B-17

Iain, Any chance of an update on your wing correction? I have some money waiting with your name on it. Jeff

Great build. I never get tired seeing these 1/48 Monogram heavies on the workbench.

Juggernut, Brilliant post with the nose blisters. Thank you, Jeff

The nose plexiglass shape is another consideration. B-17Gs seemed to have 2 different shapes that were sometimes swapped by maintenance crews. The HK B-17G only includes the shallow plexiglass.

You fit all those in your car!? I love how you find creative ways to display them. It brings a lot of "life" to those models. Awesome stuff, thanks for posting. Jeff

Thanks for the heads up. I sent an email to see if it is still for sale. Crossing my fingers.

https://www.posart.com/shop/veterans ... in case you or anyone else wants to hang it on their wall.

My god man. These are all recently acquired?

Brilliant, Graham

Thanks for the good suggestions. I think the Tamiya brush bottle seems like it might work the best for me. I just wish they sold empty bottles with the precision brush cap.

Hi, I have a bottle of CA accelerator that has the pump spray cap. I always take the cap off and dab the siphon tube against whatever I am working on. I have been shopping around for precision applicator bottles, but was curious if anyone has a setup that they would care to share. Thanks in advance, -Jeff

My wallet is having a hard time keeping up with these new releases. Any chance of a set for the 1/32 B-17?

Great news, but a little disappointed that they recycled the decal options. Bring on the nose section kits!

Congratulations Damian. I just placed an order for the HSG 109G and RVL 262 gear. I noticed that the cart seems to reflect your real time inventory. Is there any way you could add clarification on the website regarding the items you plan to restock vs. what has been discontinued? Jeff

Hi again, My job has kept me busier than expected lately, and it is hard to model when I'm out of town. I am trying to keep my updates spaced out over time to prevent clogging up the message boards. I haven't made terribly much "progress", but I was starting to lose track of what I had actually done since last update. I figured that it was time to create a checkpoint. First, I had to make sure the scaling was correct for the markings because the forum member who was helping design them did not have the 1/32 kit. I also tried out several different paint samples to try to match the interior color correct. I had the highest hope for MRP229 "Interior Dark Dull Green", but in the flesh it just didn't look dark enough. I ended up deciding on a custom mix using Gunze C383 "Kawanishi Dark Green" as the base. Around the same time that I was experimenting with interior colors, I had an idea to create the pathfinder H2X radome that would replace the ball turret. The biggest hurdle, in my mind, would be the fairing between the standard ball turret opening and the radome. I found this photo of a restoration project that shows the fairly complex shape. My plan was to temporarily mount an appropriate diameter rod where the H2X would go, create a makeshift barrier around it, and pour RTV rubber into the cavity. This would give me the rough shape of the fairing that I could then refine. This took a couple of attempts to get a satisfactory result. (Removed rubber mold in bottom left.) This gave me the fairing that I was after, but not in a material that I could work with. I now had to make a mold of the shape so that I could create a resin part. This is where progress really slowed down. I tried and failed 4 separate techniques/materials before I found a solution. I was able to make an RTV rubber mold of the RTV by painting the entire part in Gunze gloss black paint. This acted as enough of a barrier to keep them from bonding together. I was then able to make the original part (photo above) in resin. From here it was just a lot of sanding, fitting, and filling. Below is a photo of the attempts/steps (final part in bottom right.) I then made a mold of the radome/fairing for two reasons. 1) In case I screwed up and ruined it, and 2) so that I could hollow the radome out and save some weight. The final radome assembly is basically designed to "plug" in to where the kit ball turret was supposed to go. It still needs some surface finishing, but it is essentially what I was after. Here it is without any glue: Those with sharp eyes might notice that the waist windows in the photo above are unstaggered. This is because I did the final dry fitting to my B-17F. I stupidly decided to store my B-17G fuselage on a small coat rack while working on the H2X radome because of how frequently I needed to set it aside. One day it slipped out of my hands and fell knocking the tail turret off. No big deal. I moved my chair back to pick it up and heard a crunch. My heart sank. Luckily, I have another B-17G in the stash that I got on sale. I will begrudgingly use the fuselage/nose from it while I set this damaged one aside to reassess on another day. The good news is that my Magic Scale Modeling sound and motor sets came in. I opted not to get the lights, which helped keep the cost down and will hopefully keep the build complexity down as well. This decision was completely inspired by FreightDog's beautiful B-17 build. His videos of it in action were just too cool. I hope that wasn't too long of an update . Also, since I dug the B-17F out for fitting, the thought of possibly making this a double B-17F & B-17G build crossed my mind. What do you guys think?