North American B-25J KNIL
1/144 Crown kit (reboxed by Revell Germany, cat.nr. 4052)

This is the old Crown kit (mine was reboxed by Revell Germany) with some modifications. The Crown kit is a rather basic kit which comes as a solid nosed H model with the added option to cut away the nose section and fit a glazed nose to make it a J model instead.
Biggest problems with the kit are the fuselage lacking depth and the glazed nose being circular in side view, instead of having its apex at about 1/3 distance from the top. One more complication is that on the clear parts the frame lines are molded on the inside (some in the wrong locations of course) and the size of these parts makes it very hard to remove these lines. Since I wanted to have the model finished for a meeting, I decided not to correct the fuselage depth problem.
Here's what I did do to the model:

• added exhaust stubs to the engine cowlings
• opened up oil cooler intakes in wing leading edges
• replaced pitot tube with a thin cloth pin with a pitot head soldered on
• removed twin fixed guns from the port side fuselage
• added armour plate to the outside of the nose section (both sides)
• reshaped glazed nose section and dorsal turret
• added internal guns, ammo bins and ammo belts to nose section
• added some cockpit details (seats, steering columns)
• replaced nose wheel leg with a scratch built one
• rescribed rudder hinge lines on tail fins

Since the model proved very tail-heavy once the plastic for the solid H-model nose was removed, I decided to add as much detail as I could to the nose section and made most of those details out of lead foil and metal. When I finished the model by sticking the tail guns on, it tipped on its tail again, so I replaced the nosewheel door with one cut from folded lead foil. It's just about balanced now (pheww!)

The paint scheme represents a B-25J as it served with KNIL 18 Squadron during WW2. The squadron emblem on the port nose is hand painted, using data and drawings in IPMS-NL MIP magazine 1987/1.
This was one of a number of aircraft that were handed down from USAAF and one of the interesting features is the USAAF insignia and tail serials which are clearly painted out with fresh Olive Drab paint on an otherwise quite faded Olive Drab colored fuselage (the insignia on the lower starboard wing was painted over in gray, also slightly darker than the surrounding gray paint).
I used a template and a pencil to draw the contours of the painted-over insignia and painted these parts by hand. The serial numbers are from a generic IPMS-NL/DutchDecal sheet and the red/white/blue insignia were cut from strips of decal stock.

Date finished: August 27, 1994.

Nowadays, an easier way to finish a 1/144 B-25 in KNIL livery would be to find the excellent Flevo Decals 1/144 scale KNIL decal set (set FD144-002).
This set offers a choice of no less than 7 different B-25J liveries and all of those tiny emblems are perfectly printed.