1/48 late B-17G

[Bonehammer73]

Hello,

I've been lurking for a while, and I feel it's time to brag about my skills give my contribution.

I apologise in advance for my English, which isn't always flawless, and for my photo editing skills. I'll try and improve...

Premise: Since I fell in love with the Flanker, I've been building anything that flew with red stars - and that includes foreign, Lend-Lease'd, captured and test-flown planes.

I'm a regular at my local hobby exposition, and we're given a square meter per person, which I've always had trouble filling, so I've decided to switch to large models for a while. The problem is that there isn't much around. Having already an SB-2 and two Peshkas in various degrees of completion, I've added the B-17G, B-24J and Hampden to my stash.

The subject of this build is B-17G-50-DL 44-6316, VK-C, which was left behind by the USAF after a forced landing and repaired and put into service by the Soviets.

AFAIK, there were a number of Fortresses and a single B-24 in service with the VVS. These planes provided the Long-Range Aviation crews with something to train on between the radiation of the senescent Pe-8 and the advent of the Tu-4.

An online pic from the Wings Palette archive. Photos of the real thing are on Red Stars 4. If anyone knows of further sources, please LMK... I have the feeling this plane didn't carry a nose art, but I'd like a confirmation.

I'm sure you all know the Monogram kit very well and won't go into detail. The appropriate kit for this version would be the Promodeler, but I couldn't find it and even if I had, it costs more than I was prepared to pay. So it's on with the razor saw and plastic card for a conversion done the good ol' way.

First of all, the port waist position has to be moved forward. I blanked the kit window with styrene sheet, sanded away the deflector shield, and polished everything. I didn't use putty for this, only superglue and correction fluid. Plastic putty plays hell with BM finishes:

Pic's blurry, but you get the idea... Unfortunately, the spot came out a little flat. In hindsight, it would have been better to use the kit window, which had the right curve from the start. Oh well, live and learn.

The area will be visible from the starboard window, so it needs to be brought up to a similar finish to the rest of the interior. That's easier said than done, but in the end I managed to make it look like this:

The oxygen bottle will be replaced from sprue and floor boards added according to my references.

With large models, you have to add spots of interest around the plane, so I opened all crew access doors. Who knows, perhaps it was a hot day. This means detailing the undersurface of the cockpit floor, and, since the hatch inside the cockpit is open as well, fuselage structure for the interior: first of all, the plastic is thinned to a scale equivalent...

I've drawn placeholders for the stringers and formers in pencil and will add them with Evergreen square rods.

This is what will be hidden forever visible from the hatch once the fuselage is closed. One of the many oxygen bottles in this area is already in place:

The starboard crew access is a lot less troublesome:

I don't know whether to open the access door for the tail gunner, or not. I realised only after drilling the corners that it would be hidden under the tailplane. Plus, I'd need to add a lot of detail in a zone of the left fuselage that's void of it... choices, choices. And look at that darned sink mark BTW.

Oh and here's a 720mm scale figure I'm quite proud of:

and one of the few 'builds' I've actually finished... She was being fascinated with the noise of the sandpaper, and stayed still long enough to take a pic without a flash. A rare occasion.

[Bonehammer73]

I was over the image limit, so new post.

Back to the plastic: there's absolutely no way I'm living with THESE, dammit:

or THESE, so out comes the Dremel:

But halfway through the job, Valeria starts nodding, so I lay her in the crib and put away the evil noisy Dremel. Back to Plan B. Making blanking plates for the wing scoops ain't difficult, only slow and tedious:

Starboard wing is done:

There are grilles at the end of the real scoops, and I plan to use wire mesh from a paint filter for them. Failing that, there's always bridal veil.

While I'm working on the wings, I've decided to add a bit of relief to the mainwheel bays:

Cripes, the parts aren't even symmetrical! Was it a Friday afternoon at Des Moines? (Not that my added detail is better, but hey, it's eyeballed...)

