Mighty 8th GB 1-Nov-2010 - 31-Oct-2011

Hi, Bish; thanks for the description of what you did.  I think the Airfix is basically a re-pop of Academy (with, oddly, some subtle differences).

It was that one piece, with the two gun barrels and base that was missing.  The two actual tail pieces were there, on the clear sprue.  I bought these off ebay some years ago, and each kit has had a problem.  Makes me wonder if the seller didn't remove some pieces before the sale.

All pieces were there for the Cheyenee turret, but the fret for the Boeing was gone, and it included the tail guns and the RDF football, so I planned to cut a piece of sheet styrene to fill in the gaping hole, somehow construct the canvas, and use the gun barrels from the Cheyenne fret.

The way Academy/Airfix has constructed it, with the guns attached to the base, it's difficult to finish the tail, seal everything up--and then paint, without snapping the little barrels of during the process.

I'm hoping to make some substantial progress this weekend.

Owl-nice work on the Mustang.  I like the look of real aluminum-makes a difference.

What do you use for adhesive?

bobbaily

Owl-nice work on the Mustang.  I like the look of real aluminum-makes a difference.

What do you use for adhesive?

I use the Microscale metal foil adhesive. It comes in this 1oz bottle that lasts a long time. Ive done 5 aircraft in 1/48 scale and Ive only just reached half way.

I can vouch for that microscale stuff.

I know theres only 10 days left in the GB. but is it possible to change my Dragon P-51 to a Tamiya 1:48 P-51B 436813 C5-E 364FS Lt Jerome Jacobs "Pappy's Answer"?

It wont be done in 10 days but im guessing those who are already enrolled will get the opportunity to complete?

Update in which I'm scooting along!

Here is the finished foiling. I got the different hues from using both the shiny and dull side of the foil, as well as scrubbing select panels with 0000 steel wool for yet another shade. The two panels around the exhausts are foil stained/darkened using a bleach-water-lead mixture illustrated in the magazine a few months back. Some of the areas that are hard to cover with foil ( i.e. curvy wingtips) and the fabric covered control surfaces were painted silver.

then, I coated the foil with a protective layer of future (except the fabric control surfaces. I did not want any glossiness on those). The decal sheet calls for a beat-up bird, so the glossy-shininess of the foil will not be permanent. After the Future cured, I masked off and painted the white invasion stripes.

after waiting a day for the paint to cure and to avoid pulling up large chuncks of paint, I masked off and painted the black invasion stripes, as well as the blue nose.I then scruffed everything with the steel wool to get the beginning of chipped and weathered look going

OWL

OWL, nice going on the invasion stripes.  They're not easy to mask for.  It's hard to keep them straight and consistent, with all the angles and curves.

Scorpio, sorry mate, had a hectic weekend and didn't see your post. Ye, thats fine. Any kits started by the end of the month are good to go. I am then going to leave it until the end of November before i do a final round up. Any stiull not finished can be added as they get done.

OWL, thats coming along nicely.

Afraid i haven't been able to do my write up for ole puss, the 96th or snetterton. I am going to get onto that over the next couple of days before i start my next project.

Cheers bish. I shall endeavour to keep up with progress photos. Im sure everyone here knows im rubish at getting them lol.

Really great work on your B-17 Bish , the weathering looks perfect ....

and Owl , well WOW , awesome work with the foil on your P-51 ...

I've made some more progress on my 1/72 Tamiya P-51D ;

The decals are on but not without some stupid mistakes on my part ... ;

Because I cut the wing flaps to pose them lowered , I then had to cut the white wing strip decal to size but I didn't realize that the front of the strip goes completly around the leading edge of the wing right up to the landing gear bay . I measured just from the wing edge , which then left me a little short at one end and overlapping at the other , real stupid stuff ! Thankfully the over lapping is on the underside of the wing . the rest of the decals went okay .

Another small error I made was I forgot that the tyres have white walls on them , I sprayed mine black , so I'll strip the black off with some windex window cleaner and remask the silver hub and re-paint the white first .

The two Refuelling trucks and Recovery vehicles are all painted , so just some assembly required to fit all the pieces together ;

I gave everything a couple of coats of gloss clear so I can add some black enamel wash around the recesses and then add the vehicle decals .

So moving along nicely despite my stupid mistakes .

                   John .

