Mongram 1/72 B-36 Peacemaker - a horde of questions!!

Welcome to the forums Tony, good to have a new face around here.

I can answer a few of your questions:

As I recall, the kit has the walkways represented as raised lines. If so, then I'd just take my measurements from those and cut black decal film to fit.

For your masks, I'm going to guess that the six crescent shapes are to mask off the engine intakes along the wing leading edge.

Metalizer type paints are best for bare metal finishes, a few companies make them, Alclad is by far the best known, but Testors also makes a metalizer line. You will need an airbrush if you want to go the metalizer route.

Nose weight is a must for this kit, I don't remember exactly how much I used, but I put it between the main gear well and the bomb bay. I didn't strengthen the nose gear parts, but quickly wished I had re-enforced the wing to fuselage joint. I used a combination of ball bearings and lead fishing weights.

I found the plastic wing brace part to not be strong enough when I had it all together and eventually the wing joint snapped on mine. Had I to do it again, I would use the wing brace part as a template to make a replacement from from wood or some stronger material.

 

Tony;

first off welcome to the forum,

Here's some info for your B-36, the Paint well it depends on what is available to you in the land down under, here in the U.S. we have Testors Metalizer and ALCLAD (which is the better of the two and has a high sheen for bare metal finishes) the only down fall is that they need to be airbrushed on, and the ALCLAD is a little pricey at close to $10.00 U.S. a bottle but I think it's worth it's cost, for the nose weights I haven't tried this guys stuff but I heard great things about his nose weights and here is his website NightieMission@aol.com , he's got alot of Revell/Monograms 1/48 kits and 1/72 stuff too, and I thinks he's starting on other companies kits for nose weights as we speek

I'll look at my B-36 instructions tonight, and if they're the ones you need I'll scan and e-mail them to you.

I'll look at my instructions too.

I built that kit a while back, so I'll see what I can do with some of your questions.

• I painted mine rather simply.  I sprayed the entire model simple Aluminum from a spray can, and then coated the pressurized sections in Bare Metal Foil.  I have no idea if there's something similar in Austrailia, but the results are simple and very accurate.
• The wing-walk stripes should me molded in.
• I would recommend using black decal strips, or send an E-mail to Revell Germany.  (www.revell.de, I think)  They re-boxed the kit a while back, and contained with it decal wingwalk stripes.
• The communication tube in included, but only half of it.  You can barely see it through the bomb racks.
• Sorry, I have no idea where to find ground equipment.
• Haven't worked with the mask sets either.
• I had the instructions, too, but lost 'em.  Sorry again!
• To my knowledge, a Hydrogen bomb in this scale doesn't exist.  But, I could be wrong.
  
• Nose weight?  Oh yeah.  LOTS of it.  I pretty much filled the area in the fuselage between the cockpit and bomb bay with nuts, bolts, and sinkers of every kind.  You don't need to really worry about reinforcing the front landing gear so long as you don't load too much weight in front.  The main landing gear is pretty strong on its own.  I've had it built for a few years now, and everything seems to be alright.

As for general tips, fit isn't perfect, but it isn't horrible.  A longer wings spar is probably a good idea, as the wing tips of mine droop a little bit.  Also, be sure to get the wings aligned correctly, with the top flat and the bottom tapering up into it.  The wing to fuselage joint is a pain in the rear, so be warned.  Also, the diagonal supports for the jet pods splay the pods out too far.  Be prepared to possibly trim a bit off.  Test fit first, though.

This kit is really very nice, and an extremely impressive model can be built with it, if you put a little work into it.




Good luck!

Thanks to eveyone for their useful suggestions - if there's a copy of the Revell instructions that someone could send me a copy of I'd appreciate it.