RC Boater Bill

I felt the same way- then I remembered my twelve 1/72 Fokker Triplanes! If we could get another 8-10 people with similar obsessions, we could all get together and swap models and go home with quite an assortment of models! (Of course we’d all end up with the same collection of subjects…. one Dr.1, one Ju-88, one bf-109, one….. etc., etc., etc., .!!!!) I’m OK — I’ll go lie down now……

That’s what I did at the end- I lined the ceiling and centerline wall, each with a “panel” of lead sheet covering them. That got me to my desired target weight of 30g for the cockpit assembly. Painted it interior green to match- so it isn’t noticeable.

Test fitting the new seats. I dressed them up with some of those 3-D printed seat belts. .. I had to shave away a tiny bit of lead up front- forgot to allow room for the locating pin/socket under that curved section that space is really full!

It is a great idea- I first saw it last year when I built my first Bandai Gundam kit. One of those things that makes you wonder- why didn’t they think of this 30 years ago??? Glad to see Airfix is using it now.

^^^^ What the Minion said!! I am following this one with great interest!

AW, Thanks for asking about the seat- you got me thinking about it again. (I had been thinking about how to deal with it, but then got totally distracted by dealing with the nose weights!). While looking for parts that might help Dennis’ build of his PBJ-1, I discovered the Academy kit includes an extra pair of high-back seats. I popped the original kit parts off their bases, and am prepping the new seats to replace them. They aren’t a perfect match, but they are a pair, and have cushions which the kit seats are lacking. (I’ll save the kit seats I removed for my other copy of the kit.) While waiting for that paint to dry, I went ahead and filled in the space ahead of the instrument panel. I also took my “extra” nose gear rectangle and glued it to the ceiling of the access tunnel. Now the cockpit assembly weighs 28g (started at 4g). I should be able to get a strip of lead weighing a couple of grams under the forward floor, getting me to my goal of 30g. (Plus, these last bits are further forward, so the’ll have a greater impact.) I must say, I have found the lead flashing easy to work with. The sheet can be cut with a hobby knife or scissors, and is easy to shape. As a ship modeler, I am aware of how lead fittings can degrade over time, turning into lead powder. So I am painting the exposed bits, to hopefully keep grey dust from showing up someday on the inside of my canopies! (Rather optimistic of me to think I’ll still have this model in 20-30 years!)

It is- that’s one of the minor inaccuracies in this kit. I understand that later versions of the B-25 had a low-back seat on the copilot side, but the B model should really have two high-backed seats. Apparently the change was made in the B-25C- to make ingress/egress easier. I found a post on hyperscale from 2007 discussing it- https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/hyperscale/b-25c-d-g-j-seats-for-those-building-b-25-s-follow-t465313.html I’m considering using the kit’s pilot figures to hide it…. but I’ll wait to see if it really shows when it comes time to attach the canopy…

Dennis, Look at Scalemates for the Academy SB-17g kit- the full instructions are there. You’ll see the guns for the turrets all shown on the “not used” list. Would any of those help? I don’t have any clear parts that will fit a square opening, I’m sorry to say. Despite not knowing what the ‘dome should look like, I’ll still offer the suggestion that maybe you could vacform something suitable….? -Bill

Time to get serious about the nose weight… Airfix says you need to add 25g to the nose gear bay. I have read other build articles, where people filled the space with lead shot, and then discovered (usually too late) that it wasn’t enough. I have plenty of lead, thanks to my RC scale ship building, so I did an experiment. I poured 30g of lead into a mixing cup- it didn’t look like all that much. But when I poured it into the designated space, only half of it fit! (Using 30g vice 25g as a target value, for some insurance.) I did a quick math check- a sphere inside a cube only occupies about 52% of the volume of the box. That’s a lot of wasted space! (Yes, a bunch of balls in a container will tend to settle in a way minimize the loss, but they are still not as dense as filling the space completely!) So, on to plan B. Lead shot is hard to get these days, so I had ordered a small roll of lead flashing a couple of years ago. It is a foot wide, 10 foot long roll of 1mm thick lead sheet. I cut a piece about 4 inches long by 1 inch wide- that weighed 30g. I proceeded to then cut little rectangles that fit in the nose gear bay, so I could stack them in the space… Here’s the remains of the lead after I already cut about 60% of it into strips. Each strip weighs about 2g. I weighed the finished interior before I started: 4g. After filling the bay with strips, it now weighs 20g. (Started at 4g, plus eight 2g lead strips to fill the available space.) I still need to get another 9g in there just to hit Airfix’s recommended value of an additional 25g! My next step will be to cut some half circles to fill the space forward of the instrument panel. I think (and hope) should be able to get 10 g in there. I’ll also try to squeeze another 2-3 g under the floor…. I should have gone with gold or depleted uranium!! 😎

How big is the astrodome? I may have a suitable part in the spares box….. And for the guns- I have the Academy SB-17G kit on the SoD…. it doesn’t need any guns, so there may be a bunch of spares there. Academy did some creative stuff with sprue gates- so there may or may not be any in that kit. Let me know if you want me to take a look….

I had the same reaction!

