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THE FINAL HURDLE!... 1:20 scale scratch built B17G


fozzy

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Hi there everyone

 

I hope everyone is safe and healthy and coping with this lock down business!

 

Time for an update!

 

So I have made some progress on the tail unit but before showing you the photos I thought I would share the other problem that I have with this project!....always problems! ....serves me right for starting this journey!

If you didn't know ...I live in S.E Bulgaria and I will eventually need to transport this finished B17 across to UK first and then eventually ship it across to California in the States where I am pleased to say that I have had interest from the The Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum in Carlsbad (not far from L.A) and have decided to donate it to them. This in turn will of course cause a few headaches!

This is a very large and extremely delicate B17G I am building and it will need careful consideration on how to ship it.I used to do commissions for people and have shipped models to Europe by shipping companies...I would pack the model and hand it over to them and they would  charge the earth with no guarantees that it would arrive safely!.... So this time I am going to try another way of shipping. I am going to try and put it on a flight with me and because it is too big to go as hand luggage , I had to think of it going in the hold in a large suitcase!....which then set the alarm bells going off as I imagined the baggage handlers tossing the case all over the shop!.....and so I did an experiment.

I took the front section which as you know is complete and measured the length and height and chose a large enough suit case to use. I then built a MDF box and suspended the model in the box using polystyrene ...screwed the lid on and placed the box inside the suitcase. I then took it out in my garden and threw the case all over the lawn....kicked it and dropped it from a height as if I was a baggage handler!   .............let me tell you that after 7 years of building the front section it was a very difficult thing to do!

I eventually opened the box ( with a hang mans noose at the ready ) to see what damaged was caused!........absolutely no damage at all!....phew! what a relief! ......I will be trying that experiment again at a later date ...this time being even more brutal!

Here is the box with the front section packed in....with the lid off of course.......

 

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If the model arrives safely in the UK then I will be happy for the next trip to USA a little later!

 

So on with the progress I have made with the tail section.....here is part of the tail.....

 

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....and the next part added up to the rudder position....

 

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So this tail section will have to be designed so that it can be taken on and off as it will be far too big to fit into the built box for the suitcase.....so to that end here is a photo of the location holes I have designed for some pegs that will slot into them to hold the tail in place......

 

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...and here are the pegs on the tail unit that will slot in.....

 

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and here I am slotting the unit in place.

 

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Once again I have joined the two halves together to see if all looks ok........

 

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I have to say that I am finding this tail unit very challenging and it's coming together at a snails pace!

 

Next up will be the Rudder construction.... so until then ..look after yourselves and happy modelling!

 

Cheers

 

Fozzy

Edited by fozzy
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For me this one of the best I've seen so far in scratch. Would love to see the guys at customs, asking to open the suitcase, and see this. What a blast! Finally they have some original story, that will last.l 

 

Kind regards,

 

Robert Jan

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi everyone

 

I'm still battling away with the construction of the tail section of this B17G..... long old slow process but I have made some good progress!

 

I was about half way through constructing the tail out of balsa wood in my last post ....so here are some photos of where I am at the moment.

 

Here you can see that I have filled with scrap balsa in between the longerons on the section I built in the last post...

 

Rudder-and-Cheyenne-tailgun-construction

 

Rudder-and-Cheyenne-tailgun-construction

 

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The next 3 photos show that I have built the rudder and temporarily attached it the the tail assembly......

 

Rudder-and-Cheyenne-tailgun-construction

 

Rudder-and-Cheyenne-tailgun-construction

 

Rudder-and-Cheyenne-tailgun-construction

 

After giving it some thought I decided that the rudder would eventually look better if I skinned it with tissue. So after sanding down the rudder as smooth as I could get it , I applied the tissue with a couple of coats of shrinking dope....time to get as high as a coot!!... The trim tab I left as solid balsa wood.....

 

Rudder-and-Cheyenne-tailgun-construction

 

The fun really started then as whilst looking at the scale plans I am using I realized that the tail gun position was of the old "stinger" configuration!...as shown in this next photo....

 

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I needed the up dated Cheyenne turret...as in this next photo.....

 

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Well this caused me all sorts of worries as I would have to some how build the Cheyenne turret with out any scaled plans. I down loaded and printed off a drawing of the turret using Foxit reader and tried to get it to the same scale as my existing plans...I got it as close as I could but it was really just a guide of sorts!  I then basically had to take a look at photos and transfer what I saw into some sort of balsa construction! So it was a bit of a challenge to say the least!

