DeHavilland Mosquito FB Mk.VI – Tamiya

This kit is now over 25 years old, but it’s still a great kit with tons of details.

So with this kit, I had accumulated some extras through the years whenever I see a great sale. This Included a True Details resin cockpit set and some Metal machine gun barrels. Here’s what the raw resin cockpit looks like simply installed.

Other views of the cockpit once installed and how much you can actually see with the fuselage closed up. Note that the canopy do not open, but the side entry door allows it to be posed open, so you can see into the cockpit. The True Details set also includes a replacement door.

The resin pieces painted up, the only additional items were some placards and misc wiring.

The bomb bay was then painted and detailed.

The landing gears were assembled and finished but left off until the end.

Next up was the gun bays – I used some aftermarket brass Browning barrels to replace the plastic ones. As you can see below, the original ones were fine, the new ones just adds that extra touch.

Now onto the gun bay itself, the kit only supplies the ammunition carriers. If you are going to leave this area exposed, it easy enough to add some extra details. The most obvious missing item was the gun belt feed mechanism, you can buy some after-market details with even more details, but I just used some Tamiya white tape simulate these items. Small pieces of flattened lead wires created the leather carrying straps. Each ammunition box also had a number both on the box and on the firewall. I didn’t really have any decals that small, so I just used a ink pen to write them in. I figured during war time, some of the stencil must have worn off and someone hand ‘fixed’ it. Finally, some solder and misc. plastic boxes and rods were added to the firewall to busy up this area based on photos. Just some careful painting and a few placard decals finished the area off.

We’re now ready to do the canopy. The actual airplane has an interior framing that does not all match the exterior. The instructions would have you simulate this by simply painting certain frames the interior green color. Well, after seeing someone actually creating an interior frame with solder, I figure I would do the same. I prepainted some solder and simply glue them onto the canopy with small spots of CA glue where I know it will be hidden. Not sure it was worth the effort – but we all have those moments that we say ‘hey, lets try this!’.

For the wheels, I used a pair of quickboost resin ‘fenders’ which adds some additional details that area. Adding a brake line finished this area.

All the rest of the misc items was then added and painting was fairly straightforward. After decals and a flat coat, some oil weathering was added. A light spray of Tamiya nato aircraft black mixed with brown was sprayed for the exhaust area. The access door and ladder were added to finish the model.