HFC"S Visible B17G Flying Fortress

[hot ford coupe]

I finally got a replacement wire for my computer and now I can post one of the things I'm working on. When I saw our good friend Rob Byrnes a.k.a. Lancair IV working on his B17, I felt the strong urge to make one myself but not exactly the same. This is in no way competition for Rob's B17. I just couldn't resist making one myself since I'm much more of a bomber guy than a fighter guy. This is a reissue of an older kit called the Visible B17G Flying Fortress. It's basically the old Monogram B17G but it has a clear left fusilage half so you can really see the interior detail which is usually obscured. This kit lends itself incredibly to superdetailing to whatever level you feel comfortable with whether the detail comes straight out of the box or not. With Rob's help, I intend to make this a diorama in itself since nothing will be hidden. The first thing I did was to sand all the panel lines off the clear fusilage half and thin it out so the details can be clearly seen. The clear plastic was then polished just like we would polish out an auto body before we lay down the paint. the styrene cleared up beautifully. The rest of the pictures show what I've been doing with the cockpit and the front cabin for the bombardier and navigator. There still is a ton on work left to do on this assembly but this is just the beginning. Hope you like. More to come.

[Lancair IV]

Outstanding my friend. Can I copy norton bomb site?

Cheers

[hot ford coupe]

Copy away Rob. We can inspire each other and raise the level of the models. If you need some good pics of the Norden, let me know and I'll send you what I have. The kit part is pretty good and needs only very slight modification, more cleanup than anything else. The rest is just putting the silver dots where they belong and some gloss clear where the glass goes.

[hot ford coupe]

Here's a picture of how the thinning of the clear side lookss after polishing. I may thin it a bit more. I also may do some cut outs so you can really see the detail well without any distortion caused by the plastic. I did see another visible B17 done just that way and it looks a lot better that way than stock.



Don't forget to sand something like this with loads of water. It makes a heck of a difference.

[hot ford coupe]

More pics to play with. I added the second seat and installed the co pilot's wall. In this particular kit, the co pilot's wall sat a bit too low and interfered with the seating of the front section. I relocated the wall up a couple of mm and the piece sat in well. The front section has not been glued in yet. The left side has not been painted because I'm adding some framing as well as oxygen hoses plus. There's still a bucket load more to add.

[Don Garrett]

Jeff...I looked and looked but can't see any cat hair wiring?

[hot ford coupe]

I gave up on that idea a long time ago. It was just too weird. I'll tell you this though. I was on another modeling site one day looking for I don't remember what and I couldn't believe my eyes. Somebody else was using cat hair for a model and doing a tutorial on it. Either somebody took my idea and ran with it or there's another maniac like me out there. It's the dumpster diver mentality I guess.

What I use now instead of cat hair is a very thin guitar string, the thinnest one they make. It's a .008 " gauge string which can be gotten at any music store that sell lots of guitars especially the solid body kind. I make a hole with a fine needle and cement a piece of it into the hole with CA and that's the toggle switches. I can't use a drill in a pin vise to make the holes because the smallest twist drill they make is size 80 and the holes come out way too big. Either the toggles are too thick or the right size won't stay in the hole. I make the holes deep enough so there's no chance of the piece easily popping out. Another way of doing the holes is to put a very thin needle in your pin vise, heat it and then push it into the spot you want the toggle. It takes some practice but if you do it right, the hole comes out deep enough and the heat raises a little ring of plastic that when painted with flat aluminum, look just like the retaining nuts for the switches. At this point, they'll be too long. I bought a small set of sharp wire cutters from Wal-Mart in the beading or craft section. Now you just cut the pieces to length and you've got switches. If you can, polish off any barbs left by the cutters.

[hot ford coupe]

I discovered something today that will really make a difference with my detailing. The flooring of a B17 is generally plywood. As you can see, I painted the plastic to look like wood but nothing beats the real thing. Today, I went to one of my areas local hobby shops where they sell a lot of RC aircraft supplies, particularly very thin plywood for super large scale RC aircraft like 1/8 or 1/6 scale. I found a nice piece of .3mm thick birch with a close grain. If you look at the cockpit flooring you get with the kit, you'll notice the raised panel lines. I rescribe them and then cut out individual pieces of the birch to match the panel lines. I make the grain go in different directions to accentuate the individual panels. Before I glue the pieces to the plastic, I make a mix of semi gloss clear and add a little Modelmaster acrylic leather color along with a slight bit of yellow. the idea is to make what looks like varnished stained wood. By using the clear instead of just diluting the leather color with water helps eliminate the warping of the wood. Besides the whole thing comes out looking exactly like old varnished plywood. I'll show a few pics when I get more of the floor done. It really makes a heck of a difference.

Now you're probably wondering, did I throw out the other cockpit floor you see in the previous posts? Heck no. It'll be used in another B17 that will go into a large diorama, my first attempt into another realm. It'll represent a portion of the Thorpe Abbotts Air Field used by the 100th Bomb Group, 8th U.S.A.A.F. It will consist of 4 B17's sitting in their hardstands near the taxiway to the runways. Why does it seem like I'm starting over from scratch? In reality, I'm not. Each time I build a a part of the B17, I make it better than the one before it. Therefore, the best one will be for the clear sided model. Pics to come.

[hot ford coupe]

Here's what I have so far. Like I mentioned, I took a few steps back and now I'm back on the forward track. The first thing I did was to get rid of the pedestal for the navigator's seat. I'll rebuild the seat attachment later. I then set down plywood planks that I painted with diluted brown colors to give that individual pieced together look. I diluted the brown paint with semigloss clear acrylic instead of water. It goes on better and doesn't warp the wood. Next, I cut off the bambardier's platform so I can reshape it to look more accurate. Then I covered the floor with plywood leaving the center open also to look more like the real deal. The ammo boxes were scratchbuilt from the birch plywood and painted to look like varnished wood. The belt is masking tape painted O.D. I'll go to the throttle quadrant next.

[docwatson1938]

Looking good there HFC, that flooring is nice. I was using doll house supply's when I was doing large aircraft, sounds like it may be about the same size.
I always felt odd shopping in a doll house supply store!! ;-)