Academy B-29

[Overhaulin]

Hi

Looking for opinions of this kit, specifically the Enola Gay. Popped into my local Modelzone(Liverpool) today and was tempted, but held off. (£24.99 btw).

Seems to me not to be that common, so would pop back for it, if it's considered a reasonable.

The shop did seem to be full of armour and Si-Fi stuff too. So if your local maybe worth a visit.

I also saw a Hasegawa FW 190A with torpedo 1/48. guess how much... go on guess.........

£64.99

[jenshb]

It's a pretty goodlooking kit. Lots of detail in the cockpit and interior that you will never see though the small windows. The wheelwells are a little naked though, so the Eduard etched brass set may come in handy if you don't feel like making it yourself. All panel lines are engraved and the fit is quite decent. There's an absence of rivets, so for a bare metal aircraft you may want to add some using the Rosie the Riveter tools or similar. Definitely the best 1:72 kit, although there isn't much choice:) Oh, one thing to watch out for - warpage of some of the longer parts, especially the wings. The fact that the upper and lower surfaces of the flaps are separate items (but no flap interiors) makes it a bit awkward to straighten out the wings if they are warped. Hopefully, Academy have fixed this problem.

Jens

[Steve N]

I've always thought it was a beautiful kit. Just a couple of little nitpicks..

The biggest gaffe is that the prominent cooling gills for the turbosuperchargers are completely missing from the engine nacelles. The massive Eduard PE set includes them, but it costs almost as much as the original kit. Also, no gunsights are included for the side blisters (a non-issue if you're building the Enola Gay or another "Silverplate" B-29.)

There few other little issues to be aware of..there are some panel lines above the cockpit outlining a wedge-shaped area. These should be removed, as they represent where the inflight refeuling receptacle was installed on the later B-29s and B-50 (Academy recycled the same fuselage for both.) Also, mating the nacelles to the wings can be a bit tricky, as there are just some rather indistinct lines scribed on the wings to indicate their location (again, because Academy used the same wings for the B-50 kit, which has completely different nacelles.)

Cheers!

Steve

[Overhaulin]

Thanks guys.

Seems I'll be popping back then, (any excuse )

Just hope it hasnt been snapped up.

Ian

[Smiffy]

Agree, it's a very nice kit.

The biggest problem I've found, is the availability of aftermarket decals. Or more specifically the lack of said decals as the kit ones look a bit naff.

Seems you can get options for Korean war a/c but if you want to do something from WWII, then...nothing.

I ended up getting an old Esci sheet off e-bay. They're quite badly yellowed and are currently sitting on my window sill in an attempt to restore clarity.

[David H]

Hi Ian,

I have built the B-50 and have a B-29 under construction now, although its a low priority project.

All the comments posted so far have been spot-on. I'd just like to elaborate on a couple of points.

1) The cockpit glass is plenty clear, but surprisingly little is visible once the frames have been painted. The fit of the glass on the left hand side, up near the fuselage "crown" is rather poor. I discovered that you should add a shim of .010 strip along the left canopy sill to lift up the canopy and this will improve the fit problem.

2) If you look at the framework for the bomb aimers piece, you will notice the "spokes" of framework at roughly the 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock positions are not symmetrical. They should be.

3) Building the model with the bomb doors closed will improve the structural integrity, but completely defeats the purpose of building a B-29 if depicting "The Bomb" is really important to you.

4) The Wings. Where do i start??

As has been mentioned, the flaps have been engineered separately to allow the maximum flexibility between versions.

Like the saying goes, those that try to please everyone, please no one.

You need to start by making sure the upper flap segment fits correctly to, and flush with the butt end of the wing trailing edge. The little aerodynamic fairings have to line up and that sort of drives the construction and alignment of the whole wing assembly. Unfortunately there's an appalling lack of alignment pins or tabs to help with this.

Next, the wing pieces in this kit are highly prone to warpage. It's fixable, but the wing segments require careful taping and clamping while the glue sets up so you get a perfectly flat wing.

As was mentioned before, the locations for the engine nacelles are vague at best. When constructing and aligning the inboard engine nacelles, the rear edge needs to be in alignment with the front of the fairing molded to the lower half of the flaps. If you do that and keep everything pointed straight, you will notice the location of the nacelle and the cutout for the wheel well don't exactly line up; you can see the wheel well cutout peeking tru from outside of the nacelle. So, you need to lay in some planks of .030 to "narrow" the wheel well cutouts in the lower wing halves. Whats more, this throws off the geometry of the cutout in the nacelle for the main landing gear struts. So, you need to file and re-cut the opening so you don't have any clearance problems when inserting the strut.

Finally- Once you have the wings glued together, filled, sanded, etc, there's a neat trick you can do to improve the fit of the engine nacelles.

1) Assemble the engine nacelle halves, but don't sand the seams yet.

2) Get some adhesive backed Bare Metal foil. Cut out four big, fairly wide strips and lay these down on the wing where the engine nacelles are gonna be located. The foil has to be big enough to the entire mating surface with the nacelle is covered.

3) Carefully measure, mark, and slide the nacelles onto the wing, over the foil areas. Tack the nacelles in their final location with some thin CA. Nothing wrong with doing this procedure one nacelle at a time, just remember the nacelles have to be parallel to each other, as well as the fuselage.

4) using a 50-50 mix of thin and medium viscosity CA, apply the CA where the nacelle wraps around the wing upper and lower surfaces. Make sure you have good coverage in the "corner" where the nacelle touches the wing, especially where the nacelle wraps around the leading edge of the wing. Allow this to dry. (Give it a couple of hours)

5) Once the CA is fully dry, gently twist/slide the nacelles free and "crack" them off the wing. Slide them off by going outboard; don't try to "pull" them from off the front of the wing. As the nacelles come free, it will pull the bare metal foil off the wing surface with them. When you get bored you can go back and peel all the remaining bits of foil from the wing.

6) Using rigid-backed sanding sticks and flexi-files, sand/ file away the excess superglue and bare metal foil from the nacelles. Be careful to avoid chamfering of the square edges where the nacelle meets the wing.

When all is said and done, you will be left with a set of tailored engine nacelles what will require little if any filler, and you can hold these off until very late in construction, in order to keep things out of the way. I have tried this technique myself and it works. If you want to see some pictures let me know and i will see if i can take some.

Sorry to be all long winded about this but IMHO forewarned is forearmed.

david

[theplasticsurgeon]

Here's what you get: This kit was the KP-29 tanker, but came with all the parts for a bomber. Decals are Aeromaster.

As others have said - there are detail and fit issues, but it's far superior to the Airfix B-29.

I was looking for an Enola Gay kit - but at £8, I just couldn't leave it behind.

This model is a tailsitter, so loose as much weight inside the gunners' compartment as you thinks won't be seen.

Use space behind the pilots' seats for ballast - there's nothing visible, and it's needed.

Be very careful assembling the fuselage. IIRC the instructions would have you install the cockpit etc into one half of the fuselage - then you find a location peg and notch on the other half. Very easy to build with a fuselage gap or oval section - better if it's round.

Very similar and has been mentioned - Academy RB-50G:

I use a tailstand for this one - or let it fly!