RB-47E Stratojet Finished

[J.C. Bahr]

Couple pics of my Hasegawa 1/72 scale RB-47E (converted from the B-47E kit):

[J.C. Bahr]

#2

[James]

Awsome Stratojet. Just lovely. :D

[SteveV22FE]

Very nice work! How did you get the RB nose? Did you scratch build it or was it a conversion? I have a B-47 sitting in the pile that I would like to build. Please post more pics!!! PLEASE.

[toolo12]

Wow

I love it. Great one

[J.C. Bahr]

Thanks for the compliments guys, much appreciated.

Steve, the nose is a scratch-built conversion that took some ingenuity before getting to the point where I was half-way satisfied with it. It could've been better, but I'm not going to complain. I'm writing up an article about the build right now to submit to Steve and will explain more about it there.

Sorry, don't want to give everything away here and spoil the article.

BTW - not sure if you noticed in the 2nd picture, but the tail turret is a new scratch-built item as well. Can't stand the way the Hasegawa dropped the ball on that part of the kit, but I suppose we should be lucky to even have a 1/72 Stratojet... let alone a state of the art Tamiyagawa/Hasemiya style kit.

I just hope mine inspires people to work on theirs as it's really not that bad of a kit... just takes a little extra work.

Edited November 22, 2005 by J.C. Bahr

[mkimages]

Mmmm, that's pur-tee. One of my all time faves. I'm looking forward to your article.

[Old72s]

Superbly done!

[Rocat]

A nice tribute to a true Cold War Hero

[TF51GREGWISE]

Beautiful!! looking forward to seeing your article.

[Chris Kethan]

Sweet, JC.

That is a good looking BMF on a cool subject.!

Chris

[thegoodsgt]

Excellent model there, JC. Ever since I first saw "Strategic Air Command" back in high school I've loved the B-47 and B-36. They're two models I really feel compelled to build someday, but that looooooong fuselage seam has me completely intimidated. (Can you share any tips?)

Congrats!

[Bri2k]

That is absolutely gorgeous! I love the RB nose conversion and your work on the tail gun. Looking forward to seeing your article on the build!

Bri2k

[J.C. Bahr]

The fuselage seam was really not that difficult with this one... I didn't use any filler on it at all. I made sure to test the fit fairly well first and then used the Testors cement that comes in the black plastic bottle with the needle applicator. Once it was together, I went back with Plastruct(?) liquid cement and liberally brushed it along the seam. When that was all dry, I just took a file to it to make sure if was rounded out enough and that there were no steps between the fuselage halves... and then just sanded it smooth. With all the glue I used, it welded the plastic together enough that it forced a little bit of liquid plastic out of the seam so there was no gap that needed any filler. Did the same with the upper wing-joint as well. Strange as it may sound, I'm using this technique more and more with kits... as the fused plastic in the joint makes a better filler IMHO than any putty type filler or cyanoacrylate. Would be nice if a liquid plastic putty could be created that worked like regular fillers, but didn't have the shrinkage.

BTW - if deciding to do your bomb-bay doors in the closed position... I highly recommend using cyanoacrylate to fill the seams. I used 3M Blue Acryl and there's still some ghosted images of the outline of the bomb-bay that I don't think would be there with the cyano, but oh well... it's not that noticeable. I'll definitely be remembering my own tip though the next time I start work on my RB-47H with the Flightpath conversion as the resin bulged belly piece from the Flightpath kit is definitely going to need filler around the edges!

This kit probably has some of the strongest seams of any kit in my collection right now! :o

Ditto your thoughts on "Strategic Air Command"... just wish they'd release that one on DVD!

Thanks again for the compliments guys.

BTW - not sure if I mentioned it or not, but I built this one in the markings of one of the ones my grandfather worked on. ;)

[nightrain]

Wow that looks great...Ive been toying around with getting that model, but I stil have a 1/48 B-29 and a 1/72 B-52 to do! :lol:

[Ollie 17]

Very nice and well made. :D Best wishes to you.

[Darren Roberts]

Gorgeous!!!! That kit can be a bear to put together. You did a fantastic job. The NMF is extremely nice.

[J.C. Bahr]

Thanks again guys.

And BTW Darren... any way I can bring this to the Nats in August but only show it without competing? Didn't know if IPMS had a "show-only" type of thing like our little contests at CAM.

[Darren Roberts]

Yes, there should be a couple of tables for display only. From what I see, though, you could easily compete with the finished product you have there.

[Trojan Thunder]

As others have said....great work on the finish and the mods :blink:

I know this kit had raised detail, it looks like you have sanded it down, did you bother to rescribe it?

Ray

[silver1]

Beautiful!

[J.C. Bahr]

Yes, there should be a couple of tables for display only. From what I see, though, you could easily compete with the finished product you have there.

Good to know. Not sure what I want to do at the moment, but will have it figured out by then.

Ray, no I didn't re-scribe it. I sanded everything smooth and then went back and scribed some minor details, but not the major panel lines. I'm just not a fan of re-scribing in this scale because if blown up to full size the panel lines would be at least an inch across (or more?) and the full-size articles are built to much tighter tollerances and look a lot smoother from a short distance away. Besides, this one was bad enough just getting all the seams straightened out without having to worry about panel lines.

[terryt]

Flight Path makes a RB-47 conversion which a bit different, however, the RB-47 modification differed from airframe to airframe. I have the Flight path conversion in my stash to be completed in the future.

If anybody is intrested Great Models Webstore has the conversion in stock.

http://www.greatmodels.com/~smartcart/cgi/...tem_num=fp72102

[J.C. Bahr]

Flight Path makes a RB-47 conversion which a bit different, however, the RB-47 modification differed from airframe to airframe.

Flightpath makes the H-model conversion and it was a completely different animal in that they were electronic intelligence gatherers (not photo recon) designed for countering enemy air defense systems and had a thimble nosed radome instead of the more streamlined E-model nose. The H's also had a bulged compartment in place of the bomb-bay where the three crows (or ravens) sat and monitored all the electronic gizmos. Other external differences were a multitude of lumps & bumps for different antennas and ECM. The H-model unfortunately (IMHO ) overshadows the E-models in that they saw a lot more "action" so to say during the Cold War in their intelligence gathering role, but the very early overflights started with the E-models. There were 35 H-models built BTW.

The other main recon variant (and unsung workhorse as well) of the B-47 series was the K-model which was externally identical to the E-model, but these were being primarily used for 2-3 missions/day trips up over the North Pole to monitor weather conditions for SAC's nuclear strike force since the operational plan was to launch over the Pole on the way to targets in the U.S.S.R. They also still had the same photo-recon duties as the E-models and also flew all around the world to sample radiation fall-out from foreign nuclear tests. The K-model was the rarest of the recon variants with only 15 being modified from the last of the 255 E-models that were built. Interestingly SAC did not distinguish them as "K-models" and accepted them as part of the E-models they took delivery of. Markings wise, the K-models did not differ much from the E-model I built here, other than they seemed to have carried a 5-digit serial # on the tail in all the pics I've been able to find of them.

BTW - when using the Flightpath conversion, make sure to check your references closely... because last I recall, the scribed doors for the refueling port are too small and the scribed windows on the side of the nose are too small, wrongly shaped and in the wrong place... but again, that's going by memory.