fozzy

Thanks for the suggestions chaps!...will keep that in mind

Hi everyone Well as you can see Photo Bucket have put a sudden block on all my photos to this post wanting to charge the ridiculous amount of $399 to link my photos. Of course I am not alone and many other modellers here are in the same position. It has taken me some time to calm down I have to say ...when I found out this afternoon as I was about to post a new posting that all my ...and indeed other modellers.... hard work has just been wasted........ years of posting our articles...all gone over night! I am going to wait a while to see what happens with Photo Bucket in case its a scam or they come to their senses and drop the hosting charge considerably.......but I shall not be holding my breath.....mean while I shall continue to build my B17G and if any of you are interested you can go to my Facebook page to see some updated photos........ ...............................................https://www.facebook.com/martinfostersscratchbuiltmodels/ I will be back once things have settled down....BTW...if any one knows of a simple photo hosting service...give me a shout! Cheers Fozzy

Good afternoon all At long last I managed to get to my work bench and continue with the bomb bay! I decided in the end to construct the bomb bay doors before doing anything else....mainly because I thought that this was going to be laborious and time consuming...and of course I was right!....but they had to be built and I can say that I have completed the Port door so far!....starting the Starboard door later today. Here is the same photo as in the last post to show you and a reminder of the shape of the ribs that I had to make out of plastic....... Then came the laborious part of making up 20 of them! The ribs were then glued onto a sheet of plastic and then the various other parts made from plastic glued into position making up the Port bomb bay door....... Here it is offered into position on the Bombay............ So now I have to do the same again for the Starboard door! I will also have to place the brackets for the piston arm that operates the opening and closing of the doors as well as the pins that I will use as the door hinges....but I will do that when I attach the doors.....and before you ask....no the doors will not be able to open and close.....they will be fixed in the open position! So I'll get back to you when that's complete Thanks for looking in Fozzy

Good to see a re visit of this one Kev!....great build!

Hey Rich....thanks a lot mate! ....some real great photos on his page which will help me along the way!

Hey Dan..please no need for apologies mate!....I would have done the same! ...good Bulgarian translation btw!

Hi Dan I am an English man living in Bulgaria so you can use English! . So the pulleys? The pulleys for the cables don't actually work (display purposes only!) and so I shaped them out of plastic scrap....easy to do! Cheers....Fozzy

Full marks Cees!

Unbelievable! Since I last posted this is all I have had time to do on the continuation of this B17G bomb bay!.............. ....can you guess what it is? I have got a hunch that I am not going to be able to do any more to this project for a few weeks!..what with family commitments etc...you know how it is!....but if I do it will be pains takenly slow! I'll be back as soon as I can Fozzy

Cheers Dan!

Hi Craig....I am using alu tape which a friend has donated to me...I believe they use it to make repairs on certain aircraft parts! Cheers..Fozzy

Afternoon chaps So after making the stand for the front end of this B17G it was back to the bomb bay trying to get it finished. I decided to get the bomb bay skinned with the finished aluminum look ...,before continuing with the rest of the detail...I think this is the best way forward as there is a lot of handling involved in applying the aluminum sheets which might destroy all the detail which I need to build on the wing roots....so it was down to business. The first job was to mark up all the rivet lines where the skin is going to cover....... Next up I made a template out of card and placed it on the fuselage sides in the area I wanted to cover...I then marked that piece of card with the rivet lines and then transferred it onto the alu sheet and cut out the panel.The rivet lines had to be then marked up on the alu sheet ready for punching. This next photo shows me using a handy little tool I made out of a piece of model kit sprue and a sewing pin ....all I did was add a slight bit of pressure into the sheet along the marked out rivet lines....on the reverse side of course! Here is one of the panels completed showing the template and the little punch tool.... The next 3 photos show the panels fitted......... okay.....so this next photo shows the wing root area which I need to detail on both sides ,which will be the next job along with the bomb bay doors....... That's all for now folks! Only a few more posts left and then section 2 of this build will be finished!...only another 2 or 3 sections to go!!! Thanks for looking in Fozzy

Cheers chaps !

