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

B-17 Guy wrote:

The nose cone fits for crap! I recomend a vac form replacement, that's what I'm doing. Or like hans said, you can shim the nose seams, I had to do this on my F model beacuse of the cut and paste nose section. Shimming was a pain in the @ss BUT....I also found that it helped the cockpit windows to fit much better, it looked so much better that I went back and cracked the already glued and painted upper seam of the nose on the G model and shimmed her to.

Hans von Hammer wrote:

Well, one thing to keep in mind is that the kit came out in the mid-70s... So it, along with most all of Monogram's "Super Scale" series of the era had some canopy fit-issues of one kind or another... But they're still strong among my favorites... Hell, if every kit fit perfect every time, half the fun would be gone in building these kits.. Issues such as these are what separates builders from assemblers... Were the Fort to be done by another manufacturer, like Trumpeter, for instance, they might make it fit perfect all the way around, but it would cost over a C-note to buy as well...  After all, look at their C-47.. 100+ bucks for it and it didn't even include any crew & paratrooper figures like the Monogram offering... They went whole-hog on interior detailing that's 90% hidden from view.  Monogram was able to get two versions of the Gooney in one box and then later, got a DC-3 and AC-47 out of it ...

Haven't the Visi-Fort either... Got the Phantom Mustang in th' stash though, picked it up at Hobby Lobby on clearance for 17.00 or something like that...  I haven't decided on SOB for a nostalgia build, or doing it up in a diorama..   1/32 aircraft are BIG dios and my living room ain't THAT big where I can just put it on a shelf.. I need to have a dedicated shelf for the bases, wall-mounted shelves that stand alone with JUST the one diorama on it...  Luckily, Household 6 doesn't mind me commandeering her wall-space.. 

The bedroom is where she displays HER hobby-work (she does cross-stitching and frames her work)...  Says she doesn't want everybody to see them as soon as they walk into the apartment, a polar opposite of me, lol.. Not many women would put up with that, and I got 3 ex-wives to PROVE it, lol...

Has anyone noticed the progress there making on both of there Forts at the USAF Museum?

B-17D Swoose, the oldest surviving B-17.

And the B-17F Memphis Bell.

You can see more pictures at

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/exhibits/restoration/index.asp

B17Pilot wrote:

I have been wanting to go to the USAF museum, but I think I'll wait till they finish both Forts first.  I did however get to see the Belle while she was still in Memphis.

Be prepared to wait a long time.. I was there in August and took the behind the scenes tour.. They are saying around 10 years on Belle.. They won't give a timeline on Swoose

Go on friday, and go early and you can get the behind the scenes tour.. Bring photo ID. 

B-17 Guy wrote:

I wanna go before they are finnished, I've seen plenty of 17's in one piece, be nice to see the guts for once, could get a lot of ideas from that and some good pics of the internals. Sadly, I live in OH and have not been there.

I bet these birds, as they sit right now, would give a lot of great ideas ... but then again ... I probably don't need any NEW ideas floating around in my head. I need to empty out what I've got! HAHA!

Got any photos from that "behind-the-scenes" tour!?!

Here's the pictures of the painted and decaled Fort:

The NMF is applied and ready to remove the paint masks

In order to help protect the newly applied paint, I attached the landing gear struts

After the masks have been removed, just before decals

The next two are different views after the decals have been applied.  Fictional plane with accurate markings for the 324 BS, 91BG near the end of the war.

This is an excellent and very detailed build.  Looks great and I am saving the pictures or future reference.

I used to be the editor of Large Scale Planes for a number of years and got burned out on airplanes for the first time in my life for a couple of years.  I have been lurking on these boards for awhile and I have been poring over this thread for a while now and saving a lot of the pictures for reference.  It got my interest going again in planes and I pulled my 1/48 G out o the stashto start working on, I just hope I can do as good a job as you guys are doing. 