 Finally, after almost 5 months, i can call this done. Delayed due to, amongst other things, a broken wrist, leave and dodgy decals, i finally have a B-17 to add to my collection of completed kits. I owe a big thanks to more than a few members of this forum for the help they have given me, and without them, this would now be sat in a box, half built, slowly being forgotten about.

A quick round up. This is the 72nd Academy B-17F. I added an eduard Big Ed PE set and painted with xtracolour enamels. The decals, these ones correct, are from Super scale and i use pro modeller wash for the panel lines and weathering. There are still a couple of things to be done, but these will be at a later date. One of these is exhaust staining as i can't see from photos where this built up. Also, the props should have yellow stencilling at the base of each blade, but the kit didn't have these, and i can't find any AM decals with these on at the moment. So once i find some, i will then flat coat the blades and secure the props.

I added the field fitted forward gun position but cutting a hole in the clear nose piece and added framing with lead foil, then use the foil to make the gun mount. The support framing is styrene rod. But i am not 100% happy with the result, the clear plastic is to thick for starters. And the framing is a little to big. So i plan to replace this at a later date with a thinner vac form nose, this should be easier to modify using the lessons from this one.

I plan on a dio showing the aircraft about to be loaded with bombs. And so the bomb bay has been left open. The bomb bay its all eduard PE.

Off the top of my head, and without going through all the posts on this thread and others i would like to thank Stikpusher, B17pilot, B17, checkmateking and littleJ for all their help. And if i have forgotten anyone, my apologies. and thanks to everyone else for the kinds words, advice and encouragement during this build.

And now, for a touch of history.

This kit is the second in a personal project of mine, to build 72^nd aircraft from all of the 37 military airfields in the County of Norfolk. This is was more airfields than any other county in the UK.

The aircraft depicted here is B-17F-85-BO 42-30073. Originally issued to the 384^th BG, on the 6^th of July 193 it was transferred to the 96^th BG in a straight swap with 42-5883. 883 had been named ‘OLE PUSS’, and so 073 was named ‘OLE PUSS II’, though the nose art only reads ‘OLE PUSS’. The Nose Art was painted on by Sgt Johnnie White. During 073’s time with the 96^th, she carried out 27 missions and claimed to have shot down 12 enemy fighters. Her career came to an end on the 17^th April 1944 when she was forced to belly land at East Wretham, home of the 359^th FG, just a few miles down the A-11 from Snetterton.

The 96^th BG was activated in July 1942, commanded by Lt. Colonel Archie Old Jr. After many months of training in the USA, the Group deployed to the UK, their first base being at Grafton Underwood, where the Air Echelons arrived on the 14^th April. In May, the Group moved to Andrews Field airfield, from where their first mission was carried out on the 14^th of May, with 21 aircraft being sent out, and all 21 coming back. Then in June 1943, the 96^th moved yet again, this time to Snetterton in South Norfolk. It would spend the rest of the war here, as part of the 45^th Wing, 3^rd bombardment Division. The Group would spend the next 2 and a half years there, carrying out its last mission, its 320^th, on April 21^st 1945 and they left Snetterton in December and was inactivated once back home.

The aircraft depicted here is B-17F-85-BO 42-30073. Originally issued to the 384^th BG, on the 6^th of July 193 it was transferred to the 96^th BG in a straight swap with 42-5883. 883 had been named ‘OLE PUSS’, and so 073 was named ‘OLE PUSS II’, though the nose art only reads ‘OLE PUSS’. The Nose Art was painted on by Sgt Johnnie White. During 073’s time with the 96^th, she carried out 27 missions and claimed to have shot down 12 enemy fighters. Her career came to an end on the 17^th April 1944 when she was forced to belly land at East Wretham, home of the 359^th FG, just a few miles down the A-11 from Snetterton.

 On the 29^th may 1947 it was re Activated as the 96^th BG (Very heavy) and was inactivated again on 27^th June 1949.

The village of Snetterton is in South Norfolk. It lays just to the North of the A-11, one of the major roads into the county that runs from Norwich, to the north, and heads South towards London. The airfield opened in May 1943. It lay right next to the A-11, to the South of the road. On my first visit to Snetterton back in the late 70’s early 80’s, the road was still a single carrage way. We went in through what was the old gate, and you could see how close to the road the runways were and some of the old buildings were still there. The road has since be turned into a dual carrage way and many of there old features have gone.