I cannot explain how happy and relieved I am that I have over come this niggley problem! In theory all I will have to do now is to make more of these stands for the other sections and just slide them into position behind each other leaving a gap so that you can see into the fuselage!...well that's the plan! Right then ...now I can really get on and finish the bomb bay! Cheers ( A very happy Fozzy)

Hi there So I was about to start work on the bomb bay after completing the wing roots on the front section and once again the old niggling feeling of how am I going to display this B17G reared its ugly head! I needed to know because it was holding me up with the decision of whether to have the bomb bay doors closed or open ...I wanted them to be open but it meant that the whole bomb bay would have to be elevated on some sort of display stand which in turn meant that the front end would have to be raised as well to match! ..........it was no good I had to do something about it. ...and so I racked my brains for a few days...made a few drawings... took a few measurements and started to design some sort of frame work that would be... A. strong enough to hold the model and ...B. not look out of place! ..and so I came up with this idea of a kind of piece of equipment you would see in a hangar. The first photo shows the complete construction before the paint is applied. To make it strong and rigid I designed part of the load bearing parts from balsa with super glued plastic over the top..... I then had to decide what colour it should be painted....my choices were black /blue/or yellow ...I went with a Lemon yellow in the end as I thought it might look more like hangar equipment! So it was now time to get the B17 up onto its stand!.....I am very pleased with the fact that it is very stable and can be taken on or off of the stand!....here are some photos to show off the finished article..... ......continued on next post!

Cheers Craig Funny you should mention that!...as I had...have still also had thoughts of doing exactly the same thing!...but I wanted to give it a trial run withe old B17G first....I have learnt so far that it is of course very time consuming but an absolute pleasure as at each stage you don't really know if you can actually scratch build the next part!...but what a lot of fun eh?....to keep my insanity at check I usually build a kit in between each project!

Thanks Jim The plan right from the "off" was just to do the nose section showing the cockpit ,bombardier and Navigator stations...as you might have seen from my build last year here on LSP...but then I thought that I would continue down the fuselage...even though this has caused me no end of problems with mainly how I am going to eventually display it all considering that it will be in possibly 4 sections!...but I have started so I am going to have to finish it!...don't get me wrong I am thoroughly enjoying the experience so far!!....... BUT....I think going down the path of scratching the wings would be a project too far!...the wings would be massive and apart from I haven't the room to display it I would end up having to do the 4 Wright R-1820-97 engines !.........might just do one of the engines though! .....no stop it Fozzy!

Ok then...here goes chaps.... Here is the finished front section wing root attachment area...all spruced up with paint and oils ............ Rear end shot showing the wing attachment brackets..... Port side.... Starboard side... ...and overall shots..... Ok then...now that that is completed I can now get on and finish the bomb bay section. My Wife is returning to Bulgaria in a couple of weeks and I want to try and get the bomb bay finished before then as I wager I won't get much modelling done! On wards and upwards! Cheers Fozzy

Then I came to the first problem!......the fillets were far too wide!.....so I had to cut some of the plastic off....not easy with them on the fuselage ,which in turn meant that the attachments were too short ...so they had to be extended with a little scrap plastic!....this is what I mean.... so the end result is that they now look like this..... So all I had to do next was to skin the fillets with aluminum....not an easy task with them on the fuselage!... Right then.... I now have to connect some cables...paint some details and I will be back in a couple of days with the end result Until then chaps.......see you later! Fozzy

Well hi again fellow modellers! Last time we met was when I was in a bit of a conundrum with "what to and how to fix the problem with the wing root" Well...as far as I could see it the only way that I could achieve it was to build the root in 3 separate stages...... as in this photo of a b17....I have crudely marked out each section of the root that I will be tackling.....1. being the nose section ....2. being the bomb bay...and 3. will be the Radio room that I haven't even started yet! So onto the first section we go! With photos as usual this is how I went about it. In this first photo you can see I have shaped the fillets out of plastic and glued them to the fuselage side..... Then I scratch built the attachment brackets..( they look like Kangaroos sport!)!!... They were then glued into position.... All the gubbins were dealt with next on both sides ...pipes and cables which attach to the main wing etc.... Continued on next post!.......

Oooohh...its coming together!.....great job Jim!

Thanks Joe for the info....I have these photos somewhere in my collection...you have just saved me searching for them!

Well the way I am going to do it Tim is file the holes down at the appropriate angle...which shouldn't be too difficult as its going to be plastic!

Cheers Rich....and yes I have it book marked already!....BTW....have sent you a PM

Sorry Joe....got confused with all the thousands of photos I have on the B17G.....see above as I have edited my post!