Silver Dollar

That looks incredible. Your photography is outstanding. That looks just like an F15 on the flight line at Eglin AFB. Great work.

My condolences.  Even though we all love model building, family and life comes first.  There's no problem or shame walking away from the work table to do what you need to do no matter how long it takes.  In time, things will settle down and you'll get back to building when you can.  Until that time, we'll patiently wait.  

My condolences.  Even though we all love model building, family and life comes first.  There's no problem or shame walking away from the work table to do what you need to do no matter how long it takes.  In time, things will settle down and you'll get back to building when you can.  Until that time, we'll patiently wait.  

That's what we're looking for alright.  Thanks for posting this.  

Continued--last part
 
The next series shows how to do a flat piece where there are a ton of rivets.  

 
Apply your adhesive the same way you did on the cowl.  Apply the foil from the center and work your way out like the arrows show.  Once you're satisfied with the piece, rub it down with the wood stick or a hard Q tip.  Use the tip of your wood stick in the rivet rows to bring out the rivet rows.  The picture shows about half the rivets so you can see the difference between the marked and unmarked foil. 
Finally, trim your foil with the #11 blade running it the panel line carefully  and remove the excess.  Take your rivet wheel and run it down the lines  gently and you'll get a nice effect.  Don't worry about perfectly straight lines.  When you're my age, none of them will ever be straight.  
Here's the picture series.  



[url=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/hot-ford-coupe/media/DSCN1478_zps59335b3d.jpg.html]
 
Now sometimes, you may need to pull up a panel or two for whatever reason comes up.  Don't try to scrape it off because you run the risk of damaging your plastic surface.  Take a really sticky piece of plastic packing tape like the 3M tape, apply it over the panel you want to remove and gently pull up.  It usually works very well.  If anyone out there needs any more help with this technique, don't hesitate to contact me and I'll be happy to work with you.  This technique requires practice so don't give up.  Try it on one of those models you know you won't finish and foil away.  When you feel more comfortable, foil a good model.  Good luck to you all.  
 

A superior quality job.  That belongs in a museum for sure.  

Outstanding work.  I set mine aside for a while until I can finish the banners I'm making.  

Absolutely gorgeous.  You're doing great.

And that's the way it's done.  Fantastic.

Continued--last part
 
The next series shows how to do a flat piece where there are a ton of rivets.  

 
Apply your adhesive the same way you did on the cowl.  Apply the foil from the center and work your way out like the arrows show.  Once you're satisfied with the piece, rub it down with the wood stick or a hard Q tip.  Use the tip of your wood stick in the rivet rows to bring out the rivet rows.  The picture shows about half the rivets so you can see the difference between the marked and unmarked foil. 
Finally, trim your foil with the #11 blade running it the panel line carefully  and remove the excess.  Take your rivet wheel and run it down the lines  gently and you'll get a nice effect.  Don't worry about perfectly straight lines.  When you're my age, none of them will ever be straight.  
Here's the picture series.  



[url=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/hot-ford-coupe/media/DSCN1478_zps59335b3d.jpg.html]
 
Now sometimes, you may need to pull up a panel or two for whatever reason comes up.  Don't try to scrape it off because you run the risk of damaging your plastic surface.  Take a really sticky piece of plastic packing tape like the 3M tape, apply it over the panel you want to remove and gently pull up.  It usually works very well.  If anyone out there needs any more help with this technique, don't hesitate to contact me and I'll be happy to work with you.  This technique requires practice so don't give up.  Try it on one of those models you know you won't finish and foil away.  When you feel more comfortable, foil a good model.  Good luck to you all.  
 

Continued
 
 
Now, you take a pinch of 4000 grit foil and rub gently to grain the foil.  Do this BEFORE you trim your panel as with the sandpaper.  It will prevent you from messing up the surrounding plastic or other foiled parts.  Here's the result. 

 

 
Now you can trim the foil with the sharp #11 blade.  Here's what it looks like from the front and along side a fully foiled cowl.
 

 

 

Continued
 
 
 
Using the nail care stick which I smoothed with some fine sandpaper, push the wrinkle down from its center squashing it rather than folding it.  Use a rolling motion in the direction of the wrinkle.

 
 
  No matter now hard you try though, the wrinkle will fold in places and your piece will look like this This is absolutely normal.  Wrinkles are inevitable.  The only other way to minimize them is to make slits where the foil starts to bunch up and overlap some of the pieces.  After the foil is finished correctly and weathered or painted, the wrinkles will virtually disappear. 
 

 
For those pesky wrinkles, you can gently sand them out with 2000 grit automotive wet/dry sandpaper used wet or dry BEFORE you trim the panel. I got the paper at WalMart.  Try not to go through the foil.  If you do, no problem.  Peel off the foil and start over or if the hole is small enough, add a patch of foil or touch up the area with Modelmaster Chrome Silver enamel. The sanded foil looks like this.
 

