some structural parts to both inside fuselage halves. These include bomb racks, rear fuselage structural detail and the cockpit side panels. The instructions also call for the window transparencies to be fitted. The only large windows were in the two ventral gun hatches. These I fitted and masked. The remainder however I left open at this stage. Having studied the build sequence carefully, I could see that the empty radio and navigator’s compartment behind the flight deck was to be used to add weight to prevent tail-sitting. ICM provide a large upper ‘hatch’ to seal this in at a much later stage of the build. The two windows in this compartment could be added then. The remaining small window frames, I decided, could be glazed with Krystal Clear after painting.

Next up is the nose wheel bay. This consists of five parts which fit together nicely – this being an indication of how the whole model will go together. On the top of the bay roof is cemented the cockpit floor. To this is added the pilot’s seats, the control columns, rudder pedals, hydraulic reservoir, centre console and the instrument panel. Decals are provided for the last two parts which settle down nicely, over the raised detail, with the aid of Micro Sol and set. The bomb aimer’s position also has a seat to add along with a Norden bombsight.

Seatbelts are provided on the PE fret. For the main colour I used Vallejo Interior Green with the details picked out using some good reference photos on the internet. The colour call outs in the instructions look spot on by the way.

Building up and painting the cockpit section…

The rear cockpit bulkhead also has some nice detail parts to add and it is a similar story for the two bomb bay bulkheads. These also include the two spar sections for the wings.

The bomb bay itself has two more bomb racks to add and six five hundred pounders are provided if you are leaving the bay doors open. The latter also requires the addition of eight door hinges at this stage. My choice was to close up the bomb bay to show off the streamline shape of the aircraft but, just to prove I wasn’t being lazy, I did build up and paint the whole thing so you can see the detail provided. The two bulkheads are joined with a roof section and a lower beam to form a complete assembly. The rear fuselage also has quite a bit of detail to add with two more bulkheads, a floor section which mounts the two ventral 50 calibre Brownings and the tail gunners position with his two guns.

Bomb bay bulkheads incorporating the two wing spars, bomb racks, rear fuselage bulkhead and floor, and tail gunners armour plate

This position will be quite visible even after the cupola is added later and so ICM have provided some very detailed gun mounts, gunners armour plate and inner window, gun control yoke and the very uncomfortable looking stool. There is no provision for mounting the ventral guns in the extended position but this could be easily achieved by scratch building some mounts and retracting the two ventral windows. The next stage of the build sequence covers the construction of the equally detailed dorsal turret. This can be inserted into its mount at the end of the build and so can be put to one side for the moment. The turret cupola, by the way, is a single piece frameless moulding so will require very little masking before painting.

Read on…