b-17 flying fortress 1/48

[Bissyboat]

Excellent brush work on the interior. Impressive detailing on the instruments.

[ridgers22]

Excellent brush work on the interior. Impressive detailing on the instruments.

Thank you very much bissyboat

[HistoryRider]

Great update! Keep it up!!

[ridgers22]

Great update! Keep it up!!

Thank you i will try.. im going to have an hour or so at the bench tonight.. will probley be filling and sanding most of the night haha

[ridgers22]

BAILING OUT!!

Was doing some reserch today and came across this intresting peice. An artical for the crew of the B-17.



When an emergency develops and it becomes necessary to abandon the airplane in flight, there is no time for confusion or second guessing. Procedure of the entire crew in bailing out of the airplane must be almost automatic. Each crew member must know (1) his duties, (2) through what hatch he is supposed to exit, and (3) how to bail out, open his parachute, and land.

As airplane commander, your first responsibility is to be sure that your crew is thoroughly trained, by regular ground drill, in the proper procedure for bailing out of the B-17.

Before taking off on any flight make absolutely sure that:

An assigned parachute, properly fitted to the individual, is aboard the airplane for each person making the flight.
The assigned parachute is convenient to the normal position in the airplane occupied by the person to whom it is assigned.
Each person aboard (particularly if he is a passenger or a new crew member who has not taken part in your regular ground drill) is familiar with bailout signals, bailout procedure, and use of the parachute.
DUTIES OF THE CREW

The Airplane Commander

Notify crew to stand by to abandon ship. The bell signal consists of three short rings on alarm bell. At first alarm all crew members put on parachutes.
Notify crew to abandon ship. Bell signal consists of one long ring on alarm bell.
Check abandoning of airplane by crew members in nose.
Clear bomb bay of tanks and bombs, using emergency release handle.
Turn on autopilot.
Reduce reduce airspeed, if possible. Hold ship level.

Copilot's Duties
Assist airplane commander as directed.

Navigator' Duties
Determine position, if time permits.
Direct radio operator to send distress message, giving all pertinent information.
Stand by emergency exit in nose of airplane.

Bombardier's Duties
Assist navigator.
Stand by emergency exit in nose of airplane.

Engineer's Duties
Assist pilot as directed.
Notify pilot when crew in nose has abandoned the airplane.
Stand by to leave via bomb bay immediately after crew in nose has abandoned airplane.

Radio Operator's Duties
Find exact position from navigator.
Send distress call.
Stand by to leave via bomb bay.

Bail Turret Gunner's Duties
Stand by to leave via main entrance door, or most practical rear exit as occasion demands.

Tail Gunner's Duties
Stand by to leave via tail gunner's emergency exit.

Thanks
Wayne

[MikeyKb]

Awesome tid-bit of information there!

Question: Are you planning on re-scribing this beast of a bird? The task almost seems too daunting for me.

Cheers!

[ridgers22]

Awesome tid-bit of information there!

Question: Are you planning on re-scribing this beast of a bird? The task almost seems too daunting for me.

Cheers!

Hi mikey. no iv gone against the idea of scribing it. my skills at scribing are non excitent and i dont wanna mess it up. the only scribing i will be doing on this is where the panel lines have being sanded away

Thanks
Wayne

[ridgers22]

UPDATE 7

Not much to say really. Mostly filling, sanding, putting windows in and masking.

For such an old kit i was really suprised at how little filling on the seam lines were needed. There was a lot os sanding to go as the 2 halves werent very flush but after a good sanding and a little filler it was all good When this was done i added the windows to where they needed to go and using the Eduard masks i masked the wndows. (This maskes are a god send ) without them id be there for day. When the masking was done i started the upper turret this was staight forward and done acording to the instrutions then painted and weatherd ready to go into the fuselage.
First a little refrence photo i used for the Top turret




Here are the picture updates





















Up next will be the wings and getting it ready for some primer

Thanks
Wayne

[Jamesday1998]

Great job sorting out that awful seem! Keep up the great work!

[ridgers22]

thanks james

[Bissyboat]

Looking good.

