1/48 B-17 Group Build...ALL INVITED TO JOIN!

I will be following this.

Here's an idea, was looking at one of my liberator kits, the control wheels look pretty close to the early ones in the forts.

This thread is still going? Lol I'll be getting going on my build sometime soon since it was featured in a forum on another way smaller site.

Pilot, looks like you got just a little bit of work to do

Yeah this is one of those ever ending threads!  Speaking of which, due to weather again, I sat around and got to work on the -D a little.  Reshaped a kit supplied seat for the early version of them, and then copied it.  After several attempts I got seven good copies.  Unfortunately the mold was ruined on the last one, don't know how that happened, but I can always make another.  Well got enough of the seats for all the chairs in these early versions, 2 in the nose, 2 behind the pilots, and 3 in the radio room.  That's a lot of chairs, also removed the old seats out of the nose, but the nav table came with it when I put in the pliers, nuts.

With the orginial, I got six copies, need some clean up on the resin ones.

This thread is still going?

Oh yeah... I'll be jumping back into it soon (after the current GBs I'm in are completed) with another Fort diorama to replace the one my cat shot down along about page 11 or so... It's a diorama that I just GOTTA build, come hell'er high-water...

The Fort didn't survive, but the truck and air compressor did so, I'm still good to go...

Well I think I'm coming onto the home stretch of this project.  Still a bit of work to do on the plane itself, but the diorama is starting to come around.  I've done some planning and next time I'm home I'm gonna start on the base and get that going

Man I love late night research combined with sheer dumb luck.  I finally solved the case on the grayed out national insignias! (at least for my plane).   I decided to google image my bird just to see what came up, and of course the regular photos came up that I had found before.  However, this time, on the site I found my most valuable photos on (www.footnote.com)  I typed in the name of my bird and lo and behold there was another couple images I hadn't found before.  One was a higher quality version of the crew photo I found from on the 91st BG website, but this is the other one....

Now, look closely at the bottom plane and you can clearly see the squadron code "LG-V" on the fuselage which means it's my bird Man O War II.  Now, look at the insignias...THEY'RE WHITE.  I was gonna go with the white insignias anyways but now I have absolute proof. 

I also found out a little more history about the crew too.  Apparently there 3 planes named "Man O War".  The first was an F model that was simply "Man O War".  Most of the crew of that plane was lost when it was shot down and had no connection to the other 2 planes.  The "Man O War II Horsepower LTD" was actually the 2nd B-17 assigned to the crew.  They got this plane in february of '44.  Their first plane was "Man O War Horsepower LTD".  The crews first mission was in this plane and they barely made it back on that sortie.  From what I gathered they got shot up pretty badly on a January 29th mission and were limping back to England on 2 engines when a 3rd one quit over the channel and they had to crash land right when they hit land.....1 crew member died from a 20mm hit and another was injured.  A couple weeks later they were issued the plane I am modeling and this one lasted their entire tour and then some as it flew 77 missions before being shot down.

Hmm... soon as I finish up the exisiting GB commitments, this would give me a good excuse to finally buy that B-17 kit at 40% off I keep eyeing.

Guys I just watched " Memphis Belle The True Story " on netflix and am blown away by it. Thank you to all our Military, past , present and, future. I just don't know where courage like that comes from.

Now I feel truly inspired to build a B-17, time to start looking for a 1/48 kit.

Yeh.  I have seen that on numerous occasions.  I watched it a week or so ago on Netflix.  Ad the B17 is in my opinion one of the best aircraft ever to come out of Boeing.  And definitely my all time favorite bomber.  I must have built a dozen or more of them over the years.  Right now I just ordered a Revell 1/48 G kit for my Daughter so we can do a simultaneous build of two of them.  Hopefully it will get here soon. You can find them on eBay occasionally for around $20 +shipping.  Even less if you just want a builder and find a bagged builder kit.

Rich

vetteman42

Guys I just watched " Memphis Belle The True Story " on netflix and am blown away by it. Thank you to all our Military, past , present and, future. I just don't know where courage like that comes from.

Now I feel truly inspired to build a B-17, time to start looking for a 1/48 kit.

Man I need to get back to work on my -D, but other projects keep popping up.

You mean one of these pilot?

WOW!!!!!!!!! that looks to be some serious surgery there B-17 Guy

And let me tell you sir, it is NOT as much fun as may look to be. This is my first attempt with a vac-form kit, makes me appreciate injection molded kits that much more. I just hop I dont screw it up.

To be honest, I never understood the appeal of Vac kits.  They don't have nearly the level of detail as IMP kits, they are much easier to sc^&** up, and they just don't seem like they would be worth the hassle...  I suppose I can see them when there isn't an IMP kit for a particular subject, but otherwise... Oh well..

B-17 Guy

And let me tell you sir, it is NOT as much fun as may look to be. This is my first attempt with a vac-form kit, makes me appreciate injection molded kits that much more. I just hop I dont screw it up.

Great work on the -D B-17 Guy!  Right now I'm getting the interior up to par, then I have to fix the crack where the vac part broke off before I got it.  Things are looking good, so I except to work on her more frequently

I want pics pilot!

Sparrow, agreed on the vac kits, they are a pain! But it's the only way to get a B-17D in 48th scale, and at least it's only half of the fuselage.

