P-61B Black Widow

Nice box art

And a lot of plastic

The expectation was a quick and clean build

Starting the cockpit, the simplifications become apparent, looking at the entry hatch. That was covered later on with spare PE

Although the provided instrument board looks ok to me

The rear requires some more improvisation- added the lamp

Didn’t go for aftermarket engines - they are barely visible when done. The radome is full of lead pellets to balance the model

The kit offers the opportunity to open the weapon bay doors for the cannons. Unfortunately this is so far off the reality that I decided to close the bay (there are excellent photos of the real deal on the web)

My pics from Dayton show how important in the visual appearance the wing leading edge intakes are. Unfortunately they are blinded in the kit

So I had to improvise some interior structure in the wings

I used Ede’s masks, but they don’t fit, had to amend them with masking tape

First fitting - the alignment is not trivial, and the pokayoke not fitting tightly.

Another surprise - later versions of the Widow had the opportunity to close the landing gear doors with wheels down - this took a slight modification of one of the flaps vs the earlier versions - nicely visible on this pic

Unfortunately the kit doesn’t provide for that adjustment, so more plastic surgery is required

The gloss is merciless - more surface optimization

closing the canopy

The shine is there, but is it enough? More polishing and respraying. The challenge is that for a smooth, uniform gloss coat, you can’t interrupt the coating randomly, but the kit is too big for a full coat, so the interfaces for spraying sections need to be prepared and masked

Fitting all together and first weathering. The turret in the kit has thick walls and looks nothing like the originals. I thinned out the upper lip where the gun fairing is sitting against the turret. Looks much better, but requires extremely careful machining with the ballpoint milling cutter

The decals are ok, except the stencils. Didn’t find a way to settle them clear. The chipping is actually sponged Alclads. Not perfect, but much less hassle then actual chipping fluid on the experimental (for me) weathered gloss

Studying the available historical documentation, looks like the Widows were not all that shiny, after a while. To create this patchy result I used the paneliner fluid from AK. The results were looking ok, but the stuff didn’t want to cure. A support request to AK provided no answer :-/
We’ll see if it cures at last…