Way Too Many Props GB April 18, 2011 - Extended to July 28, 2012

Baron - Got you officially on the list.

Daddy1 - Looking great!  Have you built the Monogram one? Wonder how it compares.

B17pilot - im able to join, i found time. Sign me up for a Airfix 1:72 Petlyakov PE-2.

Congrats on the Fort , Bish. Good job with the subtle mottling of the faded paint and the wash.

 Got some update WIP pics of the Goonie Bird.

First one is of the unpainted IP. I applied drops of Elmers glue to the instrument faces for a mask. After a coat of flat black, just pop off the dried Elmers with the tip of a needle or #11 blade . Worked pretty well only a few touch ups to do.

Decided the best way to paint all the bulkhead pieces was to assemble them using the floor and fuselage halves as an assembly jig, much the same process as assembling the rollcage of the old Monogram stock cars to paint as a whole unit. Beats having to scrape paint off all those attachment points. 

Made airbrushing the MM interior green a little trickier , but much less tedious than painting the individual pieces.

The flight deck seats had large mounting posts on the bottom that looked a bit to noticeable to suit me . I lightly scribed where the seats mounted and removed the posts, then glued the seats in place prior to paint. I wanted a good sturdy bond.

painted base interior assemblies

OOPS! Forgot a piece.

Instructions for the interior bulkheads, seats, 

Mask and paint anti-slip walkways flat black. References showed with and without on various birds. I like with. Weathering and scuffing will make it just right. 

Assembled IP. I like the film way of doing the instruments except the clear IP makes the faces seem a bit deep. Next time, I would probably use a punch set  and apply the individual faces on  the front and seal with drops of Future. 

I've also decided to add some switches and correct throttle,prop, mixture controls. The kit only has four levers, when there should be six.

 I plan on adding the ribs and stringers to the fuselage sides in the main cabin, but will add the quilted insulation painted some shade of olive or green. 

 Just need to figure out creating the quilted pattern. I tried a diluted mix of white glue on a some facial tissue, then pressed over a section of window screen and allowed to dry. The texture wasn,t quite pronounced enough , but I think I'm on the right track. So much for OOB.

Howard

Thanks mate. Now i can chill for the next few weeks, and take my time catching up on some Dio's. Got a few things to get for the chinook before i start on that in the new year.

A well-done B17 Bish,

Thanks mate, much appreciated.

Ouch, i know how that feels. I did a 35th Ostwind a couple of years ago and painted it in Enamels. But i didn't do a proper job with the future and when i applied the oil wash, large areas blistered. But like you say, won't take like to recover.

Bish - Excellent work man! I love it and want to marry it! Front page has been updated with your completed build.

My little aircraft took a step back.  went to weather the landing gear struts and forgot I didn't overcoat them and the oil wash took the enmanel alunimum paint off Time to back track yet again.  Even with that, looks like I will have it done within the next couple of weeks.

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.

Thanks for looking, and for a great GB.

Bish - Excellent work! Love the wash you did on the panel lines!  Can't wait for final pics!

Well I finished stage 1 of the weathering process on the A-20, after getting her up on her landing gear, to protect the weathering.  I got a layer of oil filters applied, and now its time to do a wash for the panel lines.  I can't forget to dirty up the engines and landing gear, though.

Finally another update of the B-17. These pics were taken on Tues night. I am really pleased with how it has come out this time, and the decals look very nice. The panel lines were done with Pro modeller wash, which i layed on heavy in a few places and the used a damp cotton bud to remove the excess, going from front to back. this has left a bit of a grimy look in some areas which i like the look of.

I added canvas covers on the nose guns useing tissue paper painted OD. The photo of ole puss shows these on the guns, and as i was adding canvas to the base of the tail guns anyway, i figured i would add these as well.

And as of about 5 mins ago, she is now done. So going to get some photo's done as well as a bit of a history written up, then will post the final pics.

the real red baron

B17pilot - I've seen the badge, and i was very interested but didnt think any of my models were eligable so i didnt bother to have a look, but now that i finally had time to have a look, i might join. Depends on how im going for time.

Don't put me down as official yet but if i do join i will be building a Airfix 1:72 Petleyakov PE-2.

PE-2 will work, got one in 1/48 scale.  You have until mid-April of next year.  I still am planning on the Revell Ventura (rumor has it it'll be released in Dec , i hope) for this GB, so feel free to join.

B17Pilot

I've seen it on a P-47 as well!  Let's not forget Virgin Atlantic has them on their 747s!

Ye, when i first saw it i knew it looked familiar. Then realised Virgin must have pinched it.

B17pilot - I've seen the badge, and i was very interested but didnt think any of my models were eligable so i didnt bother to have a look, but now that i finally had time to have a look, i might join. Depends on how im going for time.

Don't put me down as official yet but if i do join i will be building a Airfix 1:72 Petleyakov PE-2.

I've seen it on a P-47 as well!  Let's not forget Virgin Atlantic has them on their 747s!

Thats looking really nice. That nose art looked very familiar and i realised there's a B-17, 'sweet seventeen' which has an almost identical one.

B17Pilot

Last time it will look this clean!

