TKB Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 Trystan, As far as the Koster B-17C/D, have you tried dealing directly with Bill Koster (Email: wkoster22@att.net). In 2013 he was still selling them for about 20 bucks. Terry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodgem37 Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 Very nice work. Sincerely, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted October 5, 2015 Author Share Posted October 5, 2015 Thanks Mark, Trystan, Terry and of course everyone else following along on the long road to the display case! So with the extra seats in the cockpit area, there's no room for the oxygen bottles to be stowed there and photos tend to show 3 large bottles in the area under the cockpit floor. Naturally, I couldn't use the kit bottles (I so should have done an E instead... at least I could use some kit parts!!!!) as they were too small so the next best solution seemed to be dusting off the 3D printer and having a crack. After a bit of playing around I came up with this, pretty straight forward... Printing it out, however, not so much. Remember how I said way back orientation was the key? Exhibit A... fail Turned 90 degrees and..... Much better. Just a bit of sanding, filling and some details added, and this is what I got... I also finished laying out my attempt at soundproofing and painting in preparation for the permanent installation of the cockpit. Now for the moment of truth. Would all the effort I went to to detail the underfloor area be worth it with the little LED floodlight I put in there, as you can view this area through the front entry door.... Hard to get a good photo in there, but it's still quite visible so good times I still have quite a bit of detail to add both in the cockpit and underneath it, including some more LED dome lights (in their correct locations) which will make the cockpit a lot more visible once the fuselage halves are joined. Not that that will be happening any time soon! Not much of an update, but an important step forward. Now I can finish the coaming forward of the instrument panel and begin detailing the nose, but the bomb bay still beckons me.. we shall see what happens next. Craig mywifehatesmodels, Kagemusha, Rdrunner and 4 others 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 Just amazing work, Craig. Your work is just as good (and interesting) and anybody's. Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kagemusha Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 Brilliant, just brilliant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 Nice work!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKB Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 Craig, O2 tanks came out great and the straps and tubing really add to the realism. I'd be looking forward to a B-17E build by you, more then the supposed HK release! I know, one project at a time --- especially one of this undertaking! Terry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted October 6, 2015 Author Share Posted October 6, 2015 Thanks guys! You know Terry, the more I get into this build, the more I want to do an E as well! In fact, a trio including an early pacific F would just be so cool, hopefully I can do it one day. Here's hoping HK can help me out with a head start Got to figure out this bomb bay.... Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackbetty Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 exceptional work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B17guy2003 Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 Looks great!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted October 6, 2015 Author Share Posted October 6, 2015 Thanks heaps guys! So here's a little concept I've had running around in my head for a while. To do the bomb bay properly and preferably out of brass, I need to obtain some accurate cross sections of the area. As this is part of the original kit and unchanged except for that piece of styrene I put in there, I have no way of working out the correct shape, unless..... I take the two bulkheads on either side, fill the areas where the doors were back in, using them to create a box and pour a liberal amount of RTV in there to create a master of the void! Sounds crazy, yep, it is. Firstly, I didn't know if I could even remove the thing once it had set and second, could I lay it flat enough to make a good cast of the surface and create an exact "half" of the bay. Well, there's only one way to find out. Step 1, create the box.... Step 2, very carefully pour in large amount of RTV. This was probably a bit wasteful, as I could have used something to take up the "volume" of the area and removed it later. Might do that for the other side.... Step 3, remove fancy new bomb bay half master. This part seemed fraught with danger, considering there was a fairly fragile cockpit on the other side of the former and I didn't want to be flexing the area all that much. However, as you can see, no B-17 was harmed during the extraction And here it is! Yes it has air bubbles in it but I'm only after the cross sectional shape here so not much of the detail really matters at this point. The question for all you guys now is what do I do from here? Do I make a female cast of this in plaster? Do i try and cut this into sections (not really an easy proposition to do accurate cuts into springy rubber) so I can trace the shape at each rib? Obviously I have the other side to do too, but I have a plan for that seeing as the forward bulkhead is now permanently fixed in the right side of the fuselage I hadn't really thought much past pouring the RTV into the hole, so I'm a little ahead of myself at the moment but any ideas would be much appreciated..... Cheers, Craig Rdrunner and Derek B 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richdlc Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 (edited) if the cross section is the same along its length, couldn't you just lay it on its end and draw around it onto plastic? Any minor discrepancies in different cross sections you can sand out by hand. Use the plastic masters to make brass copies....or just do the same straight onto masking tape covered brass, then cut the shapes out. I have the feeling that cutting ribs out of brass will be much more difficult and the shapes will twist and distort alternately use a contour gauge on the RTV mould and transfer that to card / plastic / whatever. Edited October 6, 2015 by richdlc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKB Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 CraIg, I'm not sure if I grasp what you want to do for the bomb bay. Is your intention to build a glove fit "skeleton" of the bomb bay structure, that will be a "insert" into the existing kit bomb bay interior? As far as cutting your RTV mold for cross sections, how about a hot wire tool; I've seen styrofoam cut nicely with one. No experience with one and have no idea how RTV would react. Set it up on a basic frame that would allow vertical movement, mark the mold for cuts and then "slice" them --- like salami. Just brainstorming. Terry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted October 7, 2015 Author Share Posted October 7, 2015 Hi Rich, Thank you very much for your reply. It wasn't till I'd read it 3 or 4 times that the penny dropped... of course it has the same cross section! It's the bomb bay! The only slight difference is the shape along the longitudinal axis which follows the shape of the bottom of the wing. It also occurred to me (and I'm sure Rich was too polite to point this out ) that I forgot to insert a piece of styrene to take into account the rounded top of the bomb bay area which does not extend all the way up to the upper decking. This is where the life rafts went! Oh dear.... So while it proved that I could pour RTV into the cavity and get a complete cast of the bay, I didn't think though enough what the actual shape I was trying to capture was. The plan for now looks to me as this: Insert a "roof" into the bomb bay area and re-pour the RTV in. I will also use some other kind of filler to make up the volume so I don't waste heaps like last time. Once I have the cross sectional shape, I will then create the templates for the area in styrene first and then I want to have a go at attempting to etch the formers I need to keep them in scale. Rich is right, I think for how thin they need to be, they would merely distort trying to cut them out.... Anyway, that's where it's at, I'll have another crack at the title and see what happens. Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted October 7, 2015 Author Share Posted October 7, 2015 CraIg, I'm not sure if I grasp what you want to do for the bomb bay. Is your intention to build a glove fit "skeleton" of the bomb bay structure, that will be a "insert" into the existing kit bomb bay interior? As far as cutting your RTV mold for cross sections, how about a hot wire tool; I've seen styrofoam cut nicely with one. No experience with one and have no idea how RTV would react. Set it up on a basic frame that would allow vertical movement, mark the mold for cuts and then "slice" them --- like salami. Just brainstorming. Terry Hi Terry, Thanks very much for the input. Yeah, the idea was to build a skeleton that I could fully assemble out of the aircraft and then essentially make it a "drop fit" into the area once done. There are definitely more than a few issues with this approach, but if it works, then I think it could pay dividends for the aft fuselage. I'll keep thinking about it. In the meantime thank you for your suggestion about using the hot wire cutter. The RTV I have is somewhat temperature resistant (intended for use with white metal castings) so that could work.... Once I came to the realisation that I had the shape wrong, I decided to see if I could cut it in the bandsaw. It actually worked pretty well, the only issues being that bits of RTV messed up the blade tracking and the blade kept falling off, so probably not a 100% workable solution, but I should give yours a go! Cheers mate, Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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