B-17 Guy

I want pics

Ok I'm feeling lazy and really am getting off of here to go to the bench for a while today. So I'm gonna post the link to my build thread on ARC. After that I can post progress pics.

 http://s362974870.onlinehome.us/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=223089

Nice progress Guy!  I found some mistakes as well.  The person who originally started mine, used the wrong color green for the inside, oh well, and then it looks like they didn't use the koster fill in windows for the large cheek guns.  Oh well

I painted over the overspray from the coat of primer, and will paint all the details.  Since the fuselodge was already glued together, can any one say a ship in the bottle?

sorry nothing pic worthy at the moment

Hi all,, I have just started to build a Monogram B-17g kit and having looked at the instructions see a few listed colours I am not familair with  ( having not long come back to modeling ) If anyone is able to guide me I would appreciate it, oh I work mainly in Tamiya acrylics as well.

Zinc Chromate

Chromate green

I've read a good post about how the colours changed throughout WWII but would like to get your opinions, thanks

Don't forget to post pics of your progress! The interior of B-17s where either interior green or left in natural metal, although you can get away with Green Zinc Chromate.  Don't know if Tamiya has that shade of green or not.

Zinc Chromate is a yellowish color used as a primer of sorts at many factories,  North American used it a lot.  Look at P-51s or B-25s and you'll see what zinc chromate is.  Chromate green, I've as an alternate name for green zinc chromate.  Used in the same method as zinc chromate, just a green shade instead of yellow.

Hope that helped!

Me personally, I preffer interior green because to me it looks much better for scale. That being said, I'll use green zinc chromate in addition to IG to get some variance in color but put a dirty wash on it to tone it down. Green zinc is just too bright to me.  I wont say dont, but I recomend against using yellow zinc chromate inside a B-17.

And also, fire extinguishers were'nt red, they were a brass/copper color.

look's good. i have never seen the salt thing how do you do it and what do you use.I finshed mine about a month ago. but have to go back to it seeing my sister in law sat on it and my neph decided that it need some ft inf gray on it. but thats what i get for keeping it on the desk waiting for a propeller for it. and building a a6m2 zero-sen and a pby-5a catalina (as a black cat). it could be worse last time he helped with a model plane they got hit by a bat

The "salt thing" is just a reinvention of the wheel derived from the old school of rubber cement masking...  Salt works OK too, but can be difficult to remove at times..

Personally, I've always used the rubber cement-masking technique for chipped paint effects...

Step 1: Paint the general areas you desire chipped in the under-coat color you want (for aircraft, it's generally aluminum);Leading edges, cowls, panel and hatch edges, etc...

Step 2:  Apply rubber cement over the metallic areas with the applicator brush, using a stabbing, stippling motion and let it dry.

Step 3: Apply the color-coat and let dry.

Step 4: Rub off rubber cement-masked areas, exposing the metallic underneath.

Be sure to watch out for the rubber de-icing boots, if you have them... They don't chip..

It also works when you want a color underneath as well, like the Panzer Grey under this Marder's Field-applied Afrika Mustard:

Well it's not much to show right now but heres a couple of pics of what I have done so far,,

I'd appreciate any feedback or tips :)

Can I ask how you dry brush,, I have tried it and my results are no way near as good as what I see in these pics, do u use plain white or silver and do you use washes over the top?

Hey guys,

Good to see there are other Fort lovers out there.  Been doing these models for probably 20 years now, did my first one when I was 9.  Here is something I recently did that you guys might find interesting. 

I went to hobby lobby, and found these little motors with positive and negative lead outs.  So I picked up 4 of them. (you obviously know where I'm going with this) What I did was take the 1/48 G kid, and cut out a spot in the engine cowlings for these things to sit.  I connected the wires to the back, and ran them down the landing gears and into a piece of cardboard made up to look like a runway.

What I did next took a little finesse, I got these battery things that hold 2 AAs and have pos/neg wires coming out.  I connected them to a switch and hooked up the engines.  So after building the model I had power and all 4 engines run!  It looks amazing when they all move and the motors are so powerful, the props actually push back the little wheatfield I have behind the runway and they want to pull the plane. 

One build when I did this:  The props dont want to sit on the motors because of the size difference between the prop hole and the motor pin.  I corrected this by using the inside of a pen.  that clear plastic tube that holds the ink fits perfectly into the back of a prop and snugs up against the motor pin.  Super glue holds it in place. 

Another thing is that these engines are big and barely fit in the engine nacelles.  A little modification is required, but it isnt hard to figure out when you got the model in front of you. 

I think I would like to do another one like this, but this time add blinking lights.  Maybe from a train set?  I know its too much, but I think it would be cool if I could hang one from the ceiling, run the engines and motorize the turrets haha, but ill just stick with the takeoff fort for now. 

Nice to join your forum guys. 

PS- I'm from Oswego Illinois. You've probably never heard of it, but the ones that have know its sad story.  Last week, we lost the restored B-17G Liberty Belle in a cornfield near my house.  I had close to 10  hours sticktime on this aircraft (logged), and I cried a little when I saw it burning in the field. I know you guys can feel my pain in this sick irony.

Sounds like you did some really good work there motorizing your fort. Got any pics of that? We've got a guy here who was doing the same, havent seen him post anything in a while though.

There's a website, cnat remember what it is but they have kits you can buy. The kit is 4 motors, the landing lights, nav lights, you can even add synchronized sound to all of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nhuNygtpIw

And yes, I'm firmiliar with the liberty belle tragedy.

And welcome to the forums!

Just trying to make contact. My uncle John F. Rice flew "tail crazy" during the war and just passed away last week, June 17, 2011 at age 89.  Love to see pictures of your model. 

kangaroo

Just trying to make contact. My uncle John F. Rice flew "tail crazy" during the war and just passed away last week, June 17, 2011 at age 89.  Love to see pictures of your model. 

Kangaroo, sorry to hear about your uncle's passing. We are loosing our WWII vets quickly. My dad passed away a couple years ago at 86; he was 101st Airbourne!