1/32 385th BG(H) B-17G - Fictitious

[Geddyme]

Lower are flaps are nearly complete, had a lot of fun with these (a lie).

 

I wanted to get to work on the upper area here to see how they will attach before filling these gaps. These are now quite a bit heavier than the kit pieces and I wanted to explore all mounting options prior to eliminating these. Now that I'm a decent way along with the uppers (more on that below) it appears these will hang from five actuators, per flap, with some glue at some of the edges perhaps? So I'll fill the gaps with Milliput.

 

I will save any touch up and glaring alignment issues for final assembly in case I knock a few of these delicate buggers loose fitting the flaps to the kit.

 

 

 

Currently;  working on the PE flaps for the upper wing halves and have removed the plastic in the areas the directions for my set specify. I did this with my parts snipper, then finished up with my No 10 blade. Same process I used on the lower flaps.

 

Then I discovered the PE will not fit until I removed the raised edge of the flap recess (blue area) indicated below as well. (I will have to post photos of the PE instructions here for for the curious.)

 

I knicked the edge of the aileron as you might be able to see, it is extremely close to the flap edge. I smeared a small amount of putty and will sand it smooth tonight. None of it should be visible, but I'm OCD enough to want to make the repair anyway.

 

Now to my current fitment issue.

 

A section of the lower wing half structure that fits in the red highlighted area of the groove below is seemingly too tall and leaves a gap of about a 1/16th of an inch running along the join that forms the back wall of the flap well, for about an inch, no matter how hard I squeeze. I dare not put more pressure for fear of punching through the surface of the wing. I've looked at as many of the builds as I could find on this site and didn't see this mentioned... still I wonder if anyone who's built this giant had any fit issues in this area?

 

At any rate, tonight I'm going to tape it together and see how the wing root looks before I start grinding any plastic. If it the wing root thickness of the wing matches the thickness on the fuselage with the gap, so be it... it will be covered by the PE you see at lower right anyway. Otherwise, I have some sanding to do.

 

 

This is just an wider view of the photo above.

 

 

I'm really starting to get a sense of how large this monster will be! More to follow after test fit tonight

 

R/S

David

 

[Out2gtcha]

Great work!  Better man than I on those flaps though.............

[Geddyme]

1 hour ago, Out2gtcha said:

Great work!  Better man than I on those flaps though.............

 

Thank you sir!

 

   I've seen 'Lady Lil' and a couple of your other builds here... I think you'd knock these flaps out pretty well!

 

   I'm hoping that when this B-17 is done, it doesn't (unintentionally) look like it went ten rounds with JG 26.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Geddyme
spelling

[Geddyme]

Been awhile since posing, the usual work and life interventions are to blame. But I have been working on the plane.

 

Finished the flaps, well as far as I am willing to go until the wings are fitted, and ready for paint... quite delicate work and despite being careful I’ve knocked more of those ribs off than I care to remember, and lost one in the process. 

 

 

Got to finish the engines... my PE set only included plug wires here. Here is a photo of them before I touched up the bolts and glued the cowlings on. Still have a bit of weathering to do. I want at least one of them to appear as fresh(er). 

 

Next, more flaps! Yay! Cowl flaps in this case. In the end not as difficult as I feared, there will be some touch up however. I will save that until this monster is ready for paint.

 

 

 

Finally buttoned up the cockpit as well, added the aftermarket PE seat belts for the pilots. Milliput cushions, with homemade decals, and a photograph of the pilots wife... (my mother). Testors decal system used here, my first ever. A good bit of the time between my last post and this one was spent with Photoshop making the decal sheet, with enough decals to be worth one of those expensive pieces of paper. 

 

t

 

And finally for this this update the wings glued together and ready for seam work which should be fairly minor, mostly around the flap area where the PE joins the plastic, some filing too due to some fitting issues. 

 

There are some other pieces here and there in these photos, I’ll get to those in a future updates. Many of those were started long ago, before my most recent burst of motivation.

 

Until next time,

 

R/S 

David

[Uncarina]

Great work and perseverance David! 

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Geddyme]

This update; Ball and Top turrets mostly complete

 

My aftermarket PE came with masks for these two, but other than gun barrels, nothing else. So I added some switches and handles here and there even knowing, that in the ball at least, very little of this can be seen.

 

Beginning to mask.

 

Damn some of these are small, but fit well.

 

 

After masking, priming turret, then attaching gun bodies (which hold the outer turret pivot in place and are inaccessible once turret is assembled) I then used the kit barrels to line up the gun bodies with the penetrations in the turret body before assembly of the turret itself, which I will do tonight, then paint MM Neutral Grey. I will leave kit barrels in place until gluing the aftermarket barrels in at completion of build.

 

The top turret was a bit more of a chore. I primed the parts and painted the inside pieces MM Steel for contrast inside the Interior Green cockpit. I painted the dials and switches as well. Similar to the above piece for the Ball turret.

