Para-Martin A-26P Reduaram

Old Matchbox kit from a flea market sacrificed for this. Fuselage halves are not glued. 

Cutting lines marked with tape. 

The back of the fuselage is now the front of the fuselage. New front landing gear bay doors are sawn. 

Wing area reinforced before sawing it off. 

Wing root is sawn off and the front of the fuselage is now the back. 

 

Wings and other things done meanwhile. 

This tiny part between the wing and the engine cowling is awful design. 

Low-effort pilot (3 figures total). 

The back cockpit inside and the wing root glued back. 

The front fuselage has its pilot and gun turret +new floor for the front landing gear. 

The fuselage needs to be extended 40mm for artistic reasons. 

Not so easy to get the fuselage straight. 

Quick decision to extend the elevator... I mean canard! 

New panel lines and glued back together. 

Sprues added to add strength. 

Closing gaps with 1mm thick styrene strips. 

Fully enclosed. 

Lastly 0.4mm styrene sheet wrapped around. Unfortunately it was too thin. 

Rudder added and huge gap filled with Tamiya epoxy. 

Lots of sanding and fixing... 

Some gaps were too too big and on the way of panel lines, so I just added some "patches". 

Some visual progress by adding the front wing. 

 

I was puttying the rudder in a wrong way with surfacers. 

I'm forcing this project to progress. Now the wings are in place and cockpit canopy ready. 

"3-inch antitank gun" is from 1:100 IS-3. Here just test fitting. 

All painted with Surfacer 1000. 

I played with Revell rivet maker. 

I accidentally pushed one window inside a bit, so I fixed it quick gluing a stick on it, pulling it outwards and adding more glue. 

Starting with engines. Again awful design with casting channels. 

Experimenting with pre-shading method that @podkon used with his Silverbird. 

First layer of Vallejo Aluminium. Preshading looks to work. 

Engines are left simple. 

Engines are in place. The propellers will be added lastly before landing gears. 

More colors! This will look like cannibalised or heavily modified individual. Chipping of the green areas is maybe too excessive. I used chipping fluid for the green areas. 

So I used the original stribe decals. 

All decals added. Next is weathering, propellers and landing gear. Maybe also antenna wire. 

Weathering done. Landing gear doors are hold in place with blue tack. Exhaust smoke dirt done with airbrushing brown and black. 

Vallejo Metal Varnish applied, masks taken off and propellers installed. Left propeller got too much glue and doesn't turn, but the right one does turn.