I built this model when it first came out when I was a kid and loved it then.  I have the same box art, I was trying to figure out why the interior looked a little different and found out why when I read the history of the 1/48 Fortress. Unfortunately, the visible one came out sometime after I had bought this one as I would loved to have done that one. Don't really have the room for two of these in my small townhouse, although I do have the Parago E set that is tempting to do some time, room is a big issue though. Can that set even be used with a G or does it have to be used with a F?

slingshot392 wrote:

I had thought about doing a cut away to make the detail more visible.  If you have a clear fuselage side, you could try putting Future on it, I have had very good luck using that on clear parts, for me it is always made them much more clear.  I want to get a visible side, but instead of leaving the entire side visible, I would use filler on the seams and then tape off sections on the clear side so after its painted it still looks like a cut away.  If the detail is visible clearly, having the clear side would have the benefit of keeping dust out.

Here ya go, some inspiration

/forums/1205629/ShowPost.aspx

-Fred

Gigatron wrote:

Here ya go, some inspiration /forums/1205629/ShowPost.aspx -Fred

Thanks much for the link!  That really looks nice!

I finally got through this thread, there are some great and inspirational builds.

I'm trying to find the box that has my reference material in it from my last move.  I have a question on the interior color?  From photos, it does seem like the waist gunner's area was left natural aluminum, but what color was used on the rest of the interior?  Restorations use interior green, but you can't always go by restorations, the instructions say to use zinc chromate, isn't that more of a dark yellow color?  Looking for some good color interior photos from during the war.

I read where some were having difficulty getting the front nose glass to line up properly, I just don't remember having any problems or not when I built this when I was a kid.  Is the problem with both the regular version and the visible version or just the visible version? I have a visible side on the way, so I guess I will really have to check that out closely.

If I decide to hang it from the ceiling, I will leave all of the doors closed, if I can find a spot large enough to put a diorama, I will probably open up the doors.  Is there anyway to securely fasten the doors so they don't get knocked off if bumped?

Has anyone ever looked at the paper B-17 models? They would be a monster at 1/33 scale!! if approached like a plastic model where seams are filled and then the model painted, they can look very realistic.

Or, if you want to go a little crazy, there is also a 1/33 B-52!?!?

slingshot392 wrote:

Has anyone ever looked at the paper B-17 models? They would be a monster at 1/33 scale!! if approached like a plastic model where seams are filled and then the model painted, they can look very realistic. Or, if you want to go a little crazy, there is also a 1/33 B-52!?!?

I think the Argentine toy soldier maker Beau Geste has a 1/35 or 1/32 B-17 in their catalog (I may be mistaken about the manufacturer, but the model does exist).

Interior color has been a debate for a while, I've been one of the people that support interior green for most everywhere in the plane. After having done my 2 (which are not finished yet) and doing alot more reading and really looking through all my books, I believe I may be changing my mind. I'm gonna be going with......bare aluminum in the nose, radio room and waist area. Flight deck, interior green, generaly. But I like to mix in a few differant shades of green in there to make things stand out a bit more for scale effect, then even things up, a little with a wash, dont want things to stand out too much. Color shades is another debate, I would say try to look at as many color pics as you can and make your own decision. Between interior green, green zinc chromate, yellow zinc chromate, dull dark green etc...I try to at least go with various shades of green, differant shades for various things, bulkheads wont be the same shade as a seat cushion on the bombardier's seat, which sit's in the sun.

The nose cone fit's for crap, it's samller than the area it sit's on so there is a step, so to speak. The only 2 fixes are either shim the nose open abit more on top with some sheet stock to widen the nose. OR.....a vac form copy of the kit piece, or even both fixes together.

What doors are you talking about? All the doors are molded closed, they would have to be cut out to display them open. 

B-17 Guy wrote:

Interior color has been a debate for a while, I've been one of the people that support interior green for most everywhere in the plane. After having done my 2 (which are not finished yet) and doing alot more reading and really looking through all my books, I believe I may be changing my mind. I'm gonna be going with......bare aluminum in the nose, radio room and waist area. Flight deck, interior green, generaly. But I like to mix in a few differant shades of green in there to make things stand out a bit more for scale effect, then even things up, a little with a wash, dont want things to stand out too much. Color shades is another debate, I would say try to look at as many color pics as you can and make your own decision. Between interior green, green zinc chromate, yellow zinc chromate, dull dark green etc...I try to at least go with various shades of green, differant shades for various things, bulkheads wont be the same shade as a seat cushion on the bombardier's seat, which sit's in the sun. The nose cone fit's for crap, it's samller than the area it sit's on so there is a step, so to speak. The only 2 fixes are either shim the nose open abit more on top with some sheet stock to widen the nose. OR.....a vac form copy of the kit piece, or even both fixes together. What doors are you talking about? All the doors are molded closed, they would have to be cut out to display them open.

