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You are one extremely BRAVE and gutsy guy to torture test a packing method like that.
But she should arrive in perfect shape. I'd even think about using Styrofoam peanuts not only in the box around everything else, put around the box in the suitcase, if not packing some clothes around it.
Glad the test went perfect.
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.......
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..... ...and the next part added up to the rudder position.... 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...... ...and here are the pegs on the tail unit that will slot in..... and here I am slotting the unit in place. Once again I have joined the two halves together to see if all looks ok........ 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
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.....
...and the next part added up to the rudder position.... 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...... ...and here are the pegs on the tail unit that will slot in..... and here I am slotting the unit in place. Once again I have joined the two halves together to see if all looks ok........ 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
...and the next part added up to the rudder position....
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...... ...and here are the pegs on the tail unit that will slot in..... and here I am slotting the unit in place. Once again I have joined the two halves together to see if all looks ok........ 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
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......
...and here are the pegs on the tail unit that will slot in..... and here I am slotting the unit in place. Once again I have joined the two halves together to see if all looks ok........ 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
...and here are the pegs on the tail unit that will slot in.....
and here I am slotting the unit in place. Once again I have joined the two halves together to see if all looks ok........ 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
and here I am slotting the unit in place.
Once again I have joined the two halves together to see if all looks ok........ 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
Once again I have joined the two halves together to see if all looks ok........
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
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
Ready for Inspection 1:24 Scale Spitfire.......Scratch built Lysander....1:24 Scale Stuka
That is true craftsmanship right there!
Chad
God, Family, Models...
At the plate: 1/48 Airfix Bf109 & 1/35 Tamiya Famo
On deck: Who knows!
Impressive craftsmanship!
It looks museum-worthy. Simply remarkable. I am in awe of scratch-builders. And to work at such a scale obviously necessitates a lot of research. Amazing!
Be sure to have it appraised and insured before shipping.
Wow, that's some amazing craftsmanship. Beautiful work and a beautiful plane.
Hi,
Your build looks incredible. Can't wait to see it once you've completed everything
mississippivol Dude, that's some work! And when were you doing the wings again?
Dude, that's some work! And when were you doing the wings again?
I'll second to work he's doing, absolutely beautiful.
As to the wings, he needs to build a bigger house first., or a hanger in the back yard. I can take pics of a couple of surviving B-17 hangers not too far from home......
Hi everyone
Well it is time to get down and finally attempt to finish this Mammoth B17G project. Some of you may know that I started this 7 years ago with a few breaks in between sections to build other stuff.
As a recap : I was originally going to just scratch build the nose sectionbut kind of got hood winked in carrying on down the length of the fuselage! .....so I then built the Bomb bay....followed by the radio room and ball turret section and now it is time to finish this off with the tail section. Just to let you all know that I will not be building the wings and the 4 engines that go with it!
I got together some old post photos from the start of this project and thought I would show you of how I got to this point today!
This first photo shows the completed fuselage up to the ball turret position.....
Here is a shot of the cockpit....... ...and the bomb bay looking from the radio room through to the cockpit.... Here is the radio operators table in the radio room..... ...and finally the ball turret in place on the hanging harness..... So my aim has always been through out this project to display as much of the internal detail as possible as I have always been fascinated with the Flying Fortress!.....so to that end I have tried to construct the whole fuselage with the top removed. This over the years has given me many headaches and will continue to I'm sure ... because I didn't want to take away the shape of the B17!... For example my next problem will be how to display the detail with that ruddy great dorsal Fin attached?......well I have an idea which I will show you as we get on with the build. The other problem I have is how to ship it back to the UK from here?....I have made a bespoke box out of MDF but I am getting ahead of my self!....lets put that to one side at the moment and get this last section underway! So here we go then..the first of many photos and posts that I will have to make!! I am going to make the fuselage out of balsa wood as I did with the the front sections....so after digging out the scale plans that I scaled up to 1:20 I cut out all the formers I would need. The bottom half was built up first ...then the top half .....here they are temporarily joined. A few years ago I started strengthening the fuselage by filling in between the stringers with scrap pieces of Balsa wood. All you have to do then is sand down carefully to the formers and stringers to get the ...hopefully.... correct shape. Here is the bottom half..... Here is the top half just placed in position..... So here the scrap balsa was filled in the gaps and sanded. You can see that I have left an area open at the top so you will be able to see down into the detail...... Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later! Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail. I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
Here is a shot of the cockpit.......
