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...

[CANicoll]

Had a bit of a break for the Thanksgiving holiday but slowly making progress.  Having a lot of trouble with my Vallejo paints clogging up the nozzles on both my Grex and my Iwata.  Maybe the paint is old??  I'm thinning about 50/50 and have even started using a few drops of retarder.  I don't get very far before the airbrush starts spitting and then forget getting any paint out of it.  I pulled both nozzles and soaked them in lacquer thinner.  Used a small brush and got gunk out of both.  What I didn't try but will next is spraying MRP acrylic lacquer and see what that does.  But I only have Vallejo primers... 

Anyway

I keep running into annoying fit issues, this time in the bomb bay.  There are two pieces that extend the length of the bay, but both pieces are a few mm too long and interfere with where the bomb bay bulkheads fit into the grooves in the fuselage halves:

It is an incredibly easy fix - simply snip off a bit on the ends, but reminds me of the Special Hobby P-39 fit issues. Should not happen.

Anyway, here is the bomb bay dry fitted.  I have some touch-up to do on some of the bombs.  Ham-fisted the painting...

Got the engine cowlings together and they take a bit of filler.  But I think that is coming along pretty well.  The left side shows the pre-sanding filler, the right side post sanding.

[Landlubber Mike]

Hey Chris, hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.  Great work on the kit - very cool subject.

I've been staying away from Vallejo primers, mostly because I work a lot with PE and I find it doesn't adhere as well.  That being said, I do use their Gloss Black as a base for their Metal Colors line (usually, after first priming with Mr. Surfacer for a solid base coat and to look for imperfections) and sometimes use their other primers for areas where I don't need a perfect base coat, like cockpit interiors, etc.  

When I use Vallejo, I do thin it - usually only a drop or a few drops per their instructions - using their thinner.  50/50 seems like quite a bit.  When the bottles get chunky I pitch them.  For the airbrush, I had similar problems with mine spitting when I first started.  I do two things - at the end of a session, I'll run some lacquer thinner through the airbrush like you do.  I also use one of these nozzle cleaners as a physical means of removing any gunk.  I find that no matter how well you think you clean the airbrush, Vallejo tends to leave a very small amount of residue that builds up over time.  

 

Forgive me if you know all this, I just thought that I would pass along what works for me.

[CANicoll]

On 11/30/2025 at 1:04 PM, Landlubber Mike said:

Hey Chris, hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.  Great work on the kit - very cool subject.

I've been staying away from Vallejo primers, mostly because I work a lot with PE and I find it doesn't adhere as well.  That being said, I do use their Gloss Black as a base for their Metal Colors line (usually, after first priming with Mr. Surfacer for a solid base coat and to look for imperfections) and sometimes use their other primers for areas where I don't need a perfect base coat, like cockpit interiors, etc.  

When I use Vallejo, I do thin it - usually only a drop or a few drops per their instructions - using their thinner.  50/50 seems like quite a bit.  When the bottles get chunky I pitch them.  For the airbrush, I had similar problems with mine spitting when I first started.  I do two things - at the end of a session, I'll run some lacquer thinner through the airbrush like you do.  I also use one of these nozzle cleaners as a physical means of removing any gunk.  I find that no matter how well you think you clean the airbrush, Vallejo tends to leave a very small amount of residue that builds up over time.  

 

Forgive me if you know all this, I just thought that I would pass along what works for me.

Mike, Thanks and you too!

No!! Incredibly helpful and the 'gunky' comment rings a bell.  I think I'm dealing with very old paint. I have so much I hate to pitch it all.  I will likely start mixing in a glass jar to check on the consistency and might have to use one of those battery-powered spin mixers to really mix it up.   

I sprayed some MRP this morning and it sprayed beautifully, as you would expect.  Where did you get that handy little tool you show above?  I'm going to have to get one... 

UPDATE:  I found the tool!  It is coming as part of a cleaning package.  Cheers!

Edited Monday at 06:11 PM by CANicoll
Updated....

[Landlubber Mike]

Oh good, glad you found it.  Sorry, I wasn't online yesterday and didn't see your post until this evening.  Hopefully that helps!

[CANicoll]

it did!  I didn't even know to look for it.  When I ordered some new Cleaner, it came with it.  Yay!

[CANicoll]

Making progress on the wing after getting the engine nacelles together and figuring out which of the engine pylons go with which nacelles.  According to the instructions, there are two different configurations.  For the life of me, I can't tell the difference with the exception of the join between the nacelles and the pylons is slightly different between the inner and out engines.

Back to my oft-repeated refrain... a lack of location capability is a liability here.  Believe it or not, this is the only pin to join the pylon to the wing;

The big challenge is then making sure the engines are facing in the right direction.  Here is my first attempt at a mock-up:

Right now using the fuselage/wing join line as the guide.  Also, as you can see, playing with attaching the Italeri pylon and the Hound Dog missile to the wing.  Might work!  I did some sanding to try and match the wing profile - and if it works, I'll use some screws from inside the wing to secure the missile pylon to the wing.  Have to see about sliding it forward to level out the missile.

Hoping to get this into paint in the next two weeks.

This is the intended scheme...