BTW, does anyone have pics of the mainwheel bays? On the model, one can see straight into the wings from some angles and that is something I loathe. Eduard has a 1/72 detail set that I could use as a reference, but I don't know how accurate it is.

And that is all for now, minus a few bits of cleansing that are really nothing to write home about. Please remember, this is roughly a month of work, so I don't know when I'll be updating this page. In the meanwhile, happy modelling to y'all.

[BjornB17]

As you can see by my name, I'll be watching this build! Very good thus far and your work on life-like figures is awesome! Welcome to ARC!

ditto

[Blackcollar]

Looking GOOD!!!

-Al

[Flankerman]

An online pic from the Wings Palette archive. Photos of the real thing are on Red Stars 4. If anyone knows of further sources, please LMK... I have the feeling this plane didn't carry a nose art, but I'd like a confirmation.

Bonehammer,

The Wing Pallete artwork is a scan of the same artwork in a copy of a Russian magazine - Mir Aviatsiya (World Aviation) No 2/95

It has artwork of VK-C and another B-17G 42-97996 - a plain NM Fort with just red stars on overpainted US insignia.

The centrespread has an Olive Drab/Neutral Gray B-24H-30-FO 42-94829 with red stars on overpainted US insignia, a red number 7 on the nose and an inscription in Cyrillic - 'Orlovskiy'.

The B-24's were much prized - because they provided Soviet crews with training on nosewheel aircraft, ready for the Tupolev Tu-4 (reverse-engineered B-29).

On most of these interned US aircraft, the nose art was painted out - as it was considered to be too decadent.

The magazine has a whole article in Russian, with B&W photos (as well as the above artwork) - plus a list (with serials) of all the US bombers 'captured' by the Soviets.

Looking at the list, there were 23 B-17G's and 28 B-24's of various marks used by the Soviets.

FWIW, they also used two Ex-RAF Avro Lancasters - see my build article here.

Ken

[jeff briner]

Great work on the B-17. Some interesting detailing and fixes that should prove to raise it to the level of a show stopper. Speaking of "show stoppers", that's a pretty neat rugrat you got there. Be sure to keep her close by while you do your modeling. She may just grow up to try her hand at it herself. There are quite a few youngsters in the forum, though not quite as young as her.

[Mark M.]

Very nice work sor far!

If you want your detail to be visible I would suggest a vacform set of windows. Especially for the nose and cheek windows. They are thick and it's hard to see half of what is inside the nose.

On my kit it wanted to mount some of the engines upside down (compared to the other engines). Check your references for which way they SHOULD mount, and sand the D-shape engine mount to a oval shape (file the rounded part of the D until it matches the flat part of the D shape) that way you can put the engine on either way depending on what you need to to.

You'll find one wing root too shallow compared to the other. Make a proper-sized plastic card spacer and stick it between the lower wing half and the upper wing half, and it will push the wing out to match the wing root. This will give a better wing root fit, as well.

[Aggressor Supporter]

I've never seen a Russian B-17 before. This should be very interesting.

[Trevor]

Paragon makes a quick, and cheap conversion for the Cheyenne tail turret - in case you're interested.

[Mark M.]

I can't remember if this is Paragon's kit or not, but this is what I used:

Final product:

Really not a good fit, but if you keep trimming back past where it tells you, it improves. A bit of putty, and you can't even see the seam under the tin foil finish.

[rjwood_uk]

iv never seen one either.

watching in anticipation! nice scratch work.

iv made one of those scale figures as well! Its planned to be finished on the 14th july but who knows! I guess il put some pics up in the critique corner once its done lol.

Richard

[Bonehammer73]

Wow, it seems my Fort attracted some interest! Thanks to all of you for your comments and suggestions.

Mark M. and Trevor, thanks for the info. I've browsed the Hannants catalogue and Paragon's Cheyenne tail should be on its way - together with Squadron canopies and Quickboost engines. I won't be making another B-17 for 'sterical hindrance' reasons, so I might as well go to town on this one.

