1/72 Modelcollect B-52G Early, Linebacker II

[FullArmor]

That's a very large plane, even in 1/72 scale.😲

[BlrwestSiR]

That's a fair bit of progress. I only have a couple smaller Modelcollect armour kits and the fit is similar to what you're experiencing. Likewise with the incomplete instructions. 

[CANicoll]

1 hour ago, BlrwestSiR said:

That's a fair bit of progress. I only have a couple smaller Modelcollect armour kits and the fit is similar to what you're experiencing. Likewise with the incomplete instructions. 

The build reviews online say basically the same thing.  However, this is worse than I expected.  Not as bad as Kitty Hawk's P-39 bad, however.    The lack of locating pins along that very long fuselage is problematic.

[CANicoll]

I'm still a bit unsure about not displaying the landing gear, but for now, made progress on the bomb bay.  Why the Italeri shows nothing here is beyond me, but at least this kit has the complete bomb set up.  Again, not the same bombs shown on the box.

First step was to get the bombs onto the racks.  Easy, right?  There is nothing to show where the bombs should be attached to the racks.  And the bombs themselves rest against the side rails - there is not even a pad for them to be attached to the rail. I kind of guessed where the bombs would be relative to the rack.   I used medium CA and hope none of these come loose because if they do, OMG what a PITA that will be to reattach!

Here are the racks installed in the tray.  There was nothing in the instructions to remind you that three of the racks need the bombs to be pointed in the other direction. (the row at the side of the rack towards the bottom of the picture).  

and with the bulkheads attached.  This assembly fits perfectly into the main fuselage.  However, the curve of the fuselage means that next to nothing other than the bombs will be seen.  Hence, and you can't see it, but the light weathering I did in the bomb bay is moot.

Here is the nose part showing just how much can be seen through the front windscreen - just wait till I add the clear parts!!  I did, subsequently, glue these halves together.  Major seam work ahead but I did get the parts to mostly align...

[FullArmor]

1 hour ago, CANicoll said:

I'm still a bit unsure about not displaying the landing gear, but for now, made progress on the bomb bay.  Why the Italeri shows nothing here is beyond me, but at least this kit has the complete bomb set up.  Again, not the same bombs shown on the box.

First step was to get the bombs onto the racks.  Easy, right?  There is nothing to show where the bombs should be attached to the racks.  And the bombs themselves rest against the side rails - there is not even a pad for them to be attached to the rail. I kind of guessed where the bombs would be relative to the rack.   I used medium CA and hope none of these come loose because if they do, OMG what a PITA that will be to reattach!

Here are the racks installed in the tray.  There was nothing in the instructions to remind you that three of the racks need the bombs to be pointed in the other direction. (the row at the side of the rack towards the bottom of the picture).  

and with the bulkheads attached.  This assembly fits perfectly into the main fuselage.  However, the curve of the fuselage means that next to nothing other than the bombs will be seen.  Hence, and you can't see it, but the light weathering I did in the bomb bay is moot.

Here is the nose part showing just how much can be seen through the front windscreen - just wait till I add the clear parts!!  I did, subsequently, glue these halves together.  Major seam work ahead but I did get the parts to mostly align...

This kit looks very challenging in the wrong way.😕

[DocRob]

Nice (extra) work, Chris. I´m sure, you will pull through with the big thing. Weird, how you exchanged the super bad Italeri kit for a bad modelcollect one. It seems there is some need for a really good kit.

Cheers Rob

[CANicoll]

9 hours ago, FullArmor said:

This kit looks very challenging in the wrong way.😕

It is challenging, but not so bad so I hope I'm not over doing the complaints.  The Kitty Hawk P-39 had me ripping out the entire nose armament after it was built as there was no way to close up the fuselage with it in there.  And literally NONE of the wing panels would fit, closed.  So that is my baseline comparison.  I think better instructions would help with the cockpit alignment and that might reduce some of that sanding I had to do.  But it is not shake and bake so maybe that is a good thing?  Have to do research and use the brain?

5 hours ago, DocRob said:

Nice (extra) work, Chris. I´m sure, you will pull through with the big thing. Weird, how you exchanged the super bad Italeri kit for a bad modelcollect one. It seems there is some need for a really good kit.

Cheers Rob

Thanks, Rob.  Yeah, the fit issues are something, but the lack of detailed instructions is too.  I guess MC went back to the old days where they basically point to where something should be attached and leave it up to you to figure it out.  I'll know how bad things are when I get back to the nose section and see how the seams are from last night's session.  And then the center fuselage section which is very long itself.  I may go through have a bottle of Tamiya Thin just on that...