I have used Stynlrez primer on multiple projects before, but tonight I tried a new color in that line: “Metal Silver”. I used it as a primer for the parts that will be getting a metallic finish later, including the bomb bay, nacelle insides, engines, wheel hubs, etc. I am really happy with how nicely it went down, and how it already looks like flat aluminum. (I don’t see a need to paint over it in the bomb bay!) Here’s a shot with the interior painted. Airfix tells you to paint everything interior green, but the bomb bay should be aluminum and the cockpit bronze green.

Please do— that’s exactly the path I was headed down. My plan is to carefully remove the inside masks so I can reuse them on the outside later on. I’m hoping you’ll come back and let us know if we are over-thinking this….😎

That’s a great idea- wish I’d thought of that! I masked, painted, and installed the inserts three nights ago on my B-25B. (But haven’t closed the fuselage yet.) I assume the reason you did this is to reduce the chances of the interior color appearing as a ring around the overly thick (compared to scale) window from the outside. Maybe I should remove a bit of the interior green in a ring around the mask on the inside to minimize this??

Dermot, that is really off to a great start! I have seen the kit in a local shop, never seen one built! What is your plan for the canopy? If it was my issue to solve, I think I’d add thin strips of styrene to the fuselage sides, to bring them up to the level of the bottom edge of the canopy, sanding them to fine-trim the correct angle. (Instead of trying to fill such a big gap with putty- I’m a menace with a putty knife!) -Bill

IMO, I think they just got over-focused on “We’ll make it so you can add the windows from the outside near the end”. While it makes sense for the other little windows, it doesn’t really seem that way for an insert that is more “fuselage side” than “window”. They were so focused on being clever that they forgot to be practical. But it really is a minor thing, given how well the inserts actually fit.

Airfix has some clever engineering in their kits, and this one is no exception. ButI think they got a little carried away when they designed some of the windows to be installed from the outside - I’m talking about the big side inserts. The instructions don’t have you installing the big side inserts until late in the build—- step 60-something. I read a couple of build articles that recommended just installing them earlier, when you have access to both sides to get the exterior side nice and flush. (It also makes painting the interior a little easier.) But I must give Airfix credit- the inserts do fit perfectly! I used the masks from my Eduard set on the inside, I then airbrushed the interior after taking this photo…

Here’s all of them in a gallery…

I did finish them all, and took them to the club meeting the other night. Here is a photo of #3:

For no particular reason, I just haven’t done WW2 twins much in the last 23 years, after picking up the hobby again in earnest. The Academy PBY-5 Catalina is from 2003, and was my first ever “build article” for a website…. (https://modelingmadness.com/review/allies/us/michaelspby.htm) I think it also my most recent WW2 twin, as the C-45 and C-47 I’ve done since were in postwar markings…and the Widgeon is in pre-war colors…. I do have multiple eligible twins in the stash now — I had 12 to pick from! (Went with the new Airfix B-25B Mitchell.)

The Airfix instructions pretty much call for the entire interior to be painted “ interior green”, which I really doubted was correct. I remembered reading somewhere that the cockpits were often painted a darker green, for example. Over on hyperscale, in response to my question this, “modeldad” posted the pages from the B-25B Technical Order that called out how each part should be painted. Quote: ”Here is the B manual listing each part. Lemon-Yellow was untinted Zinc Chromate. Yellow-Green was tinted ZC, tinted with black and aluminum paste or powder at that time. It was more green than yellow.” Looking at the document, I see what I think is a more reasonable answer, and what I plan to follow. Most of the interior will be still be US Interior green, but with the following changes: - pilot’s cockpit: bronze green - pilot’s seats: aluminum - bomb bay: aluminum

I have plenty of lead on hand for ballasting my RC scale ships- I poured out 30g of shot- it didn’t take much, and should easily fit under the cockpit floor! So I am not going to worry about using an aftermarket metal cockpitset, and just get on with it using the kit parts……

The Airfix instructions call for 25g of weight in the nose. I wonder if it is enough? ( I have seen a few different reviews where people said “I filled the space with weights, but I don’t know how much it weighed- but it wasn’t enough.”)

I am in with this one! I also picked up the SAC metal cockpit/landing gear set. I don’t really care about the metal gear so much- I really wanted the cast metal cockpit bits, as I have read that it is a real challenge to get the model to stop being a tail-sitter. I have a lot of choices on the markings, as you can see. I won’t do the kit options- I’ll do a different plane from the Doolittle mission- right now I’m leaning towards Doolittle’s plane. (Only a couple of the 16 planes had nose art, so in most cases it means just using a different serial number.)

FWIW, that kit was first released back in 1962! An all new kit was released in 2012. Any dedicated aftermarket for the “1/72 Revell B-17” is likely intended for the new kit, and may not fit the old one without some work. You asked for advice on how to approach this build, so here goes…. If I was in your shoes, I would look at the instructions for the many newer kits to get an idea on what is missing, and just scratch build some basic shapes to fill the voids- as you said, you won’t be able to see much anyways. I would probably just leave the radio room closed- I think the gun wasn’t visible when stowed? I would have fun adding various bits of styrene to the inside of the waist area to dress it up. Aftermarket guns are fairly inexpensive- those are worth buying, IMO. (Assuming you don’t have spares leftover from some other kit.) You will likely have some issues with fit- but so what? I wouldn’t drive myself crazy trying to make a perfect B-17 magazine-cover-worthy replica from that kit- I’d just have fun applying my adult skills to improve a kit I last built when I was in my early teens! Good luck, and have fun!