 

Now comes the rub... the top turret will NOT install through the turtle deck per the instructions without alteration. It's a bit like trying to get a square peg through an equal sized round hole. But first I double & triple checked the instructions to see if I had assembled it correctly which I had... unless the instructions are wrong. So I also searched a couple other builds and noticed where visible, top turrets appeared filed away in the very same area I was about to... so on I went.. and viola! It fits!

 

Below you will see the area I had to file away, on both verticals to get the turret in, I believe in the end I went about 3mm lower than indicated here.

Again the kit barrels installed to ensure the guns line up with the holes in the turret. I also sprayed it with MM "Dark Green" instead of MM "Olive Drab", got my mix bottles, um, mixed up. It's a thin coat and I will correct during final painting.  

For the curious, this turret will spin 360 degrees, but the gun elevation is fixed. The ball will spin about 180 unless you grind off the stops, topside, on the plate fastening turret to the bomber floor. It's guns should also deflect, but somehow mine don't, at least not easily. I must have been a bit messy with the glue, but I'm good, they are in an acceptable position for me.

 

That's it for now. My next update will be everything (including these two turrets) that I've completed thus far. I 've been jumping around a lot and that should help me remember where I am, and where I need to go yet!

 

R/S

David

[dodgem37]

Nice work.  Effective additions.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Geddyme]

Quick update,

 

Finished the Ball Turret last night, and the Top Turret lacks only the clear parts. Both lack the aftermarket barrels. I just stuck the kit versions in for alignment purposes during assembly.

 

Below is the aforementioned shave job I had to perform on the top turret (both sides) to get it in per the directions. I did this in many steps so as not to remove more than necessary. The filed bit is invisible on the completed model so I will repaint the wounds and call it done.

 

 

The ball with a first light coat MM Neutral Gray Acrylic and weathering... I will give it another light pass during final paint.

 

 

I think i might move it to this position though.

 

Until next time...

 

R/S

David

 

 

[Geddyme]

Greetings All,

 

I'm finally back home from work travel and had some more time on the plane.

 

The first thing I decided to alter on this build, waaaay back when, the inaccurate ammunition situation for the ball turret. Long ago I removed the offending plastic on the bulkhead and patched it with plasticard and strips. Now it was time to pay the fiddler. Making the replacement cans. I found a build that used the Eduard's PE for this area (Inclusive Model Design's YT channel) and decided to fashion my own.

 

After finding an episode that gave a good look at the Eduard parts, I made a simple CAD drawing of the cans, lids and got the shape and proportions where I wanted them, then scaled them up 1.1X, four times, printed out 2 copies, letter size. I coated them, both sides of the paper, with clear Aero Gloss (outside of course, that stuff is nasty!) Two coats each applied over two days.

 

In between coats I worked on the tail gunners area, all kit parts here.

 

This gave them some rigidity and sill allowed easy folding. The first go around was way too big, so I chose a smaller set, assembled, fashioned mounting hardware akin to the Eduards PE

 

 

 

 

 

Still a bit of detail to add to the ball's ammuntion belts (cut to shape .05 clear plastic sheet painted with MM acrylic Steel and enamel Brass) before closing the fuselage up.

 

I thought the starboard side waist looked a bit neglected, other than the door I will have open, so I added a footrest board (for both gunners) and something I found in my bits and pieces that matched the curve of the fuselage almost perfectly and I thought might pass for a rack of walkaround oxygen bottles. I thinks it actually is from a 1/35 Sherman tank I built as a kid, but in reality... I don't know for sure.  

 

Footrest brackets need to be angled to match the fuselage curve properly, once I found the proper angle, I held it all in place with masking tape while the glue dried overnight.

 

 

I also completed the main gear struts, sans the wheels for now. My PE set came with metal struts for the mains (gear down only) and resin for wheel/tire for the main and tail wheels.

 

I didn't like the metal gear, quite a rough casting with lots of flash so I used the kit parts, despite the increaed weight of the plane with the PE and other bits I've added. I'll will use the resin tires however, much nicer than the kit pieces. I was intending to adapt my gear to simulate a fully loaded/fueled B-17, but for some reason I forgot that, while I was working on the gear. 

 

So I may revisit that metal gear... or tear these apart. I do like the look of a B-17 squating under load, looks meaner in my mind. Hmm.... holdng off on the weatheirng until I decide.

 

 

I'll go over the interior tonight to make sure I did not forget to put anything in before my next task, mating the fuselage halves.

 

Thanks, and that is it for this update!

 

R/S

David

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Geddyme]

Hello all, it’s been awhile since I updated this thread. I’ve been out of town for work nearly two months, then the holidays...blah blah blah.

 

I’ve continued to make progress over the past couple months, albeit at a slower pace, but progress nevertheless. First I assembled the control surfaces and addressed any seam issues with those, then finally mated the fuselage halves together, and then to the nose and tail sections to the fuselage. Two areas here have seam issues that are more significant, which are simply my issue, not the kits. One is just ahead of the ball turret, and the other at the join for fuselage and nose compartment which the nose has a significant issue that you will see in the photographs. I will persevere, but any and all suggestions are welcomed and appreciated!

