B-36 Peacemaker Group Build

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Nige, look back on page 6 of this GB if you want to see pictures of how I lowered the wings.  I did glue the wings to the wing roots so I could be sure to get the proper dihedral angle on the wings, just a tiny error attaching the wing roots will have a large effect on those long wing panels, not to mention getting the wings straight with the fuselage.

Your wing/fuselage joints do look good.

Still looking for new recruits here, the build time on these things is as long as the real thing's wingspan!

Hi John,

I`m still here and still waiting for my non air conditioned work ( man cave ) building to finally cool down, or for me to finally break down and buy a new window unit. lol

Also another factor keeping people away  is the cost of this kit has been skyrocketing due to the prices being paid for some of the 1980 kits on ebay and causing the other years to be inflated due to people thinking those are worth $100 retail as well.

I couldn't imagine paying $100 just to be frustrated.

Reasoned

I couldn't imagine paying $100 just to be frustrated.

Trouble....Yours if memory serves me right was a leftover 2008 Kit when the retailers were trying to get rid of them. With the exception of the 1989 Kit I paid slightly more for just to have a boxing of that run, the most I`ve paid for a kit with taxes/shipping is $40-$45

Ive got a 1980 kit still in the factory shrink wrap I bought on ebay 2 years ago when prices were still modest.... Should I double my money because some *** thinks if he pays me $75 he`ll be able to sell it to someone else for $150 in his store? LOL

troublemaker66

Reasoned

I couldn't imagine paying $100 just to be frustrated.

I paid $30.00 for mine at AC Moore`s with one of their 50% off coupons. I`m not very fond of "collectors" because they drive prices up on kits that they prolly never tried to build in the 1st place.

Yeah, I picked mine up at a LHS going out of business sale just after getting back into the hobby.   I asked Hans and he figured you couldn't go wrong for around $30...... until I started building it!

You know you just enjoy the torture. lol

As soon as Summer will ever decide to end here in Texas, I can restart my projects which were cut short this year.

In the meantime..... Here are a couple of photos I picked up from ebay & and local "junk" seller.

The first picture demonstrates just how bad the B-36 could & would leak oil & gas. This is of two bombers in formation painted in the later white underbelly thermal anti flash scheme. On the bottom, you can see how badly the soot from the engines would blacken up the white paint, and on the horizontal stabilizers you can see the build up of oil & gas that had leaked out of the engines and was building up on the white paint.

The Second photo is a rare color photo of the XB-36 taken shortly after the landing gear covers were installed. Notice the antenna mast is still on just aft of the cockpit, the large BM-570 has not been applied yet, the two men just after of the fwd landing gear are still dressed in the Olive Army uniforms, and the "Army" car to the left as the USAF had not been spilt off from the Army as of yet. I`d say this is late `46 to very early `47 judging by the clothes the civilians are wearing.

Howdy To One And All, I haven't died or anything but I haven't been modeling either. I hope to move back in to my model room next week and move a whole bunch of stuff out. Ye old YB-60 hasen't finnished building itself and flow off or anything so maybe I can get back to building and posting. I have been following what everyone is doing and so far on this big of a model it all looks interesting. Andrew Magoo

As soon as I complete this Helldiver (that has been on hold for 4 months) I may pick back up with the Alclad removal and finish this monster! Good to hear from you magoo.

Mine is calling also, and has made no progress on its own either.

jeaton01

Mine is calling also, and has made no progress on its own either.

Things have been so inert in my model room the glue didn't even vent any fumes; although I can't comment on myself...anyway what was I going to do??? Andrew Magoo

More pictures.  Lots of seam work done at this point.  The wing adjustment is the cause of a lot of it, but there is just a lot inches of joints all over the model to get done, and it has to good enough (I hope) for nmf.  I spent a good 4 hours on the jet pods so far and they still need a bit more.

I got my web side up to date on this one and there are captions there that are not in this thread, but the pictures are the same.

http://www.yolo.net/~jeaton/mymodels/b36/1b36/1b36.html

Three more photos.

Great work thus far John!  I can speak from experience, it's easy to spend WAY too much time on those engine pods, the fit is TERRIBLE!!!  I see you did the tape patch over the cockpit too, hopefully your's stays in place better.

Yeah, my seats and instrument panel looked dangerously in harms way so I have them stored until I put the greenhouse on, which I don't want to do until last to keep dust from getting inside.  It's like handling a baseball bat, or a truck tire cross wrench.  Something is going to get whacked!