 In June 1943, Snetterton became home to both the B-26’s of the 386^th BG and the B-17’s on the 96^th. The 386^th only stayed a few months, moving out in Sept. The 96^th was one of only 3 B-17 BG’s based in Norfolk. Most B-17’s were stationed in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. Snetterton, along with the other 2 Norfolk B-17 bases, Thorpe Abbots (100^th BG) & Deopham Green (452^nd BG) are all in South Norfolk close to the border with Suffolk.  When the 96^th left for home in Dec 1945, the base was used by the RAF until it was closed in Nov 1948. It then fell into disuse until it was bought in 1952. The runways and perimeter were seen as ideal for motor racing. The first bike race took place in 1953 and the first car race in 1954. Today it is still used for motor racing, both national and international. It is also used for a massive market every Sunday. Recently the old airfield, now known as Snetterton park, has be transformed with a Garden Village and SP models, who have a sign on the A-11 claiming to be the worlds largest toy shop. True or not I don’t know, but it defiantly is very big, the model section is at the back and took me a good 5 mins to get to walking through all the other toys and hobby sections.

But, despite all the modernisation, Snetterton, and in deed Norfolk and the rest of East Anglia, has never forgotten the friendly invasion by young men with strange accents and strange habits. 

This has to be one of the most impressive war memorials i have yet seen.

Thanks for looking.

That is one impressive war memorial isnt it?

Great job on the B-17. I love the splotchy faded look you got

Thanks OWl. I am certainly alot happier with this OD than the first one. I think it was you that pointed out that it looked greyish the first time, and you were right. Funny thing is, i found to get a faded OD i was happy with, i had to add grey. Where as before i had added white, go figure.

Bish

Thanks OWl. I am certainly alot happier with this OD than the first one. I think it was you that pointed out that it looked greyish the first time, and you were right. Funny thing is, i found to get a faded OD i was happy with, i had to add grey. Where as before i had added white, go figure.

LOL. its weird how things end up working out, huh?

John, thanks very much.

Thats looking really nice. Old crow is one of those aircrfat that seem to stick in my head. It always seems to pop up, either in books, photos or models.

As for the trucks, that certainly a busy looking space for a couple of 72nd vehicles.

Nice looking "Old Crow," John.  The paint work and markings are superb.

And, Bish, again, congratulations on "Ole Puss."  She's a top-notch model and a memorable tribute to the air personnel of the 8th.  I read your "B-17F" thread and posted comments there, too.  It's an exemplary achievement.

Yes , congrat's again Bish on your B-17 "Ole Puss" build and the history behind the aircraft was very informative ....

As for me , I've been getting a little cranky with myself a lot lately and probably fussy as well ; So I decided to remove the white decal wing stripe and do it again with a spare decal sheet from another Tamiya P-51D ;

I used some ordinary sticky tape and kept burnishing it down over the white decal stripe and after multiple applications I was able to remove about 99% of the white stripe ;

First thing tomorrow , I'll carefully airbrush the small area where the white stripe was and once dry , try again with the other wing white stripe's from the second decal sheet .

                               John .

Thanks John. And theres nothing wrong with being fussy. It's your build. i totally re painted the OD on the 17 because i wasn't happy with it.

here is an update on the Mustang: decals finished, now onto the final weathering and fiddly bits!

Thats a hard worked pony you got there Miss Owl. You could almost say its a "Work horse" lol. im so lame.

As for my pony. Ive had the last week off work with a chest infection and while ive been going slowly stir crazy at home i put in some hours on the tamiya stang. She just fell together. The hardest part of the kit so far is the superscale decals. Not going down exactly as planned. But they still look good.

Below are the full collection of WIP photos. It kinda went together in less time than it took me to get my camera out of the bag lol.

Cockpit. The interior green looks ALOT greener in real life. The flash has washed it out to a wierd brown colour.

Pre Paint. I used Eduard masks on the canopy. They fit great on the Malcom hood, but the windscreen theyre a bit off. Eduard dont make them for the malcom hood tamiya stang, so i used the ones for the Accurate Miniatures which has a slightly steeper windscreen profile. 

Painted it up. I used XF-66 for the belly and XF-58 for the uppers. The Invasion stripes were very carefully measured out. 48mm total width. 9.6mm wide stripes.

Well, thats me for now. As a "Till next time" I shall leave you with photos of my recently completed B-26 "Lak-a-nookie"

Not part of the GB. but part of the Mighty 8th.

Very excellent looking aircraft, Scorp.  It cannot have been an easy job, masking and painting the NMF and OD on the B-26.  Well done!

