Introduction

As with all of the "New Millennium" (Can I say that without paying a licensing fee royalty to someone?) kits from Accurate Miniatures, this is a very simple build. Lots of painting and straightforward building. I will try to point out a few little discoveries and shortcuts as we go through the assembly, but you should find nothing unusually difficult in the process. There will be a couple of steps that will require you to become a modeler. You know, that decision sort of thing. That’s where the reading skills come in handy. Yes, it will be very important to read the instructions, even if we will probably do a little gluing "out of sequence" to make the painting a little easier.

Two pounds of kit. And very difficult to sneak into the house. Leave it in the garage and bring it in later.

I will be doing most of the painting well ahead of the assembly. That’s a personal choice. But the kit will definitely be assembled according to the instruction sheet. After all, that’s why we wrote it!

There’s a lot of plastic in this kit, and while I have seen way too much of it over the past couple of years, it will be new to you. Take a good look at it on the trees before you start clipping parts off to "see how it fits and be the first person to review it." Losing the proper number can result in a part that "doesn’t fit." We’ve put letters (L&R) on some of these pieces to help keep them straight just in case.

Pre-Painting

I like to remove parts from the trees, clean up the seams and paint them as much as possible before assembly. Modelers all seem to have their own methods here, so feel free to do this operation to match your tastes.

Incidentally, have you ever wondered how those great armor builders manage to paint and weather those tanks after they are completely built?? I’veput together a lot of armor and for the life of me, I have no idea how you paint twenty sets of road wheels after they’re glued to the axles. Let alone the treads. It is usually answered in the magazine articles by a simple "I then painted and weathered the model". To me, it remains one of life’s little mysteries.

The painting recommendations for this kit are based on the North American paint specifications. Remember, NA built them, not the expert web master who is now going to point out how "wrong" we are. In spite of these very detailed specs, we have found photographic evidence to the contrary as to some of the colors. I will point out these anomalies as we go. Since the first two steps use a lot of the same colors, I will do them together. Photos indicate that the floor was often finished in either zinc chromate or natural aluminum. Your choice. Seats are the same story. The frames vary from zinc chromate to interior green with the back and bottom in OD or interior green. Do I have to explain why we are still putting the decal seat belts in our kits? I didn’t think so. And I STILL think they work just fine. And they’re included in the kit. Now there are even a few people who have written to say that if you leave them on the backing paper (as recommended) and glue them in place, they look just fine. Thanks guys. And contrary to the photo on the box bottom, there were no shoulder belts in these planes. We were fortunate enough to have Jeff Cramer build this early test shot and finish it as a Doolittle raider. We later learned about this no shoulder belt thing, and there is no way that we are going to pry the canopy off and remove them! You sharp eyed builders may also notice that the serial numbers on the tail appear to be a little small compared to the numbers on the decal sheet. Another late discovery. The Doolittle ships carry non standard, over size numerals and we redid the sheet to reflect this.

There are lots of choices for the zinc chromate. I personally like to use Humbrol 81. After painting the small details and allowing lots of drying time, I have added a light touch of weathering with burnt umber oil paint and naphtha. A little silver pencil here and there, and these assemblies can be carried into the living room and showed off to your mate. Watch their eyes roll.

Here are the pre-painted cockpit pieces. I have already glued the tunnel and the cockpit rear bulkhead to the cockpit floor. The instrument panel has been done as described in STEP 1.
The pilot’s and co-pilot’s seats with the kit seat belt decals in place. Note that the backing paper has been left in place and they have simply been glued in place on the seats. If you don’t like the look, there are plenty of aftermarket sets available, or you can use one of the 1,975,253.7 personal seat belt building techniques.
Here is a close up of the assembled cockpit. Stare at it for a while, then set it aside for later installation - just like it says in the instruction sheet. You are following the instructions aren’t you?
These are the pre-painted bomb bay pieces. Note that there has been an application of oil washes to all of these pre-painted parts. It works particularly well on metalized parts like the long range tank and the interior of the bomb bay.
The assembled bomb bay with the long range tank in place. Be sure to follow the assembly sequence on this sub assembly.
These parts are now quietly resting and waiting for installation in the fuselage half. Stare at them for a few days while we move ahead with the pre-painting thing.

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