[ridgers22]

thank you

Hopefully not to long to go just working on the wings now

[ridgers22]

UPDATE 8

Im motoring on now

So all the main assembley is now done.. Wings together and on, stabilizers on

Since the fusalage was all assembled and masked i sprayed a coat of grey primer on. When this was dry i preshaded the whole fuselage and put it to one side to dry.
With the fuselage done i moved onto the wings themselfs. These were straight forward apart from the stupid "tab" that was right up against the peice. With the fear of cutting into the wing i trimed the tab of with a knife and sanded it flat to the wing and that worked
Before putting the wings together there was the inside of the landing gear to do. A straight forward 3 part assembly with little hassle. This went into the wing all ready for painting (i will paint this later when the bottoms painted) The wings where then glued together with lots of pegs..The only problem i had with the wings were at the side of the engines where there was a gap so that needed filled and sanded. These were then primed and attached to the fusalage. When all the glue was dry it was out with the black and airbrush again and more preshading There was a lot of preshading..

OH well on with the pics



















No refrence pic this update... Didnt really need any for this stage. Will make up for it next update
Next stage will be painting the main body i think.
Thats all for now guys

Thanks
Wayne

[T3hGuppy]

Looking great dude.

[HistoryRider]

Lookin' Awesome!!

[MikeyKb]

Looking pretty awesome!! I ordered the cockpit PE today, so as soon as that get's here I'll get started!!

How did you end up fixing the gap issue(s) with the wing(s)? ... or did you just leave it the way it is?

Kind of sad about all that amazing PE and resin and awesomeness inside this beast of an aircraft and you can't get to enjoy it ...

Keep up the awesome work, great pre-shading!!

Cheers.

[coladito1]

Great job!!

[ridgers22]

thank you guys took about 2 hours to pre shade this beast

Looking pretty awesome!! I ordered the cockpit PE today, so as soon as that get's here I'll get started!!

How did you end up fixing the gap issue(s) with the wing(s)? ... or did you just leave it the way it is?

Kind of sad about all that amazing PE and resin and awesomeness inside this beast of an aircraft and you can't get to enjoy it ...

Keep up the awesome work, great pre-shading!!

Cheers.

The gap was just a little filler and was easy to sand. (dont have a pic sorry)

Yeah its a shame really but at least i know its in there and i have pics of the inside

Looking forward to seeing your one mikey

Thanks
Wayne

[ridgers22]

UPDATE 9

Was all about painting and decals this time.

With the pre shading done. it was time for the main colours. This was easier said than done.. The grey was easy enough but the top colour After a LOT of reserch i came to the conclustion that i would use khaki drab Tamyia XF-51. With this i sprayed the underside in Tamiya XF-75 in several thin coats to show the pre shading. When i was happy with the coverage i put a coat of Klear on to protect the grey.
When this was all dry it was time to move onto the upper colour. I tryed a few diffrent shades for this but settled with the khaki drab. As the B-17 did not have a smooth line where the drab and grey met it was all done free hand. When i was happy with it i coated the upperside with Klear. When this was dry i hand brushed the black De-icer strips around the wings and tail fin and it was ready for decals
The decals were straight forward and acually not to bad considering the age of this kit. I didnt fallow the instructions to a tee but i made a little diffrence on the ID letters. as i didnt want it to be an exact replica of the Chow Hound. (you will see why when i do the weathering.

With the decals done i moved on to the ball turret and painted and weathered it a little ready for instalment into the body.

Here are the refrance pics i used when looking for the colour of the drab.









As you can see the main colour varies a lot on the diffrent b-17s

This is the build so far





















The Ball Turret





Next up will be the final details added Engines and wheels on finished and ready for weathing

Not long to go now on her


Hope you are allenjoying this tread and build.

Thanks for looking
Wayne

[MikeyKb]

Incredible work! Just keeps getting better and better! Keep up the good work, looks gorgeous. Have you thought about where you're going to put it?

[ridgers22]

Incredible work! Just keeps getting better and better! Keep up the good work, looks gorgeous. Have you thought about where you're going to put it?

Thank you very much mikey

I was going to put it on my ceiling but the board its on now is a nice size for a base soooo maybe a little dio

[SiDennis]

Wow that's looking fantastic mate

Might get myself one of them.

[Omi]

a little dio! i dont think anything with this in it is goig to be little, great detail mate your doing a great job.
question, are you going to try and get the effect of the patchyness (word?) of the paint on the second picture?

[ridgers22]

Thank you guys

a little dio! i dont think anything with this in it is goig to be little, great detail mate your doing a great job.
question, are you going to try and get the effect of the patchyness (word?) of the paint on the second picture?

When saying patchyness what exactly are you meaning?

Wayne

[ridgers22]

UPDATE 10

i think this will be the 2nd last update

This is a build i certainly have enjoyed so much. But all good things come to an end.