Time for weathering! Finally got all the decals to snug down. Anybody else get an air bubble after you put on a final Future coat? Anyway a cut there, white glue here the air bubble is gone. In the mean time I had to modify the AM wheels.  They didn't come with hub covers and all of the photos in my reference book had wheels covers, so I cut the ones out of the kit supplied wheels and added them to the AM ones.  Looks a lot better!

Wheels before:

After painting:

OK, time for the decals:

Last time it will look this clean!

Ya'll send the rain to Texas! We are in need of some serious rain, cause well we're in what you call a severe drought. had nothing but sunshine since April, at least the 100 degree heat is gone, for now.

Looking forward to your C-47 Howard! Be interesting to see one built next to the old Monogram one. I've got some Trumpeter kits in the stash, but haven't built one yet, so can't help you in that area

Howard great tip about the pastels thanks for sharing. Looking forward to seeing the C47 come together. My trumpeter SM79 is in this thread and you can see it went together without any major problems hope yours is the same. This rain is keeping me from a/b work as well really could use a bit of sunshine soon lol

Bish

 OD certainly come in alot of shades. I might try and get some of those MM paints, will be nice to have a variety of shades for different builds, as well as for shadeing a build.

 

 I love the variety of camo green that MM offers. Even have a bottle of Field Drab which is a bit on the brownish side of OD. There's all kinds of ways to fade OD green, from mixing in different tints, light over coats of paint , washes, and working in ground pastels or weathering powders. 

 I find the pastels and powders very effective in fading panels and post shading panel lines. Start by working black  or dark greys , browns( whatever color is appropriate for the section of the aircraft) along panel lines . Then work in lighter shades in the center of panels working toward the outer edges of the panels. Finish by blowing and brushing off excess with a large, dry, soft brush. When overcoated with a clear , makes a very nice subtle faded effect.

 In the finishing stages of my Bulldog racer for that GB, but weather isn't cooperating with my airbrushing plans this weekend so , decided to get a start on the Goonie Bird. I plan on staying close to OOB with this one as it's very well detailed to begin with and I've been suffering a bit of AMS recently.  

Here's pics of the kit contents. 

 The instructions call for a lot of interior to be painted  "sky", but I find no MM cross reference for that color. All the research seems to indicate a wide variety  of  colors used on the interior of the C-47 . From interior green to sky blue , grey, bronze green , etc. Pretty typical of warbirds of the era. I'll just make an educated guess and use a little artistic license on color choices .

BTW- This is my first Trumpeter kit , seems like a well engineered kit. Any advice or warnings from those with Trumpeter experience ? 

Howard

They have certainly come out nice. OD certainly come in alot of shades. I might try and get some of those MM paints, will be nice to have a variety of shades for different builds, as well as for shadeing a build.

Finially got the B-17 to a point where i am happy with the paint job. After a bit of testing, i liked the Grey mixed with the OD. So the control services are done and i also did a few of the panels in slightly different shades. Will get a coat of future on tomorrow and get the decals on.

I used MM enamels Olive Drab FS34087 then sprayed a Medium green for the green splotches, then overcoated both colors with faded olive drab (it came premixed in a bottle, also MM enamal).

Decals on, but I had to go back with some thinned down elmers glue to get the decals to snugg down.

B17, thats looking nice.  Which OD did you use for that.

B17Pilot awesome looking forward to the decals,the build is looking solid!

Speaking of decaling, mine is ready for the decals.  Will probably be doing them this weekend.

Thanks, that all makes sense. And i am really happy with the new decals, now thats cleared up. Going to get them on next week and hopeing to get this build off the bench.

The official order came in Dec. 1943 to remove all OD and NG paint and begin the high vis BG/BS markings, due to higher ups believing German bombings is no longer a threat, the fact that multiple BG where forming up to bomb one target so they needed to easily ID the other, and a side of effect, it helped the fighter escort the ID the right formation they where suppose to escort.

The thing is, painting/repainting aircraft was not a high priority for the ground crew, so not all BG complied with the order right a way.  Kind of why you still see D-Day stripes on aircraft well after the Sept, order to remove them.  Some ground crews where on top of the new orders, so the aircraft marked as lost in 1943 and it had the BG letter on the wing, it was lost in Dec.  Most of the painting of the new markings where done when the aircraft needed major repair and was going to out of service for a couple of days anyway. So it was kind of a staggered application of the new markings.

Thanks, i was sure they were wrong about the national insignia. As for the BG letter, did you mean 43. Its just that i have several photos of 17's with a wing BG letter were the caption says the aircraft was lost in 1943. While on the other hand, i have a pic of a 96th 17G with nose wing BG letter. caption for that says April 44 and ole puss was lost in that month, so i think its safe to say the 96th didn't have them yet.  I should have spotted that pic earlier, would have saved me asking.

The BG letter (Triangle A, Square C, etc), where only on the wing in the later part of the war, mid '44 on.  So if Ole' Puss survived that long, she might have at it, again depended on when the ground crew got around to painting it on. Check to see what time period you're looking for.

National insignia should be on opposite wings and not on top of each other.  Misprint in the decal instructions perhaps?

Thanks TREY, i was glad i was able to get back to it.

I hadn't thought of that one, will deffinatly keep that in mind for next time, thanks.