It looks from the markings like the Marauder is from the 344th BG, 495th BS--code is Y5-O?

Here's a nice website; but maybe you know it already:

http://www.publicenquiry.co.uk/commands/bc9th.html

and here:  http://www.b26.com/page/344th_bombardment_group.htm

scorpio, you so punny! 

great work on your pony, btw. I dont have any of that yellowish primer color, so all my planes get the green. I should probably get a hold of some, it will be nice to add some variety in my primers! And the Marauder looking pretty nice too!

and here my late entry, squeezing past the finish line!

It was much harder to find info on either of Flying Scot/Vicious Virgie's pilots. The only info I found was an excerpt from the book 352nd Fighter Group, by Tom Ivie. He writes: "Lt Furman 'inhereted' this aircraft from Lt Murdoch 'Scottie' Cunningham, and flew it on the first 'Russian shuttle' mission. [The plane] was written off 12 September 1944 when Lt Gen Wensh was involved in a landing accident." Photos were even more difficult to come by! For references I used the description supplied in the decal sheet, rooting through the littlefriends website, as well as looking at what other modelers did with this plane.

Without further ado, I present The Flying Scot II/Vicious Virgie of the 352nd Fighter Group. One of the famed "Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney":

OWL

Thanks guys. Yes it is Y5-O, The masking was easy. Just got a big brush and slathered on the X-11. Masked off all the straight lines in about the right place. Got the same big brush (after cleaning of course) and slathered on some olive green. Seems to have come out pretty well. As for those websites, i havent seen them, thanks for that.

Owl. The primer is just Tamiya XF-4. Its a really good sickly yellow green colour.

Thats a mighty fine razorback youve produced. How many have you got in your stable now?

Guys, great looking mustangs going there.  Owl the finishing touches on the weathering are great.  The little weathering details look well thought out and executed.  That model really gives me a feel for the way those great old birds got battered around.  I was happy how good my decaled  invasion stripes looked, but I'm more impressed how your painted on stripes capture the way they really looked.  Very nice work.   Rick  

Well, im calling her done. After some research i discovered at the time she was shot down she was very clean. So i decided not to do any weathering.

The real deal at the top of the picture.

And now without further adue. I present to you, Pappy's Answer.

357th FG 364th FS

Capt. John L "Pappy" Medieros Named the aircraft initially. The aircraft was then inherited by Lt. Henry Pfeiffer after Medieros was MIA? (Records say "Lost") The aircraft itself was lost on 19 Sept 1944 while being flown by Lt. Jerome Jacobs who was taken POW. (That was rude, losing someone else's kite.)

357th Yoxford Boys. Stationed at Leiston.  

As always, Comments and criticism welcome.

OWL, Scorpio, some great work there, i will get those on the front page now.

Scorpio, i realised i hadn't changed your entry and so went to check on what it was your were building. I noticed you said you wouldn't be done in 10 days. You were right, you were done in 8. I don't know how you gouys can build so fast and still get good results.

OWl, i did have your second entry on the front page. I know it a 352nd P-51D, but not sure on scale and make. Is it the same as your firt build or a different kit.

Scorpio, that B-26 is a great looking build. rom what i could find these aircraft didn't seem to stay in the 8th very long before they were moved to the 9th.

Thanks guys! I had fun scruffing this one up. This will be my 5th 1/48 scale Mustang. I have 4 in the stable though; I lost one of my ponies in a shelving accident a few months back.

This kit was Tamiya 1/48, by the way, Bish!

Thanks for the comps, sorry to hear about your shelving incident (i think i remember this) Its possible it was the same kit we built owl. did yours come with the malcom hood? The one i built is rather old and was found in the back of a model shop in hong kong. (go in-laws lol) I understand its been re-released as a bluenose with masks.

As for the speed in which i built this kit. Having a week off work with a major chest infection certainly helps with model productivity. 

Scorpiomikey

Thanks for the comps, sorry to hear about your shelving incident (i think i remember this) Its possible it was the same kit we built owl. did yours come with the malcom hood? The one i built is rather old and was found in the back of a model shop in hong kong. (go in-laws lol) I understand its been re-released as a bluenose with masks.

The kit (Flying Scot) didnt come with a Malcom hood. Just the 2 options for the birdcage one: the multi-piece open or one-piece closed. But this box was from like, 1995 or something, so I assume there have been a few different releases of this kit since then!