Building Revell's 1/48 B-29

[JohnnyK]

WOW!!! That is a great photo of the greenhouse. Now I know why you were trying to make your own greenhouse frame. I wish that I had that photo when I was building my model. I would have removed those big bumps on the greenhouse frame. The big question is why did Monogram/Revell put those big rivets on the frame anyway? The tend to do odd things for no reason.

[JohnnyK]

After the seam on the fuselage was cleaned up I added Bare Metal Foil to each panel individually. The raised panel lines were used to guide my hobby knife when I trimmed the BMF. I am currently building a Monogram 1/48 B-58 and I removed the raised panel lines. Dumb move because I now have nothing to indicate where the panel lines are 

 

I used 0000 steel wool to enhance the grain of the BMF. 

Usually I do not add decals until the model is fully assembled. With this model I was concerned that it would be difficult to add decals after the main wings were added because the model would be clumsy to hold. So I added the fuselage decals before I added the main wings.

Next up are the engine exhaust on the main wings. These were a major pain in the butt to fix. 

 

[GazzaS]

Don't feel bad, Johnny.   I've done it too.

[JohnnyK]

Outside of spending hours applying foil, dealing with the fuselage was pretty straight forward. Now it's time to have some real FUN (i.e. big problem) with the main wings. In fact, the wings are the most fun (i.e. biggest problem) of the entire kit. The fun revolves around the engine exhaust pipes.

This is a photo of FIFI's engine exhausts. The larger pipe is the main engine exhaust. The smaller pipe is the exhaust of the turbo-supercharger which was located behind the louvers located in front of the exhaust pipe.

These photos show how Revell dealt with the twin pipe exhaust system. The top photo shows an indent in the nacelle. This is where the exhaust pipe is installed. The next two photos show the result.  Revell only supplies a single pipe that does not fit properly into the indent . REALLY REVELL!!!! That looks really stupid.

I purchased to aluminum tubes and cut them into pieces. I then painted them with Testors' Flat black and Rust. 

Next I filled in the indent with filler.

Next I needed to drill two holes in the nacelle for the two exhaust pipes. Out came a big drill.

The result is two holes for the two pipes. Each engine has two sets of two exhaust pipes. So, 8 indents have to be filled and 16 holes have to be drilled.

I inserted the painted tubes after I finished foiling the wings. They are not 100% accurate, but the look way better than what Revell supplies.

 

[GusMac]

Nice solution and looks so much better

[JohnnyK]

36 minutes ago, GusMac said:

Nice solution and looks so much better

Thanks. Wait until you see my solution for making sure that the wings are glued to the fuselage at the correct angle. You'll have a huge laugh. 

[GazzaS]

Johnny,

    That looks great!  I didn't put too much effort in the exhaust area on my effort.   I didn't worry about the wing angle, either...my brass spars followed the lines of the kit spar-stubs.

 

Gaz

[JohnnyK]

It took a long time, but the foiling of the wings is complete.

Foiling of the top of the wings did not take too long because of the large painted area.

However, foiling of the underside of the wings took a long time because the underside is 95% foil. Each panel needs to be individually foiled. The nice thing about this is that it produces realistic looking panel lines. No highlighting of the panel lines is required.

 

[JohnnyK]

It's about time that this model is finished. Next in line is gluing the nacelles to the wings.

Revell's solution is to glue the edge of the nacelles to the thin area shown in red. Not only would this result in a weak joint, but there is a good chance that glue would ooze out of the joint. Time to put on the thinking cp.

I cut sheet styrene into strips and laminated them into blocks. The blocks were glued to the nacelles 

The back of the engines were glued to the blocks which resulted in a strong, clean joint.

Time for final assembly. The main wings are designed to slip over the spars that extend from the fuselage. This is a good solution and produces a strong joint. However, the spars are a little loose and the heavy wings don't fit tight to the wind root. 

Since the model is finished in foil, I could not use tape to hold the wing to the fuselage because the tape would pull off the foil. I stacked a bunch of chair cushions on to of each other and wedged the model between the cushions. This way the wing was in the correct position as the glue dried. 

The greenhouse is a different shape from the fuselage. Using a hairdryer I heated up the greenhouse and held it to the proper shape until it cooled.

That did the trick. The greenhouse now matches the shape of the fuselage. If only I sanded off those dumb looking rivets. The last thing to be done was to install the landing gear and the turrets. The model is finally finished. Go to the tread "Finished 1/48 B-29" to see the results.

[GusMac]

Yep, that was worth a snigger, but also ingenious!

You obviously don't have a dog who gets to roam free where you're modelling. Our 2 would have thought .. oh, cool a nice bed ..

[GazzaS]

Johnny,

    Your efforts look great.  Makes me envious that mine has passed into the landfill in the sky.  I wish there were a newer kit with better surface details.  If there is one area where I am a complete failure, it's scribing.

I'm getting the hankering to foil again...  I have a P-40 and hopefully I'll have a MiG or two under the tree.

There is a vac canopy replacement for the kit which includes the large gaskets that surround each window.  Interestingly, too, all of the glass panels behind the nose cap are flat.  I hate vacform, though.  Details always appear too soft.  It might be okay for bubble tops like the P-47, but if there are any frames, they just look weak.

 

Gaz

[DocRob]

Nice solution with the pillows, that is the most comfortable curing kit I ever saw, my kits are a little jealous . 

Cheers Rob

[MARU 5137]

JohhnyK,

I feel privileged to watch and see your MAGNIFICENT BUILD and how patient you are to do each panel with foil so FLAWLESSLY..

Simply JAW DROPPING  GORGEOUS.

 

Thank you.

[Alex B]

Hello Johnny K.

 

Have just started working on this kit. Just finished adding the Metallic Details exhausts to one wing and scribing panel lines to that wing and one half of the fuselage. Would like to add rivets but can't get good photos of the whole plane to see where all the rivet lines should go. Any help there? Close-up photos of your model perhaps or reference photos of the real thing. I have the the Squadron Walk-Around book which of limited help.

Thanks.

 

Alex B.