The B-17 is finished in terms of building and painting. What i did this time was worked on the engines (lots of flash to clean on these) They were straight forward one peice moulds. Paining started with coating them all black and dry bruching silver all over. When this was dry i went in with a black wash to dull the silver down. this was resonable and would of got away with just that but reference pics said no no. i went back in with silver and picked out the silver acording to the pics i found. One the engines were painted the were glued into place and looked good

Then it was time to give this bird her wheels. These were 2 parts each (i hate 2 part wheels) they were coated black and drybrushed in a dark dark grey. The hubs where coated in the same khaki used for the body and giving a black wash. These were then glued in place and left to dry.

Next was all the "other" bits and bobs, The door, the ariels and ariel wiring. These were just gliued in place and left to dry. The ariel wiring was made with streched sprue and super glued in the right places and painted silver (not sure what colour they were but wire is usually silver) I coated one of the engine covers in Chrome silver to represent a replacement cover from a diffrent aircraft. After te bits and bobs where on it was just the props left. These were coated black and giving Yellow tips . The middle was coated silver and justs needs a little wash.

With that done the main build and painting was complete. All that is left to do now is the weathering. I will be building a little dio for this but it will not be part of this GB. As i dout it will be finished in time.

Anyways here are the reference pics






And here is the B-17 herself

Engines







Wheels in place





Nearly Done









So thats it.. So close to the finishing line yet still so much to do
I have no idea when the weathering will be finished as im still collecting pics to use as reference to get it looking just right

Thats all for now guys

Thanks
Wayne

[MikeyKb]

such a nice job, man!
Gorgeous!!

Are you leaving that one engine a that silver colour as opposed to the khaki drab?

Stunning work! What did you use for the 'wire'?

[HistoryRider]

Absolutely bang up job!!!! I cant wait to see it all finished!

[ridgers22]

Absolutely bang up job!!!! I cant wait to see it all finished!

Thank you very much sir

such a nice job, man!
Gorgeous!!

Are you leaving that one engine a that silver colour as opposed to the khaki drab?

Stunning work! What did you use for the 'wire'?

Yeah im going to leave the one silver to look like it came off a diffrent aircraft.

The Wire was made with stretched sprue and painted silver

[eoinfinnegan]

You've done amazing work on the build and on the build tread, well done

[UKscalemodeller]

Now that there is a reet nice piece of work

[DBMiller]

Nice work! The B-17 has to be one of the best looking planes ever and you've done a good job on this one!

[FokkerDXXI]

Wow, i really want to build a bomber but i don't have the room for it at the moment.

Jos

[ridgers22]

WOW thank you all so much for your comments guys

Im nearly done on the weathering so hopfully by the end of the week it will all be finished

Thanks
Wayne

[Bissyboat]

Great work. The B17 is really looking the business.

[generalgrog]

Looking really nice!!! Maybe theres hope I can finish my B-26

GG

[ridgers22]

UPDATE 11

First of all i would like to thank you all for your kind words and comments throughout this build.

Well thats her all done now. All i had left after the last update was the weathering on this big birdy. I must admit shes looking alot better than even i imagined

Well the weathering started the way i always weather aircraft and that was with a dark brown/black wash and when nearly dry i went over it all with a cotton bud/que tip dampined in thinners. It turned out ok but with the raised panel lines it was a bit... well weird. After that it was out with the old pastel chalks and againg with a dark dark brown it was over the panels again. This worked better than the wash as the pastels took to the raised lines and made them stand out a bit more.

When it was clear coated and dryed it was back to the panel lines this time with silver (i acually used tamyia chrome) to carefully touch little bits here and there to make little chips.

When this was done it was on to the exhaust stains on the wings.. at first i tryed black pastels but this didnt seam to work to well so i went and got a tamyia weathering master kit. with the little brush provided i simple rubbed on the soot colour and it looked perfect for the job.

The refrence pictures i used were ones i got from google. There were some really beaten up planes but my weathering skills are just not that good so i went with light weathering for this. Anyways here are the pics i used for my weathering.







Im just going to tease with 1 picture of the finished B-17 on this thread as the rest will be going into the Final reveal gallery

So thank you all again for following this build from start to finish i really enjoyed it and will be working on a base for her soon




Thanks
Wayne

[ridgers22]

I know the Bomber herself is finished but im working on a dio for her now so i thought id just do it on this thread

Iv desided to put this into the Scottish Nationals in Perth at the end of next month. I wanted to use the figures and the M5 trailer so i got a board that i thought looked right and put thin plastic card down to form the base. The next stage was to mark out the runway This was done with a staight edge and a scribing tool. The runways was where big square concreate slabs so thats what i tryed to recreate. A big concreate runway looked boring so i added a little bit of grass in a corner to give it some life.