Great work Jeaton.... Looking far down the line on the build.... Are you going to use the stock decals or make some of your own for a different bomber?

I'll probably make up some of my own, but I just recently decided to make it an RB-36H (because I want to leave the open bomb bay as it is) so I haven't done any research on markings yet.  As you say, it's not an immediate concern.  

I did get the jet pods installed and filled/sanded as needed.  They are even fairly straight!  The struts are fairly approximate in terms of fit especially into the wing.  I did all the filling work on the pylons before I put the struts on.

Another report on miniscule developments here, the bombs and the nose cannon.  Monogram says to paint the bombs grey, must have got them from the Navy I guess.   Looks better anyway, OD bombs would get lost in the bomb bay, anyone were ever to look in there besides me.  

The fit of the nose turret was difficult for me, I ended up cutting loose the forward part of the upper deck so I could get the best fit both for the cockpit and the nose turret, and removed some internal locating pins.  I re-contoured the nose turret itself with Aves Epoxysculpt, one of the photos shows the modified one next to one from another kit, unchanged.  I think the nose cannon part itself is too wide compared to photos, but I didn't change that.  I added some plastic card to the fuselage to fair in the turret better, and have done some test fitting with the nose transparency, which showed that I had to bend out the fuselage where it fits the turret in the middle to get it to fit the transparency.  I am still going to have to add a little more fairing under the turret itself to get the right fit to the glass.  If the model is just built as per the original parts there would be big gaps at the sides and top of the turret, and if it were turned at all there would be a big open hole on one side, which the epoxy filler prevents. I also recontoured the front of the turret to match the curvature of the nose better.

I think next time I'll build a Featherweight B-36J, and dump this nose turret.  I just wish I didn't like those B-36B's in the Arctic markings so much! :-?

Here is the paint drying on the B-36 wheels.  The hub detail is really nice.  When I sprayed the tires I just let a little over spray get to the hubs, and then when dry I rubbed the paint off all the high spots.  Since I used acrylics it worked pretty well I think to give the detail good relief and it takes the plastic look off the unpainted hubs.  Those spots on the tires are lint from the paper towel, I'm not redoing the picture because of them!

I used a mixture of Floquil NATO black and RLM 02 for the tire color, about a 3:1 mix and I like it pretty well.  Looks more like in service tire color to me, I know a lot of people like the NATO black as it is in the bottle but it looks more like new rubber than I like.

Great work John,

Are you going to give the hubs an oil bath to give them that oily/greasy "maintence" look?

jeaton01

Another report on miniscule developments here, the bombs and the nose cannon.  Monogram says to paint the bombs grey, must have got them from the Navy I guess.   Looks better anyway, OD bombs would get lost in the bomb bay, anyone were ever to look in there besides me.  

These were a natural aluminum finish with stencils on them.

Thanks, I guess I will maintain my light grey bombs are oxidized silver?  Just too lazy to repaint all those suckers, I'll take the lashes instead!  But I am glad to know what the flash bombs looked like.

Whew. I found a TO in one of the B-36 books that said the flash bombs were grey!  I'm cool again!

Another day of work:  paint the flat black, mask the blades, prime the tips and spinners with flat white, paint the tips Tamiya flat yellow, mask the tips, paint the spinners Floquil Oil Silver, demask all 18 blades, with appropriate drying times between each step.  Two days in all.

Also started painting the airframe, flat white primer on the magnesium sections of the tail aft of the crew compartment.

Here is where it's at.  Massive amounts of paint required.  Floquil Old Silver over flat white on the tail, Tamiya flat white on the top of the wings so far, waiting for fine steel wool rubdown.

Howdy Jeaton, does the silver over the white work better than silver over gloss black? Or is this something you have to do with Floquil? Andrew Magoo

Andrew, I want to get the look of silver paint over the magnesium area and the flat white is just a primer as I am using Floquil Old Silver for those areas.  I will use a gloss color for the bare aluminum areas but the color used is still being experimented with.  The Alclad colors are more responsive to undercoat than Old Silver, in my experience, but I am polishing the flat white under the Old Silver which gives it some gloss.

Wow! good to see some still working on the monster!  John, I think you got the color correct but there is just something about an olive drab looking bomb.  I have a Bf 109D to complete then maybe....... I'll break out the B-36 and resume the paint stripping etc. etc....