 

Here are the control surfaces, during assembly and some edge seam work I feel is good enough for primer. I am currently aiming to do as much of the exterior primer at the same time as I can, once spring arrives and I can do so in my detached garage.

 

 

 

Before the joining; I actually forgot to photograph this step when most of the tape and some additional clamps were in place, as it took me an entire NFL football game of test fitting, sanding and such before I felt comfortable in starting with the glue. I was so relieved once glued, I put the fuselage, aside and went to bed. 

 

 

 

 

 

The two problem seams of my own making. The first is the nose to fuselage join, you can see the fuselage is actually “raised” a bit, the lightning exaggerates it somewhat, but it definitely catches a fingernail. It extends just shy of an inch along the radius of the join... and there is also the gap between the pilots. The second is a pretty wide gap in the fuselage join ahead of the ball. Both are due to misaligned bulkheads within the fuselage, despite 3 hrs of fitting and what I thought was proper test fitting as I assembled the compartments along the way. I plan on using Milliput for that wide gap... There’s a bit more minor seam work and a bit of glue cleanup as well, so I have a good amount of work to do filling, sanding and rescribing. I will be watching plenty of tutorials! : )

 

 

 

I will post progress photos of the seam work as it progresses and will likely have some questions. There’s also much work to do elsewhere on the plane which I will be posting as well... so thank you for reading through, I’m off to look at some of the builds I’m following here first though!

 

R/S

David

[Geddyme]

Greetings all,

 

It's been a while since I posted an update, but I was busy with the B-17, mostly seam work using Squadron (green) and Mr Surfacer 500, built up with a small brush. There were a few doozies as seen above, most of my doing. One or two remain and then plenty of re-scribing and rivets.

 

With the warmer weather and being able to paint out in my garage I have primed all wing/engine nacelles seams looking for imperfections and addressing those.

 

Engine and props done save decals, nacelles and cowl flaps (PE) primed.

 

Fixed the chin turret gun slots to reflect the actual aircraft more accurately. Here is the beginning of that effort.

 

The beginning of repairing the biggest misalignment I had. This one was ugly and most likely due to me not doing paying enough attention during test fitting the fuselage halves together. I'll post the the completed repair in my next post, still have a little work with Mr. Surfacer (500) to smooth it out.

 

I actually got away with ceramic paste on most of the wing/nacelle seams. We'll see how it holds up to re-scribing.

 

Next up I hope to get the seams for the nose finished off, those for control surfaces and tail gun compartment addressed, then turtle deck glued down, hope that seam isn't too nasty!

 

until then,

R/S

David

[Geddyme]

 

Greetings all!

 

A lot of progress and a good deal of head scratchin’ since the last update.

 

Waist crew door only needs handles and paint now. Hinges are doctored pieces of the PE sprues.

 

First coat is on {MM Dark Green Enamel 50/50 with Testor’s Airbrush thinner} over thinned flat black enamel preshading (wings only). I’ve never done preshading before and I thought it was pretty dark before the first coat of color, so I freaked out a little and opted for post shading for the fuse. Now I’m concerned I’ll lose the wing preshading after a second coat.

 

I was handed this color when I asked for suggestions for camo B-17’s at my local hobby shop, can’t say I’m pleased with it. It was pretty fuzzy to the touch (that’s on me) after the first coat, so I carefully rubbed the fuzziness away with gloves from work that are mildly and finely abrasive. It did lighten it up. But I’ll do the second coat darker, and weathering and hope for the best. It is a fictitious Fort anyway, I could just take it all off and put Candy Apple Red lacquer on it I guess. J/K

 

 

Awaiting the weathering of the weighted main wheels. Lots of fussing remains with the demarcation line between grey/green {I do like where that line falls on the forward fuse here and will try to hold that line}, de-icing boots, not to mention rivets and scribing.

 

One big issue remaining are steps and seams in the port wing roots, as of now not glued. The two fighters are actually two of the toys I bought for my dad way back when, but in the same scale. 

 

Tonight I’ll get it on its own wheels, see what can be done about the wing root, and deal with a few areas of overspray, and bombay doors (open). The aftermarket flaps await attachment as well, but that is for another (long) day.

 

As always, suggestions are welcome, especially on this crazy green. I know we would be hard pressed to find two ETO combat veteran camo B-17’s with the same shades of green, but I don’t know that I ever seen one anywhere quite like this, and I can no longer ask my father. 

 

Thanks again!

David

 

 

[dodgem37]

Great.  Just great.  Love that look.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[brahman104]

Been a while since I caught up with your build. Looking great David! Good tips to know about the fit problems with the top and ball turrets too. I'll keep that in the back of the mind.

 

You'll have this done in no time!

 

Craig

[CATCplSlade]

On 6/6/2019 at 2:01 PM, Geddyme said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would that Focke-Wulf be 'Red 9' by any chance?