Also, re the wings, thanks for the heads up, Mark!

A dry-fit test didn't show differences among the root, but I'll keep that in mind! Now, FM's Hampden is another story...

Flankerman, as always, thanks for the info and the inspiration.

I agree that pin-ups would be quickly dealt with by a Private Ivan Ivanovic and a bucket of paint, but on other occasions the Soviets retained nose arts and even German unit insignia (see Fw.190 and .200)

I have been tempted by your Lancaster for years, too, but the project came to an abrupt end thanks to a poor eBay seller who didn't deliver. I'm now out of $68 and a good deal of my good humour, and it will be some time before the name Lancaster disassociates with that bad experience.

I've decided to finish and close the wings first and I'm currently working on the main gear. Pics will be following...

[B-17 guy]

As you can see by my name, I'll be watching this build! Very good thus far and your work on life-like figures is awesome! Welcome to ARC!

I'm gonna have to go ahead and 3rd that comment. I'm looking forward to seeing the progress, and I may use some pics for my own refference. At present... I have 5 B-17's on my workbench, it's obviously gonna be some time before they are all done but they are there. 3 will be F models, one early G and a late G.

Hey markM.....how did you do the NMF on your late G model? I've seen it before and wanted to ask.

Edited May 15, 2008 by B-17 guy

[Fat Russian]

I'm really looking forward to seeing the end results of your efforts, your in progress shots have given me a few ideas allready, I just picked up the new issue Visible B-17G last week and going to try to get it started soon and maybe use it as a PB-1W conversion. Keep up the good work!!!

Eric Strohmeyer

[Bonehammer73]

Some progress and new batch of pictures.

Those scoops on the engine nacelles were a bear. I drilled and thinned them until they looked somewhat to scale, then backed the gaping holes from inside. I'll blend them in with Milliput later. While I had the Dremel out, I thinned the edges of the engine bays too, then smoothed everything by scraping with a Swann-Morton blade.

The mesh I was planning to use having been disposed of, I closed the rear end of the wing air intakes with mesh from the DIY shop. It's a tad too large for the scale I'm afraid. I use sprue melted with the stain remover (CHCl3) to fix the mesh in place:

The unsung toil of scraping the wings trailing edge... A pic of the sink, midway through the job:

And a shot of the wings: port before, starboard after. Thinning is a chore, but it pays off.

By this time I wanted to close the wings already but I ran into a major roadblock in the form of detail pictures of the main gear bays...

...HOLY HYDRAULICS BATMAN, IT'S PIPE CENTRAL IN THERE!

Basically, Eduard is right and Monogram is wrong. Needless to say, parts 30R and 30L which I so hasti painstakingly detailed look nothing lke the real thing. At first I tried compromising by just sticking a firewall in front. Templates for the firewalls are on the left in this picture:

This arrangement was far from satisfying, so I resolved to cut the entire middle section of part 30, leaving the front where the retraction arm attaches and the back where the gear leg is mounted. In preparation for this, I drilled pin locations to help mounting the remains of these pieces in their correct location:

and this was the last time my .04 drill bit was seen intact, having been dropped shortly after. And I'd have to drive 30 miles to go buy another one...

However, the more I looked at my reference pics the more something looked awry.

The bulges are on both sides of the main gear legs, so either the leg is too forward or the bulges are too far back. I decided to move the gear leg backward and elongate the corresponding vane (you can barely make out the new outline, in red marker. Geez, my pics suck once they're on screen). By this time what little was left of part 30 would not fit because of the notches it has... Long story short, the gear bays will be done in scratch and that will be the end of it.

[Bonehammer73]

Image limit reached again, sorry. Where were we? Oh yes, the wheel bays.

