kkarlsen Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 Guess I will just put this here for a start... First off, I will not in any way be attempting to finish this within the GB time frame - But as it is a 'Multi-Engined' kit, here we go... The subject of this build, will be this very well known 'ship': Boeing B-17G-70-BO 43-37675 (VE-N) / 'Trudie’s Terror' / 'Patches' / 'Flak Magnet'. 532nd Bomb Squadron 381st Bomb Group, based at Ridgewell Airbase UK. Martinnfb, D.B. Andrus, Greg W and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trak-Tor Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 Super cool, Kent. Juraj kkarlsen and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 Ah! I see now the reason for the interest in the nose job! Hahaha! With you on this kit, I don't think it'll need any modification to make it look amazing! I'm following Craig Martinnfb and kkarlsen 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 Nice, looking forward to this! kkarlsen and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kkarlsen Posted June 14, 2019 Author Share Posted June 14, 2019 57 minutes ago, brahman104 said: Ah! I see now the reason for the interest in the nose job! Hahaha! With you on this kit, I don't think it'll need any modification to make it look amazing! I'm following Craig Your right Craig, inspired by your work, I've spend some time trying to figure out what is wrong with the HK B-17 kit. When you look at the old Monogram kit, it's quite obvious that there's 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark'. I will post my findings soon... Cheers: Kent TorbenD, Out2gtcha, D.B. Andrus and 1 other 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 13 hours ago, kkarlsen said: Your right Craig, inspired by your work, I've spend some time trying to figure out what is wrong with the HK B-17 kit. When you look at the old Monogram kit, it's quite obvious that there's 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark'. I will post my findings soon... Cheers: Kent That's fantastic Kent! I'm also wondering about the width of the HK kit's rear fuselage in comparison to the monogram, but that's a whole other kettle of fish! Let me know if I can assist in any way. I look forward to reading about your findings Craig kkarlsen and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kkarlsen Posted June 15, 2019 Author Share Posted June 15, 2019 (edited) Hi Guy's, I think everyone who has been looking at the HK B-17, has been wondering what's going on. There's obviously something off with the front fuselage, it just looks a little 'plump'. Craig's (brahman104) work, trying to overcome some of the issues, has inspired me to take a closer look at this. To get my bearings on this, I started by searching for online plans/blueprints of the B-17. There are several available and I downloaded the largest one I could find... This is one I got, I know nothing of it's origins, but it's very detailed, rivet lines etc. Next I downloaded the fuselage Blueprints of the B-17G from the Air Corps Library. I stitched them together to get the full extend of the fuselage. When I superimpose this plan with one from the internet in photoshop, I get this: Maybe it's not easy to see at first, but at the bottom of the fuselage there is a discrepancy of approximately 7-8 mm's in 1/32 scale (shown in blue) The front of the nose is also 'dropping' compared to the Air Corps drawing, by approx. 3 mm's. At the point where the nose cone is attached to the fuselage, the Air Corps drawing is 65 mm. (The HK kit is ca. 72 mm) I'm not sure, but if the wrong plans were used, this could explain why the HK Models kit is having the odd look. Btw. the Monogram fuselage is an almost exact match to the Air Corps drawing ( x 1.5) I really hate to be the bearer of bad news. What are your observations? Am I completely off? Please share any thoughts on this. Cheers: Kent Edited June 15, 2019 by kkarlsen Gazzas, Trak-Tor, Martinnfb and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 B-17 plans are generally not reliable. I did a similar exercise when I got my kit and finally realized plans were not more accurate than the kit! This is already a common problem with small planes but with large bombers this is even worse. Rely as much as possible on pictures. Martinnfb and Gazzas 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kkarlsen Posted June 15, 2019 Author Share Posted June 15, 2019 Your absolutely right, many plans are as unreliable as you and I... If you have more sources available, it's always a good idea to check for consistency. But In this case, with the Air Corps plans, you can check if the measurements fit the drawing. One could argue that if the Air Corps manufacturing plans are off, all B-17's would look a lot more like the HK kit. It's not my intention to turn this thread into a discussion of what or who's right. As Brahman, I'm just trying to get closer to 'the look' of this 'iconic' aircraft. So, knowing this and being the lucky owner of this kit, what can be done? Well, maybe the best approach is to build it straight out of the box, not trying overcome it's flaws. You will have a finished build, looking like the real thing and be happy with it. If you are suffering from AMS, it looks like you are in for an almost impossible task, as almost all the parts of this kit will have been affected by this. In this build, I will however attempt to fix the major issues of the kit and not all of the minor ones. It will become a bumpy ride for sure, but I hope in the end, I will have a result looking a lot closer to the old Monogram B-17G kit. You are of course welcome to 'tackle along'. Cheers: Kent BradG, thierry laurent, mozart and 10 others 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 Fantastic observations Kent! I think it's great that you have identified and taken another approach than I; it'll be fantastic to compare our progress! I am very interested to see how your method works. Are you going to be doing anything about the top of the fuselage just short of the nose? I believe you are the first modeller to identify AND address the dimensions of the rear fuselage too. I have decided that this is out of the scope of my build at this point. Great start and I am following with interest! Craig Martinnfb and kkarlsen 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kkarlsen Posted June 16, 2019 Author Share Posted June 16, 2019 To be honest Craig, I haven''t looked too much at the nose yet. I will 'study' your observations, to see what can be done. Something has to be done about the 'dropping' though, I'm not quite sure what, but it's necessary to get the glass part to fit, after I have removed some of the bottom part of the nose. Cheers: Kent brahman104, Martinnfb and Gazzas 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozart Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 Good luck with your monumental challenge Kent, it will be interesting and no doubt educational watching your progress. kkarlsen and Martinnfb 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 Actually, there are two problems with the fuselage. There is one problem with the cross section and there are multiple problems in the nose area. The too rounded area in front of the windshield is well known but there are also various issues of size and location of the side windows. Last, I also found conflicting information about the tail dimensions. Finally, I realized that trying to correct that would create an awfully complex project for various reasons: 1. Identifying precisely the issues and how to correct them is the number 1 problem. 2. Such changes would result in the need to modify the main structure of the kit. But where do you put reinforcement strips as the interior stays visible? Possible but quite complex as the size and weight asks for solving that. 3. Such an approach will also result in the need to recreate at least all bulkheads, part of the floor/ceiling parts as well as most of the internal fuselage details... 4. The front bubble would need to be replaced, etc. etc. Conclusion: If correcting some local issues was possible, I considered that trying to solve the main structural/dimensional issues of the fuselage would result in never-ending problems to solve. I am not saying there is no alternate way but I did not want to change what will already be a quite time-consuming project in something close to the challenges of a full scratch kit multi-year project! kkarlsen and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodgem37 Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 You got that right, Thierry. This is an inside and outside job. Good luck, Kent. Sincerely, Mark Martinnfb and kkarlsen 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 And I forgot mentioning that this would also ask for restoring the rivet lines and polishing everything in a perfect way as nearly all the last batches of B-17 G were delivered without paint on the NMF... kkarlsen and Martinnfb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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