brahman104 Posted September 18, 2021 Share Posted September 18, 2021 Looking good Gil! The fuselage sections are indeed enormous. Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomprobert Posted September 18, 2021 Share Posted September 18, 2021 I’m loving watching this come together - there’s certainly a lot of real estate with this beast of a kit. Not sure how fussed you are with accuracy, but Forts were unpainted internally. Natural aluminium from nose to tail, with only exposed metal on the flight deck being bronze green. However, E models still had olive green insulation fitted to the nose and radio room cabins at this time. All the best, Tom brahman104, nmayhew and Gil Hodges 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Hodges Posted October 1, 2021 Author Share Posted October 1, 2021 Not really concerned with being "dead" accurate.....but thanks for the info! They say the devil's in the details, and after taking a week off, me and the devil had at it this week! Made a dent in about 1/2 of the Eduard sets for this build, as well as getting the O2 tanks and bombs glued up...... Bombadier and Navigator station details....got maps to go over that splotchy section of the table! Rear nose station bulkhead... Eduard's main IP...all I did was add a piece of cigarette pack cellophane between the layers for the "glass"... Central throttle/control quad... O2 tanks, aftermarket control columns with Boeing logos in the center, and the "woodwork" applied to the ammo boxes... Forward nose fuselage details.... Still a l-o-n-g ways to go...but it feels good to get something done! Gil Sparzanza, chrish, scvrobeson and 9 others 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted October 2, 2021 Share Posted October 2, 2021 Great to see more progress on this one Gil! Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Hodges Posted October 4, 2021 Author Share Posted October 4, 2021 A bit more progress..... Gil Greg W, chukw, scvrobeson and 6 others 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 Definitely coming together now Gil! Great work Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Hodges Posted October 17, 2021 Author Share Posted October 17, 2021 (edited) Got some pe added to the bomb bay doors and parts.... And also got 99% of the nose area done, including the machine gun added on the floor and wired for the pilot to fire... I'm finally feeling like I've made some real progress...though I've every area BUT this one to do and finish yet! GIL Edited October 20, 2021 by Gil Hodges Borsos, chukw, Greg W and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Hodges Posted October 24, 2021 Author Share Posted October 24, 2021 Made some good progress this week and also got some key items knocked together for this build....started by assembling the bomb bay and radio room sub-assemblies together and checking their fit into the fuselage. The next major area to tackle was the waist..... Got the wooden floors added and then scratchbuilt new gun pedestals on the gun support floors. These will allow me to add the waist guns at the end of the build through the open waist windows Twin waist guns and twin radio guns means that I had to scratchbuild 3 ammo boxes not supplied in the kit. In this pic, 2 are kit parts, 1 is an Eduard pe part, and the other 3 I built... Since "666" had twin .50s in both waist windows and the radio area, I had to build twin-gun brackets with a post for each waist position. I kept these very simple reasoning that the crew had to do something simple that the field machine shop could weld together quickly and easily. The guns are a combination of the kit guns and some resin aftermarket guns, all of which are drilled to accept the brass barrels that will be added at the end of the build. The one gun with the socket is for the right nose window, and the other gun is for the left nose position. This represents about 10hrs of work....but it was worth it! Gil MikeMaben, daveculp, Greg W and 6 others 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted October 24, 2021 Share Posted October 24, 2021 Nice progress, Gil! Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdthoresen Posted October 24, 2021 Share Posted October 24, 2021 Excellent work, Gil. I particularly like the high contrast of the wash on the fuselage detail. It certainly seems to add overall visual interest in the cramped crew areas. Keep the updates coming- Thor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Hodges Posted October 27, 2021 Author Share Posted October 27, 2021 Got the 2 fuselage mapping cameras built this evening, as well as determining their exact positions and drilling their window holes.... Except for any unforeseen items, these are the last scratchbuilt additions I'll have to make to this build.... GIL Landrotten Highlander, chrish, LSP_Kevin and 4 others 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted October 27, 2021 Share Posted October 27, 2021 Interesting! I've not seen those cameras before. Makes sense though seeing as 666 was a recon fort. Do you have any photos of the installation? Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Hodges Posted October 27, 2021 Author Share Posted October 27, 2021 Unfortunately, no....I'm sure that the primary mapping camera was the B-17's "strike" camera, located under the radio room and immediately behind the bomb bay. We've all seen just how clear the images were of the bomb runs, so it'd been good for photo mapping too. However, I'm building this version of 666 on the premise that they would have installed a couple of extra cameras, both for back up and to get slightly different views. I'm also approaching this with 2 thoughts...first, 666 was NOT a "mapping" B-17....and thus any additional camera instillation would have to be done "quick and dirty' under field conditions (like making the brackets for the twin .50 mounts). Second, they'd be placed somewhere easy to mount and where the fuselage could be easily cut to make view holes. That's why I drilled round holes instead of trying to cut traditional rectangular camera windows. DO NOT take any of this part of my build as "authentic". I'm not aware of any good references on any camera installations in 666, and they may have simply done the mission with only the strike camera. However, I know I'd want some "back-up" to make sure my risks weren't entirely dependent on 1 piece of equipment, so I added the cameras on the premise they'd want them too. Also, the "cameras" are bogus, and I made no attempt to try to duplicate any real aerial cameras used by any other planes. I'm actually very pleased with how they look the part, considering they're entirely made from modified spare parts, sheet plastic, spare PE, and some wire! My apologies if any of the accuracy fanatics are horrified by my approach...but I do think I'm coming close to how the crew would have (and did) modify and prep 666 for that one mission. Gil RLWP 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brahman104 Posted October 28, 2021 Share Posted October 28, 2021 Sweet as! Thought you might have stumbled across something I hadn't seen before Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Hodges Posted October 31, 2021 Author Share Posted October 31, 2021 Made some mundane progress, though progress it is! Got the turret glass into the top turret frame....I used Future to "cement" the glass parts in, and they fit better than I expected. Oddly, the top glass piece fits up inside the framing, while the rest of the glass parts are fitted onto the framing from the outside. I'm not sure why HK used this approach...I'd have preferred a single clear piece with good framing to be masked off, but this does work if you exercise care. I also got the actual turret guts assembled, and this was the first area of the kit where I felt the instructions weren't clear enough and the parts fit was less than expected. It took a LOT of fiddling with all of the parts to see how they'd mesh together, meaning you couldn't really follow the instruction sequencing. This was especially true for the turret gun sight assembly in the top of the turret. It also seemed that assembling the gun breaches into the turret as HK would have it done did NOT allow to check their fit to the top clear piece (and more importantly) the gun turret openings. I opted to glue them place being sure they were aligned well and then add the rest of the turret parts around them. Other than that, I also added some ammo to the ammo boxes and then cemented the ammo boxes into place in the fuselage halves, added the gun button to the pilot's yoke, and got the seat belts onto the radio man's seat. All in all....another kit step is done and I'm a little further along! Comments and questions are still very welcome. Cheers! GIL LSP_Kevin, Dadeo911, levier and 7 others 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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