B-36 Peacemaker Group Build

Howdy To All,

      For the time being I have given up on the nose. I called Mike Herrill and had him send me a new nose. I haven't glued it together yet but will in the future. I did glue the two 0.08 of an inch thick disks to the fuselage and sanded them to the contour of the nose.

jeaton01

I haven't been getting much modeling don e due to working on a new workshop/storage building, but I came across this neat link to a 360 view of the B-36J cockpit at NMUSAF:

http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/media/062/B-36J%20Engineer.html

Good grief, I'd like to see the instruction manual on that! 

Hey John, great to know somebody is still watching!  I'll check your link out and let you know that the stripping process is such a pain that I'd recommend NOT messing up the NMF from the get go.  I scrapped the "Simple Green" and took the advice on another forum(s) that said "Super Clean" works....... and it does!  Post pics soon, good hearing from you.

I haven't been getting much modeling don e due to working on a new workshop/storage building, but I came across this neat link to a 360 view of the B-36J cockpit at NMUSAF:

http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/media/062/B-36J%20Engineer.html

*bump*

Gee, nobody has posted since my previous on 4/18, so I guess it's time to pick up the gauntlet and move this forward!  Since getting frustrated w/ the beast about a year ago, it had sat in it's half stripped state waiting for my return.  Well, I'm ready........ I think .  This thing can break down the best tempered man.  I tried Alclad on this before (and since it was my first {and only} experience with it), I had a terrible result and had to remove the paint.  I was trying Simple Green with some success and will finish up the removal and clean up the surface to prep for the NMF marathon session which will hopefully come in the following days.  Here is a pic in her current state:

Just thought I'd check in, glad to see some of you are still at it.  As soon as this 190 is completed, I'm picking up where I left off w/The B-36!  Hope your vision issues get resolved Magoo.

Are you going to change your name if all this eye surgery pays off?

Sorry to hear you've had to go through all that.  Clearly, though, B-36 group builds move at a glacial pace.  I work on mine for a while and then do something else, right now it is a Wing Nut Wings DH-9a and a new storage building in my back yard, but one day that B-36 will be done!

Howdy Too All, I haven't been too active foe several months my apologies, I have had since the 17th of Dec three eye surgeries. A cataract removed from my right eye on Dec 17th,  a cataract removed from my left eye Jan 21th, and a vitrectomy  to my left eye on Feb 19th. Now with trifocals most stuff is very clear but for the very small requiring magnification. After getting my new glasses I went back into the model room only to discover I had some mice put up housekeeping and they poo'd/pee'd all over the place. I initially didn’t think it was too bad having caught the problem early. I was wrong. The mice have been trapped and are dead. Right now I’m gutting the room, cleaning, and changing things around. So the YB-60 is still on the burner waiting for me. Just thought ya'll deserved an explanation. Andrew Magoo

jeaton01

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.

Dominic

Yeah, I'm still going on it.  Still putting on silver.  Had to redo the top of the wing.

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....

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Great work John,

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

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.

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! :-?

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.

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?

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 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.

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.

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

jeaton01

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

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

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.

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