I found my Detail & Scale book (part one) and there are drawings of the Interior sections of parts of the B-17, not sure how accurate they are though. I guess I can follow that and will probably be as accurate as guessing.

If the nose cone is smaller than the fuselage opening, why would the fuselage  need to be shimmed open? I must be missing something. I will have to check mine outand see what needs to be done and if it needs to b shimmed, I will do that first.  Does it alter the fit of the interior parts any?

I was talking about the crew doors in the nose and the tail and also the door for the tail gunner to bail out of.  If I do open them, I just wondered if there was a way to reinforce them so they don't get knocked off all of the time.  Leaning towards hanging it from the ceiling and if I do that, I will probably leave them closed.  Thinking about just making a generic base that any of the large 1/48 bombers could go on since I would probably only have room to display one of them on a base, that way they could be switched around occasionally.

Here's something to do with your box art when you are done with your model, or like me who just pulled out the large parts and cut all of the small parts and put them in one of my P-40 box I am using.  I saw a picture on a site I used to work and where a guy would cut the box art out and use thumb tacks to put it on the wall.  I measured the box for the B-17 and it was roughly 15 x 20, so I picked up a 16 x 20 frame from Target, I Decides up of the box and flipped the tag board insert that came in the frame over as it was sort of gray on the backside and use some double-sided tape to tape it to the back of the box art and then put the frame together.  Here's a picture of it on my wall.  You can see a little bit of white along the right side which you can only see if you are in that corner of the room as the box top was slightly curved from other boxes sitting on it for a couple years, from straight on or to the right, it looks pretty good.  I always remembered this model and especially the box art from when I bought it when it originally came out, the artwork really fired up the imagination of a kid. whenever I pick up any of the other 1/48 bombers, I will look on eBay and get one with a good artwork and put more of them on the wall.

I've been saving the box covers from all my build, since I started, about 2 years ago.  I planned on just putting them on the wall, in front of my work bench, but the framing really makes the picture.  It goes from looking like a mental patient hanging pictures of models on the wall, to legit artwork .

-Fred

slingshot392 wrote:

I finally got through this thread, there are some great and inspirational builds. I'm trying to find the box that has my reference material in it from my last move.  I have a question on the interior color?  From photos, it does seem like the waist gunner's area was left natural aluminum, but what color was used on the rest of the interior?  Restorations use interior green, but you can't always go by restorations, the instructions say to use zinc chromate, isn't that more of a dark yellow color?  Looking for some good color interior photos from during the war. I read where some were having difficulty getting the front nose glass to line up properly, I just don't remember having any problems or not when I built this when I was a kid.  Is the problem with both the regular version and the visible version or just the visible version? I have a visible side on the way, so I guess I will really have to check that out closely. If I decide to hang it from the ceiling, I will leave all of the doors closed, if I can find a spot large enough to put a diorama, I will probably open up the doors.  Is there anyway to securely fasten the doors so they don't get knocked off if bumped?

I've seen black and white photos of some birds where the nose, cockpit and bombbay are painted to what appears to be interior green or zinc chromate, while the rear of the plane was left in NMF.  I also seen where only the bombbay was painted.  Of course near the end of the war in an effort to save time and money, they left everything in a NMF both interior and exterior.

Paragon has a set of crew doors that has all the doors, including a hatch for the ball turret, but the attachment points are small as on the real ones so you'll have to be careful to not hit them.  Maybe use a lot of glue.

Gigatron wrote:

I've been saving the box covers from all my build, since I started, about 2 years ago.  I planned on just putting them on the wall, in front of my work bench, but the framing really makes the picture.  It goes from looking like a mental patient hanging pictures of models on the wall, to legit artwork . -Fred

Now that's funny!  The frames I are relatively inexpensive from Target and Wal-Mart which helps, sometimes they even have sales on them.

Hans von Hammer wrote:

My solution to reenforcing the open doors was to drill small holes in the edges that attached to the fuselage hinge-points and the hinge-points themselves, then insert wire into the holes and glue into place... It also allowed for an accidental bump to just move the door instead of knocking it off..

Good idea!  If I do open them, I will have to do that.