Charlie Cheetah Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Well I finally got a chance to officially enter this Gb with my Academy 1/72 Memphis Belle kit. Taking a bit of a break from my other GB build right now do I figure it was a good a time as any to resurrect this one. I started it last fall but I didnt get very far when I asked about joining this build. I had the flight and bombardier's decks painted and assembled, the inner fuselages were painted and the tail and ball turret halves were joined. I had also cut out new window openings on the upper nose as the "Belle" was an early B-17F and didn't have the navigation dome, only 4 small windows looking upwards. At that point I put it aside to get my C-17 started. I wont be doing much on the interior but I will concentrate on making the outside as nice as possible. I will be going back and forth between this GB and the "Canadian Wings" GB so you may see me not post here for a bit then get back and post a flurry of updates. I took some pictures this morning to show where I was at with the build. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kostucha Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Most excellent! Welcome aboard! Cheers, Mark. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Charlie Cheetah Posted January 26, 2011 Author Share Posted January 26, 2011 (edited) Before I get too far along with this, does anyone make replacement resin control surfaces for the Academy 1/72 B-17F/G? If not I need to decide if I want to try to recreate the ribbed fabric surfaces of the real deal. The kit ones are molded as if they were hard skinned. One thing I've thought about doing is using a rotary tool to make the indentations. I would need some proper scale drawings of the B-17 skeletal structure. Edited January 26, 2011 by Charlie Cheetah Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Charlie Cheetah Posted July 15, 2011 Author Share Posted July 15, 2011 Hello again, long time no see. Now I finally have some time to work on this one so I pulled it of the back burner. Finished up the nose job by filling in the gaps around the new windows and filling the hole where the kits astrodome would have gone using Squadron White putty, and sanded smoothe. I brush painted a coat of Mr Surfacer over that to check out my work, looks ok to me, so I filled in the rest of the seams and built up the area between the windscreen and the top turret which sat too low behind the windscreen. The horizontal stabs actuaklly fit very well, no filler needed there at all which surprised me. the wings however aer a different story, I can either get a good clean join on the upper wing to fuselage, or lower wing to fuselage, but not both. I have the wings tacked in place for now while I decide how to proceed. It appears if I favor the lower wing to fuselage, the wing dihedral should be about right, looks too exagerrated if I favor the uper wings to fuselage. I also used strips of Tamiya tape and Mr Surfacer to recreate the rib and fabric texture of the rudder, not perfect but looks beter than the slab sides of the kit rudder. I opted not to do the same things on the elevators and ailerons as none of the pictures I looked at showed the ribs to be very visible on these surfaces. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kostucha Posted July 15, 2011 Share Posted July 15, 2011 Eh... looking good! There's just something about the profile of the older style tail stinger that I like... you're build is coming along nicely! I really like the effect on the rudder. If I can offer my 22 cents, maybe running over the rudder with 600 grit to soften up the edges a bit? But it does look great! Can't wait to see more work! Mark. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Charlie Cheetah Posted July 15, 2011 Author Share Posted July 15, 2011 Eh... looking good! There's just something about the profile of the older style tail stinger that I like... you're build is coming along nicely! I really like the effect on the rudder. If I can offer my 22 cents, maybe running over the rudder with 600 grit to soften up the edges a bit? But it does look great! Can't wait to see more work! Mark. I was thinking of that, its been sanded using the coarse grain Squadron sanding stick, but the base of the "ribs" is tamiya tape and as I sanded before, it would sometimes lift the tape. I am thinking right now I may strip it down completely, and redo it but instead using the tape as masks and brush in the Mr Surfacer in between the strips, then removing the tape. This would leave me with raised strips of Mr surfacer, i would then brush on a few coats of Mr Surfacer over that, then sand away using a 480 or 600 grit sand paper. Might give that a try tomorrow or over the weekend. Thanks for the input Mark. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dirkpitt289 Posted July 15, 2011 Share Posted July 15, 2011 Nice going so far. I have this same kit in my stash. I look forward to seeing more Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Charlie Cheetah Posted July 16, 2011 Author Share Posted July 16, 2011 I ended up taking your advice Mark, and just sanded down the ribs a bit to blend it in better. Looks better now. Thanks for the tip. Not a whole lot of progress aside from that today, had a bunch of stuff to do late in the day. I hate when real life inteferes with scale life. I did attach the wings. The lower wing to lowere fuselage join is near perfect, I wont even bother with filelr on that seam. The upper join however is pretty nasty. Ill fill that once the glue sets up a bit more. I used some plastic card as a shim just to get the wing dihedral about right. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dirkpitt289 Posted July 16, 2011 Share Posted July 16, 2011 Good stuff Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kostucha Posted July 16, 2011 Share Posted July 16, 2011 Glad I could help. Wow, you're not kidding, that is a pretty big gap up top there. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dirkpitt289 Posted July 16, 2011 Share Posted July 16, 2011 Building the same academy kit I had the same issue. What I did was use some Evergreen plastic card to shim the gap. I think I showed the progress in my build of Old 666. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Charlie Cheetah Posted July 17, 2011 Author Share Posted July 17, 2011 Building the same academy kit I had the same issue. What I did was use some Evergreen plastic card to shim the gap. I think I showed the progress in my build of Old 666. Ok, Ill have a look at that. I have some shims in there now just to maintain the correct dihedral, I may stick a few more, then Ill fill with putty. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
theplasticsurgeon Posted July 17, 2011 Share Posted July 17, 2011 I mentioned dihedral at the end of my thread - with of photo of how the uncorrected model can emerge: http://s362974870.onlinehome.us/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=222481 I used the Academy Memphis Belle kit for my YB-40 gunship. There is a photo where you can see smoothed off filler that I applied at the wing upper joint. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.