So first up .....I placed the built fuselage onto the drawings and literally drew in the shape that I needed to get the width of the turret ...trying to remember that the drawings were slightly out of scale and then looked at photos of the side of the turret to get as close as I could the height and shape dimensions!....crazy way of doing it but this was all I could do.

 

Here is that process on the go......

 

Rudder-and-Cheyenne-tailgun-construction

 

I then filled in between the stringers with balsa and literally whittled the shape of the turret!...getting the aperture shape for the ball was a nightmare but managed to do it in the end...

 

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To make the ball that fits into the hole....for want of a better description!!....I thought best to make a plug in the correct shape out of balsa and do a plug and mold procedure!

 

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I placed the mold into the hole!....to check out what it looked like....I thought ...so far so good!

 

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I got the mold ready to push onto the frame where I attached a piece of food packaging plastic ready to be heated...

 

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...and fired up my old Bulgarian grill machine!...perfect for the job!

 

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Placed the prepared frame under the grill.....waited for the melt!....and boom!....managed to get it right first time...something that doesn't always happen for me!

 

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After cutting out the slots for the machine gun barrels, I cut the mold out and super glued it to the turret....

 

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Rudder-and-Cheyenne-tailgun-construction

 

....and finally here it is attached to the fuselage with pegs!!

 

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The fun and games doesn't stop there for this Cheyenne turret as I have to somehow get

the perspex enclosure built....again this will be done by staring at photos all day!!

 

Thanks as always for taking a look guys and see you next time round!

 

Cheers

 

Fozzy

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1 hour ago, Shawn M said:

dont forget the shell chute on the bottom buddy, killer work as always

 

.....already on my to do list !......at the moment I'm just concentrating on the basic fuselage construction (the hardest part for me!)... before I get down to getting all the details sorted!...Cheers Shawn!;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

On 5/31/2020 at 1:11 PM, dodgem37 said:

BRAVO!  FOZZIE!

 

The-tail-section-7.jpg

I worry these pins won't be strong enough at their point of moment.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

 

Hi Mark.....no worries mate as the tail unit will also be glued in 2 other places....on the join and on top of the turret housing.....it won't be going anywhere!

 

Hi guys

 

I have just about managed to finish the basic construction of the rear fuselage and tail section with just a few details to add at a later stage. So after this post I can get on with working on all the internal detail!

 

So first up I had to think about how I was going to go about making the structure of the Cheyenne rear turret. After measuring up for scale from photos I got a sheet of plastic card and put together the frame work. I won't be glazing the turret or fixing it in place until all the internal detail in the turret is complete...this is because I will never get my fingers in there to do anything!.....so here is the Cheyenne turret frame work.....

 

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After fixing some sort of band of plastic around the aperture so that the frame would have something to adhere to I placed the turret in position to see what it looked like......I am happy with the out come as I thought it would give me no end of problems considering I had no scale plans to go by.

Here it is in place.....

 

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So it was back to the tail section. I decided to skin this section now in preparation of spraying. Most of this B17G Fuddy Duddy I am depicting is bare metal except for the tail section where there is a splash of yellow.

So first up was to mark the rivet lines with pen....

 

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The material I am using to skin the tail is quite simply sticky back silver paper which is thinner than the aluminum skin I will and have been using for the bare metal sections.You can see in this next photo that after I traced a template  the rivets were punched by my handy rivet maker tool (a safety pin inserted into a piece of plastic sprue!....no expense spared!) and its ready to be glued to the tail section....

 

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...and here is the tail unit skinned.....

 

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The next job was to sand down all the formers making way for all the internal detail that I will be starting on soon....this was done on both top and bottom of the fuselage half's

 

skinning-the-tail-section-and-work-on-th

 

Using some of my collection of yogurt pot plastic tubs cut to shape!.. I started on covering the internal floors and side walls...

 

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The last 3 photos are of some of the detail to the rudder... eg...the trim tab rod connection and the rudder connection fittings to the tail section...

 

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That's it for now guys.

 

Next up is making the ribs for the floors and side walls on the lower half of the fuselage and possibly spraying the tail unit....so until then stay safe!

 

Cheers

 

Fozzy

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51 minutes ago, Out2gtcha said:

Nice Fozz! Are you vac forming the rear glazing?

 

Hi Brian.....I don't think I will need to do any vac forming .....looking at the frame I have made I think a clear piece of plastic will wrap around the frame....how ever if that doesn't work then yes I might have to vac form!

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