Eduard 1/72 B-26F/G Marauder

            Hasegawa issued a series of B-26s in 1/72 scale, starting in 2006 with a B/C, then an F/G a year later.  The kit contains all that is good about modern Hasegawa products: finely engraved panel lines, decent interior detail, overall accuracy in shape, and ease of assembly.  Eduard contracted with Hasegawa to issue special editions of the kit in 2020 (B/C) and 2024 (F/G).  These Eduard issues feature resin wheels, a color photo-etched cockpit detail set, a brass photo-etched detail set, painting masks, and an extensive set of decal options for eight aircraft, one of them with the Free French Air Force and the rest with the USAAF.

The kit -- almost shockingly -- has virtually no issues.  These are the only two minor things to keep in mind:

·      Massive amounts of nose weight are required to keep this model from being a tail-sitter.  The compartment behind the cockpit bulkhead is empty and a good candidate for stuffing to the gills with fishing weights.

·      There is no provided bombsight.  Strange for a bomber, but there is nothing in the kit.  You will need to source one from another model kit or scratch-build one.

Scott Van Aken described his build of the Hasegawa issue  of the B-26F/G kit when it first came out in 2007 and I encourage everyone to read that excellent review here.  For me, the question was which of the extra goodies that Eduard includes in their special edition would be utilized in my project.  

            Time for a rant: once again we have a kit manufacturer instructing the modeler to paint all of the interior surfaces of a World War II-era US aircraft with ANA 611 Interior Green (FS34151).  No, no, no!  Martin requested and was granted approval from the War Production Board to not prime their aircraft with any paint whatsoever.  Flak Bait, the most famous of all B-26s, is mostly unpainted inside with flat black above the cockpit sills for glare suppression, Olive Drab or Dull Dark Green (now faded so badly it’s hard to definitively determine which color it originally was dyed) cloth insulation pads hung on the sides, and a flat black floor.  The cockpit bulkheads had a transparent blue tint to them, most likely Lionoil.  I began painting the forward sections of the fuselage with Vallejo Model Air USAF Medium Green FS34092, my reasonable substitute for the Dull Dark Green fabric walls, and everything from the bomb bay aft with Alclad II Lacquer Aluminum.  The floors and various instrument boxes were painted Vallejo Flat Black.  I assembled the pieces for the bomb bay, cockpit, nose compartment, and rear gunner stations.  I used the color photo-etch items provided by Eduard for the instrument panel, throttle console, and the seat harnesses.  There’s a lot more detail in photo-etch brass that Eduard provides, but I made the decision to keep my sanity and not deal with the fussy metal pieces any more than I needed to.  The Hasegawa kit’s original plastic detail is sufficient for my needs.

            I painted the waist machine guns and added them to the interior in the stowed position.  I used the largest zinc fishing weight I could find that would fit inside the radio compartment behind the cockpit bulkhead.  The fuselage halves were glued together with CA glue to prevent ghost seams from appearing months later.

            The wings were next, with the nacelles assembled, the engines painted with Alclad Jet Exhaust with Vallejo Gunship Gray used for the crankcase.  A dark wash was applied to bring out the details.  The way the kit is designed gives the opportunity to add the landing gear struts after the model is assembled and painted.  The landing gear struts and wheels were painted with Alclad Aluminum, and the tires were painted with Vallejo Tire Black.  I chose to use the beautifully-rendered resin wheels.

            I filled all the seams around the nacelles and the wing halves.  The wings were glued to the fuselage and the seams at the roots were filled with CA glue followed by Mr. Surfacer 500. Hasegawa molded the rear empennage in clear styrene in order to seamlessly depict the rear gunner’s windows without having to create separate parts.  These parts were assembled and glued to the fuselage, with more seams to be filled at the joints.

            I painted the nose machine gun, broke off the barrel, and inserted the breach into the hole on the inside of the nose canopy.  This allowed me to complete building and painting the model and then add the barrel at the very end, because I have painfully learned from experience that it was going to be broken anyway.  I also glued on the nose and cockpit canopy pieces and filled the seams in order to have a smooth transition to the surrounding fuselage.

            The panel lines obliterated during the seam-filling process were restored with a scriber.  I then went on an extensive search for stray sanding marks and scratches to eliminate.  I polished the plastic to a mirror shine using sanding sticks of increasingly fine grit, followed by Novus Plastic Polish #2.  I do this for any model that will be painted with metallic paints in order to depict a natural metal finish as flawlessly as I can.

            The model was washed with a mild solution of liquid dish soap and rinsed with water and allowed to air dry in preparation of the painting process.  The painting masks provided in the kit were applied to the canopies and windows.

I first primed the entire model with Vallejo Gray Surface Primer.  I chose to depict Cleveland Calliope, a B-26G-5 from the 344th Bomb Group as seen deployed on the continent at an airfield in Cormeilles-en-Vexin, France in September 1944.  It had Olive drab topsides with natural aluminum undersides and sported D-Day striping on the bottoms of the wings and fuselage.

I used Alclad Aluminum for the undersides, masked a sharp demarcation line with Tamiya tape, and sprayed the topsides with a custom mix of Vallejo Olive Drab with 30% flat white and 10% Neutral Gray added to give the worn look of an operational aircraft.  The fabric control surfaces faded at a faster rate than the paint on the metal surfaces, so they were masked off and painted with Vallejo Olive Drab lightened with 60% flat white.

D-Day stripes went all on 9th Air Force Marauders on the evening of June 4, 1944, and were ordered removed from the topsides by the end of August.  For B-26s in overall aluminum, the paint for the stripes was removed with aviation gas and a lot of elbow grease from the ground crews.  For those aircraft with camouflage paint on the topsides, it appears that the stripes were just sprayed over with fresh Olive Drab or RAF Dark Green paint, depending on the squadron.  I masked off the stripes for both top and bottom surfaces, using Testors Acryl Flat White and Vallejo Flat Black, then went back over the stripes on the top of the wings and the fuselage with Olive Drab straight from the bottle but sprayed thinly enough to let some of the underlying stripe definition to show through.

I sprayed Quick Shine Multipurpose Floor Finish on the topside only in preparation for decal application.  The Eduard decals behaved very well as I laid them down on the model surface with a drop or two of Quick Shine to assist in adhesion.  Another coat of Quick Shine went over the decals.

I applied a pre-mixed dark wash made my MIG Productions on the topside panel lines.  I’ve painfully learned that this mixture is too hot for using on the Alclad painted surfaces, so I mixed up a dark wash with acrylic paints for the undersides and inside the wheel wells, bomb bay, landing gear struts, and wheels.  Exhaust stains were added to the sides of the cowlings with a thin spray of medium gray.  I added paint chips on the fronts of the cowlings and leading edge of the wings using a silver color pencil.

The propellers were painted with Alclad Aluminum hubs, Vallejo Black Surface Primer blades, and Vallejo Yellow tips (four inches, which is 1.5 mm in 1/72 scale!).  I sprayed Alclad Aluminum on the rear surfaces of the props to depict the sand-blasted abrasion seen on aircraft operating from crude forward air bases, with a silver pencil again used to show paint chipping on the leading edges of the props.

A coat of Testors Acryl Flat Clear was sprayed on the topsides, as well as on the national insignia on the fuselage sides and underneath the starboard wing to seal the weathering and to eliminate the glossiness of the decals.  The tires got a thin spray of Polly Scale Mud around their circumference.

I removed the canopy masks and was very pleased with the results.  They do make everything so much more pleasant and crisp-looking.

Lee Kolosna

27 February 2026