 

Continued
Next, you're going to apply the adhesive on the model piece and not the foil.  This was suggested to me by marauderdriver and it works for me a lot better.  I use Microscale foil adhesive.  Unfortunately, I don't know of any other adhesive that works the same way.  It's applied and then dried.  It will stay tacky until you put the foil on it. Regular white glue doesn't seem to do this and it takes way too long to set under the foil.  You'll see in the tool picture that I use 3 different sizes of brushes depending on the area to be foiled. This is a medium brush.  I'm demonstrating foiling the engine cowl because it has a complex surface which is more difficult to foil than a flat piece.  I brush the glue onto the part and thin it out the best I can.
 

 
 
 You can see the glue accumulation and the dust where the arrow are.
 

 
 You need to smooth that out with the brush and blow away the dust so the part looks like this. 

 
Take your foil and apply it to the flattest portion of the part and work it in one direction until you get to the curve.  The foil will start to wrinkle here.
 

 
Press the foil lightly in place but don't squash out the wrinkles yet. You really don't want to fold the wrinkles down yet.
 

Now that's what I call a fully equipped cockpit.

Hey Geoff.  I stuck that sheet metal on with medium viscosity cyanoacrylate that I got at Hobbytown USA.  I first cut a small piece off of the roll, rubbed it down with 4-0 steel wool or an 800 grit sandstick and trimmed it to fit the space.  The last thing I did was paint the ribs Modelmaster Chrome Trim Silver enamel and applied the black wash.  I started to change a few things and I don't seem to be able to stop.  It's like a bag of M&Ms.  You'll just have a few and then the next thing you know the bag is empty.  

Thanks Marus,  thanks Pete.  
 
I've added about as much as I could on the tunnel roof.  There are still some touch ups I'm going to need to do after I study the photos.  Here's what it looks like.
 


 
I decided to take a shot in black and white to see how realistic it would look.  

 
I'm now going to turn my attention to the flip side of this assembly to finish the cockpit and wire it up.  One addition I'll need to add is the tunnel sides.  When I test fitted the assembly into the fuselage, It just didn't look right.  If you look at the research pictures, you notice a lot of structure that's not there in the model.  Looking up from the bombardier's hatch, the tunnel roof just hangs there and what's missing is very obvious.  A few pieces of thin styrene and some fiddly bits and the problem will be solved.  That's something I'll do when the assembly goes into the fuselage halves.  

No problem, Mark.  I'm still slowly plodding along with my build so I can patiently wait to see what more you do.  Take your time.  The model will wait.  

I'll vote for Sally B also.  From what I've read, there were so many different combinations of features that each B-17 had, it's difficult to say there's a regulation standard for the plane.  Interior colors were all kinds of different.  Equipment varied from plane to plane and there were numerous repairs done in the field with whatever they had available.  We've all seen B-17s with it's original nose and a grafted on tail cannibalized from some other hangar queen.  Even the aircraft I'm making, i.e. Silver Dollar, originally with a stinger tail had a pumpkin grafted onto it after a taxi accident knocked off her tail.  Make yourself happy and do the paint scheme you want.  Don't let anyone limit your choices.  
You really won't regret it.  

I'll vote for Sally B also.  From what I've read, there were so many different combinations of features that each B-17 had, it's difficult to say there's a regulation standard for the plane.  Interior colors were all kinds of different.  Equipment varied from plane to plane and there were numerous repairs done in the field with whatever they had available.  We've all seen B-17s with it's original nose and a grafted on tail cannibalized from some other hangar queen.  Even the aircraft I'm making, i.e. Silver Dollar, originally with a stinger tail had a pumpkin grafted onto it after a taxi accident knocked off her tail.  Make yourself happy and do the paint scheme you want.  Don't let anyone limit your choices.  
You really won't regret it.  

The bulkhead is as done as I can do at this point.  Now I'm going to start on getting the compartment sides detailed.  When the bulkheads come together with the sides, that's when the wiring gets put in.  This build is definitely going a lot slower than the other build I'm doing.  More to come.   
 



 
And another helper giving the part a cat scan. 

Hey Jack.  I figured I'd bring back the memories of FLAK KAT.  That's only one of them but that's the one that worries me the most.  I put the completed assemblies out of reach behind a wood cabinet door.  
 
Here's the new brass bulkhead shown from the waist side.  Tonight I cut out all of the radio boxes but I haven't cemented them to the other side yet.  I wanted to leave that for last just before I paint that side.  Once the painting is done, I'll start fitting the guts together and then get working on the sides of the compartments.  More to come.  

Okee dokee.  Finally some pictures.  This is the radio room forward wall and floor.  You can see that I got rid of that confounded step in the floor.  Any adjustments as well as the final wiring will be done when the unit is fitted into the fuselage halves.  I'm now working on the aft bulkhead getting rid of the ammo boxes, filling in the holes and working some detail into the molded radio boxes.  More wire and fiddly bits to put in.  
 




 
And this is me getting a cat scan.  

It looks right to me.  Great proportions, Martin.  

Wow.  Is it live or is it Memorex.  That's beautiful.  

Thanks fozzy.  I really appreciate your comments.  I still have to finish foiling the starboard wall and definitely need to put a couple of bombs in there to make it look more detailed.  I'm glad I take these pictures up close because I can really see the areas I need to touch up.  It magnifies everything so you can't miss them.  BTW, that "wire" under the bomb hoist on the back wall is actually a stray cat hair that got into the build.