...and the bomb bay looking from the radio room through to the cockpit.... Here is the radio operators table in the radio room..... ...and finally the ball turret in place on the hanging harness..... So my aim has always been through out this project to display as much of the internal detail as possible as I have always been fascinated with the Flying Fortress!.....so to that end I have tried to construct the whole fuselage with the top removed. This over the years has given me many headaches and will continue to I'm sure ... because I didn't want to take away the shape of the B17!... For example my next problem will be how to display the detail with that ruddy great dorsal Fin attached?......well I have an idea which I will show you as we get on with the build. The other problem I have is how to ship it back to the UK from here?....I have made a bespoke box out of MDF but I am getting ahead of my self!....lets put that to one side at the moment and get this last section underway! So here we go then..the first of many photos and posts that I will have to make!! I am going to make the fuselage out of balsa wood as I did with the the front sections....so after digging out the scale plans that I scaled up to 1:20 I cut out all the formers I would need. The bottom half was built up first ...then the top half .....here they are temporarily joined. A few years ago I started strengthening the fuselage by filling in between the stringers with scrap pieces of Balsa wood. All you have to do then is sand down carefully to the formers and stringers to get the ...hopefully.... correct shape. Here is the bottom half..... Here is the top half just placed in position..... So here the scrap balsa was filled in the gaps and sanded. You can see that I have left an area open at the top so you will be able to see down into the detail...... Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later! Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail. I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
...and the bomb bay looking from the radio room through to the cockpit....
Here is the radio operators table in the radio room..... ...and finally the ball turret in place on the hanging harness..... So my aim has always been through out this project to display as much of the internal detail as possible as I have always been fascinated with the Flying Fortress!.....so to that end I have tried to construct the whole fuselage with the top removed. This over the years has given me many headaches and will continue to I'm sure ... because I didn't want to take away the shape of the B17!... For example my next problem will be how to display the detail with that ruddy great dorsal Fin attached?......well I have an idea which I will show you as we get on with the build. The other problem I have is how to ship it back to the UK from here?....I have made a bespoke box out of MDF but I am getting ahead of my self!....lets put that to one side at the moment and get this last section underway! So here we go then..the first of many photos and posts that I will have to make!! I am going to make the fuselage out of balsa wood as I did with the the front sections....so after digging out the scale plans that I scaled up to 1:20 I cut out all the formers I would need. The bottom half was built up first ...then the top half .....here they are temporarily joined. A few years ago I started strengthening the fuselage by filling in between the stringers with scrap pieces of Balsa wood. All you have to do then is sand down carefully to the formers and stringers to get the ...hopefully.... correct shape. Here is the bottom half..... Here is the top half just placed in position..... So here the scrap balsa was filled in the gaps and sanded. You can see that I have left an area open at the top so you will be able to see down into the detail...... Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later! Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail. I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
Here is the radio operators table in the radio room.....
...and finally the ball turret in place on the hanging harness..... So my aim has always been through out this project to display as much of the internal detail as possible as I have always been fascinated with the Flying Fortress!.....so to that end I have tried to construct the whole fuselage with the top removed. This over the years has given me many headaches and will continue to I'm sure ... because I didn't want to take away the shape of the B17!... For example my next problem will be how to display the detail with that ruddy great dorsal Fin attached?......well I have an idea which I will show you as we get on with the build. The other problem I have is how to ship it back to the UK from here?....I have made a bespoke box out of MDF but I am getting ahead of my self!....lets put that to one side at the moment and get this last section underway! So here we go then..the first of many photos and posts that I will have to make!! I am going to make the fuselage out of balsa wood as I did with the the front sections....so after digging out the scale plans that I scaled up to 1:20 I cut out all the formers I would need. The bottom half was built up first ...then the top half .....here they are temporarily joined. A few years ago I started strengthening the fuselage by filling in between the stringers with scrap pieces of Balsa wood. All you have to do then is sand down carefully to the formers and stringers to get the ...hopefully.... correct shape. Here is the bottom half..... Here is the top half just placed in position..... So here the scrap balsa was filled in the gaps and sanded. You can see that I have left an area open at the top so you will be able to see down into the detail...... Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later! Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail. I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
...and finally the ball turret in place on the hanging harness.....