When the ground work was done i painted the concreate using a mix of diffrent light greys till it looked ok to me. This was coated in several coats of Klear and then washed with a dark grey and weatheresd using pigments.

The next task was the M5 trailer this was painted with silver and then coated with hairspray. The top coat of olive drab was then applyed and left to dry ready for the chipping.

There are 5 figures in the kit itself but i only used 4 as i didnt like the pose of the last one. Theses where all base coated and ready for finishing.

This is what its looking like so far








Please feel free to comment and give any ideas where i can improve

Thanks
Wayne

[eoinfinnegan]

Congrats on a fantastic build, the diorama is stunning

[ridgers22]

So after about a week im Finally calling this all finished.
To be honest i didnt want it to end as i really really enjoyed everything this build gave me. From the interior to the exterior to the finished diorama.
So here goes with the final final update.

Well I finished the ground work and weathered it up abit with a wash and some pastels to wear the grey down a little. The next step was just a mix of PVA glue and ground up earth for a base of dirt at the edge this was then given a sprinkle of scatter grass to make some green on the base.

With this done i moved on to finishing the figures. This was done in the post 1943 uniforms with khaki green overalls and the standard leather brown jackets.These were then washed in a dark brown and left to dry. When dry i drybrushed a lighter mix of the uniform colours and gave the jackets a coat of gloss to symbolize the leather.

With the figures done it was just the M5 trailer to finish off. This was done with the hairspray technique with a silver base and olive green topcoat. when it was dry i carefully scrubbed away the topcoat to revile the silver. i think i over did it a little. Then the wheels were painted in tyre black and the whole thing was given a was and weathering with pigments.

All that was left was to stick everything down to the base and put the bombs on the trailer..

So without further ado here is the finished diorama

















So there you have it all finished

Thanks
Wayne

[T3hGuppy]

Fantastic job dude.

The figures really add scale and life to this big girl.

[UKguyInUSA]

Nice job, Wayne! How many hours did you put into the whole diorama, including the B-17?

Cheers,

Martin

[ridgers22]

Nice job, Wayne! How many hours did you put into the whole diorama, including the B-17?

Cheers,

Martin

Thanks martin

Not sure on how many hours but a rough guess would be 50/60ish

[UKguyInUSA]

Nice job, Wayne! How many hours did you put into the whole diorama, including the B-17?

Cheers,

Martin

Thanks martin

Not sure on how many hours but a rough guess would be 50/60ish

That's pretty good going for the amount of work!

[ridgers22]

Nice job, Wayne! How many hours did you put into the whole diorama, including the B-17?

Cheers,

Martin

Thanks martin

Not sure on how many hours but a rough guess would be 50/60ish

That's pretty good going for the amount of work!

Just a guess might be more.. all i know is its taking 3 months haha

[Raptor]

very nice diorama, how did you build the for it tarmac btw? Wish my model was finished too

[fightnjoe]

very nicely done on a very cool subject. i have several forts in different scales. one is the clear 1/48. i plan to do it up to the teeth in detail. i think i have more invested in the detail sets than i have in all the fort kits combined.





joe

[ridgers22]

very nicely done on a very cool subject. i have several forts in different scales. one is the clear 1/48. i plan to do it up to the teeth in detail. i think i have more invested in the detail sets than i have in all the fort kits combined.
joe

Thank you joe. I did give this everything i could that was available in my own modelling skills but im very pleased the way it turned out.

very nice diorama, how did you build the for it tarmac btw? Wish my model was finished too

The tarmac was just thin sheets of plasticard Scribed with a scriber, painted and then weathered up a little

Thanks
Wayne

[rodrant]

Great piece of work , very cool Diorama . You did a great job on this .

[75thRanger]

Absolutely great job on the fort. I can remember building the exact same model when I was a young lad. Probably was a brand new kit then Ha Ha! With all of the P.E. that is available for the kit now, I may try it again and see if I can find a way to show off the inside some. You are the man Wayne! What would my English brothers say? "It's the dogs bollicks!"

[Bissyboat]

What a beauty. Nice dio with a chilled atmosphere. Good job! :