Some persuasion is required to convince unrealistic struts to leave the premises. Here is the persuader at work:

The second firewall and the longitudinal plate:

One of the major tubelines:

Everything tacked together 1:

Everything tacked together 2:

That will be all for the moment. In the meanwhile, enjoy whatever project you're working on at the moment...

See you,

Bone

[B-17 guy]

Awsome!, Your are doing fabulous work on that fort! Glad to see the updates.

[Patrick_Nevin]

That will be all for the moment. In the meanwhile, enjoy whatever project you're working on at the moment...

See you,

Bone

This is a really good, very entertaining thread! Sir, you are a talented modeller and a very amusing author :huh:

Patrick

[Matt_S]

ditto :huh:

What they said! :lol:

Matt :lol:

[Big Kev]

I can only echo what's already been said. Both your modelling and your English are top notch, and I'm really enjoying this build.

Kev

[rjwood_uk]

great work!! your scratch building is great!

Richard

[parche]

Loving this build. Great idea and the execution so far is top notch. It'll be interesting to see your Red Star B-17 in the end.

Cheers,

Dave

[Bonehammer73]

Long time, no build. Mainly the reason is that we've moved the critter to her own room, which is where the 'puters with all the reference pics and my tools are stashed. So just when she finally crashes after a day of tearing the house apart, my workplace is under curfew. This needs to change.

Which reminds me: Richard, how's the progress on that scale figure? Wishing all the best to all those involved...

However, I managed to make a little progress, mainly on Saturday mornings.

Of course, just as I had completed the work on the inlets and sealed the screens:

the boys at the shop managed to collapse another paint filter...

which I surreptitiously pocketed. Just look at the difference with the mosquito net I used: think that these filters usually end in the trash can, and that a photoetched screen from Eduard is priced at € 12... not fair, man.

Oh well. The silver lining came in form of an unexpected delivery from Hong Kong:

By their deeds ye shall know them: I'm sure some of you already recognized bboykorea382's impeccable packaging:

Yes, the layer of butcher shop paper is all that lay in between the helpless Lanc and the tender care of Poste Italiane. The kit itself held well, though, and will be the subject of my next build... either it or the B-24... at the pace I work, humanity's gonna be wiped out first.

Back to the Fort. I've done some further work on the u/c, in particular the pipes running inside (I have some hypotheses as to what their purpose might be, but nothing for sure, so I'd be grateful to you for enlightening me). Here we take a look at the main characters:

The assembled component in place - and out of focus:

These odd-looking parts, made from the thinnest Evergreen sheet, are meant to blank the gaps that allow you to gaze right at the plastic inside of the wing. Above is the definitive shape, below an intermediate form. As you can imagine, their exact shape was determined by trial and error. Also visible are the oil tanks, made from wrapping said sheet around a pair of sprue clipping:

Some larger sprue was used to make the oxygen tanks instead, using the single kit one as a reference:

Edited July 13, 2008 by Bonehammer73

[Bonehammer73]

Pic limit reached, new post.

Slow but steady progress being made:

But in the meanwhile, the trouble with transparencies was threatening to thwart the thing thoroughly. The kit transparencies are thick, but I'm as ham-fisted as they come when it gets to push-moulding, and will always revert to using spare clippings if I can. The complex double-curved shape of the cheek blister windows, however, kept eluding me. Until my superglue tube ran dry from the disuse and I came home with this:

It's just what I needed. A session of trimming later, I had produced a neat cheek window:

"It Looks Like A Blister Because It's From Blister!"â„¢

But actually, it looks murky because it's been temporarily attached using white glue. Fear not though - it's perfectly clear and even allowed me to trim the excessively thick frames. The only problem is that I'll need another tube of superglue to do the starboard one.

And now I leave you until further notice with a quiz:

What do you think this odd composition is a rehearsal for?

(The medium is 'coins on BluTak', in case you were wondering)

Until next time,

Bone

[Jack-Swiss]

Awsome work!!!!!

I love it!

Cheers