So my aim has always been through out this project to display as much of the internal detail as possible as I have always been fascinated with the Flying Fortress!.....so to that end I have tried to construct the whole fuselage with the top removed. This over the years has given me many headaches and will continue to I'm sure ... because I didn't want to take away the shape of the B17!... For example my next problem will be how to display the detail with that ruddy great dorsal Fin attached?......well I have an idea which I will show you as we get on with the build. The other problem I have is how to ship it back to the UK from here?....I have made a bespoke box out of MDF but I am getting ahead of my self!....lets put that to one side at the moment and get this last section underway! So here we go then..the first of many photos and posts that I will have to make!! I am going to make the fuselage out of balsa wood as I did with the the front sections....so after digging out the scale plans that I scaled up to 1:20 I cut out all the formers I would need. The bottom half was built up first ...then the top half .....here they are temporarily joined. A few years ago I started strengthening the fuselage by filling in between the stringers with scrap pieces of Balsa wood. All you have to do then is sand down carefully to the formers and stringers to get the ...hopefully.... correct shape. Here is the bottom half..... Here is the top half just placed in position..... So here the scrap balsa was filled in the gaps and sanded. You can see that I have left an area open at the top so you will be able to see down into the detail...... Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later! Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail. I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
So my aim has always been through out this project to display as much of the internal detail as possible as I have always been fascinated with the Flying Fortress!.....so to that end I have tried to construct the whole fuselage with the top removed. This over the years has given me many headaches and will continue to I'm sure ... because I didn't want to take away the shape of the B17!... For example my next problem will be how to display the detail with that ruddy great dorsal Fin attached?......well I have an idea which I will show you as we get on with the build.
The other problem I have is how to ship it back to the UK from here?....I have made a bespoke box out of MDF but I am getting ahead of my self!....lets put that to one side at the moment and get this last section underway!
So here we go then..the first of many photos and posts that I will have to make!!
I am going to make the fuselage out of balsa wood as I did with the the front sections....so after digging out the scale plans that I scaled up to 1:20 I cut out all the formers I would need.
The bottom half was built up first ...then the top half .....here they are temporarily joined. A few years ago I started strengthening the fuselage by filling in between the stringers with scrap pieces of Balsa wood. All you have to do then is sand down carefully to the formers and stringers to get the ...hopefully.... correct shape. Here is the bottom half..... Here is the top half just placed in position..... So here the scrap balsa was filled in the gaps and sanded. You can see that I have left an area open at the top so you will be able to see down into the detail...... Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later! Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail. I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
The bottom half was built up first ...then the top half .....here they are temporarily joined.
A few years ago I started strengthening the fuselage by filling in between the stringers with scrap pieces of Balsa wood. All you have to do then is sand down carefully to the formers and stringers to get the ...hopefully.... correct shape. Here is the bottom half..... Here is the top half just placed in position..... So here the scrap balsa was filled in the gaps and sanded. You can see that I have left an area open at the top so you will be able to see down into the detail...... Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later! Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail. I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
A few years ago I started strengthening the fuselage by filling in between the stringers with scrap pieces of Balsa wood. All you have to do then is sand down carefully to the formers and stringers to get the ...hopefully.... correct shape. Here is the bottom half.....
Here is the top half just placed in position..... So here the scrap balsa was filled in the gaps and sanded. You can see that I have left an area open at the top so you will be able to see down into the detail...... Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later! Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail. I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
Here is the top half just placed in position.....
So here the scrap balsa was filled in the gaps and sanded. You can see that I have left an area open at the top so you will be able to see down into the detail...... Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later! Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail. I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
So here the scrap balsa was filled in the gaps and sanded. You can see that I have left an area open at the top so you will be able to see down into the detail......
Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later! Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail. I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later!
Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail. I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail.
I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!!
Well that's as far as I have got with this so far! I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support! Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys! Fozzy
Well that's as far as I have got with this so far!
I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support!
Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys!
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