Matchbox B-17G 2nd Patches 99th BG Italy 1944

[old thumper]

2ND PATCHES

 

Matchbox B-17G Flying Fortress, 346 Bomb Group, 99th Bomb Squadron, 15th Air Force, Tortorella, Italy, 1944.

 

It looks like this will be the group builds only B-17 and certainly it's only Matchbox B-17. I shall be building this one almost straight out of the box, the paint scheme looks an interested one, with all its repairs and patches. Here are the sprue shots. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2016 by old thumper

[rob85]

Great to see a b17 in here, and an  old matchbox kit! Cool

 

Rob

[modelling minion]

Wow! There's a blast from the past, built a few of these in my youth and remember them fondly.

Good luck with your build.

 

Craig.

[Knight_Flyer]

Me too, a kit of a reasonably low parts count and yet could be built into a good replica of a B-17.  Quite a difference from today's Revell B-17 kit.

[mungo1974]

Oh the memories..... Built a bunch of these as a child,when the pocket money wouldn't stretch to the then latest/greatest B-17 from Hasegawa.

 

Had my own Combat box formation hanging from my bedroom ceiling,a mix of vintage Airfix/Matchbox/Frog B-17 kits... Plus 'Little Friends' and acouple of 109/190's.

 

Will be watching this one with interest. 

[tonyot]

Great to see the old Matchbox Fort and I love the 2nd Patches scheme from Italy too,......one of my favourite USAAF Fort schemes,.....pity the new Airfix kit doesn`t include the correct turret or else I`d be having a go at it myself,......good luck and I look forward to seeing how you get on,

Cheers

            Tony 

[old thumper]

Thanks all.

I can't find any pictures of the upper surface of the wings, so will have to use a bit of guess work. I assume and hope the nmf section of wing as seen from underneath extends to the upper surface.

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2016 by old thumper

[tonyot]

Here are some more reference pics;

 

I have seen another pic of the crash of 2nd Patches but I cannot find it,...if I do I`ll add it later. I think that it is safe to assume that the entire outer wing was silver,...upper and lower, 

 

Here is some artwork too;

Cheers

        Tony

 

[old thumper]

Thanks very much for that Tony.

[mungo1974]

13 hours ago, old thumper said:

I can't find any pictures of the upper surface of the wings, so will have to use a bit of guess work. I assume and hope the nmf section of wing as seen from underneath extends to the upper surface.

 

There is another image in the series that Tony partially shared of Patches in formation with Checkertail P-51's taken from above that shows the NMF upper wing surfaces...It was quicker to replace the whole outer wing section with a brand new one or a salvaged item than fix any sheet metal damage with patches(ironic given its name) and get the aircraft back on Op's

Edited November 18, 2016 by mungo1974

[old thumper]

Thanks very much, and good news as that was what i was hoping for.

[PhantomBigStu]

Watching aloing, like to see how you tackle this MB kits thumper

[old thumper]

Well I have now finally had the chance to make a little progress on this. 

What's been done so far?

Painted the inside of fuselage and cockpit area, added transparencies and assembled cockpit.

 

Notes.

The kit has a very basic interior that when complete will be barely visible from outside, so I shall just add the pilot figures and call it a day as far as the cockpit goes. The transparencies while clear have a rippled Victorian glass effect to them. All transparencies are glued from the fuselage inside and do not fit tightly or evenly against the exterior of the fuselage. The ball turret is moulded only to turn and shall be glued in place after the kit is finished so that i can gain access to the interior in order to add the guns after removing window masking.

I need to get cracking with this kit so such problems as poorly fitting windows will just have to be ignored if I am to finish on time.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2016 by old thumper

[old thumper]

Since my last update I had a change of heart about keeping the original Matchbox transparencies. Gone is the cockpit glazing which has now been replaced with windows made from scrap clear plastic packaging, the mid upper turret and nose glazing will be replaced with spares from my unbuilt Revell Memphis Belle kit. As all the other transparencies are too much trouble to replace the original Matchbox parts will have to be retained.

Fuselage and wings are now assembled, since the taking these photos filler has also been added.

 

Apart from the transparency problem everything is going together easily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited December 7, 2016 by old thumper

[tonyot]

Looking good,.....but I`d probably stick with the Matchbox clear nose part as it is much better than the awful Revell item.

Good luck with the build,

 

Cheers

            Tony

[stevej60]

Excellent start I never got round to building any of the larger Matchbox bomber's so great to see this one being done.

[mungo1974]

Keep up the good work Old Thumper.

On a kinda related note,i ordered some newly released Print-Scale decals recently...Postie delivered them today,i think a certain 99th BG Fortress may end up on my bench too.

 

[old thumper]

2 hours ago, mungo1974 said:

Keep up the good work Old Thumper.

On a kinda related note,i ordered some newly released Print-Scale decals recently...Postie delivered them today,i think a certain 99th BG Fortress may end up on my bench too.

 

 

I can understand why it would as 2nd Patches is a very interesting looking aircraft. I don't see myself building another Matchbox B-17 but could be tempted to build another 2nd Patches at some point.

Do you think the ailerons and elevators would have been painted in a different shade of o/d to the rest of the aircraft? 

 

[Blitz23]

Love a B-17 build, nice to see an old Matchbox kit being built.

[old thumper]

Well it looks as though 2nd Patches didn't manage to make it home from this mission.

Other things conspired against my finishing this model in time, but I will finish it before starting my next build.

 

I decided on giving this build a patchy, weathered and battle damaged look.

All paints used are enamels.

Undersides are Humbrol 140 gull grey.

Top surfaces are mainly Revell 86 olive drab, chosen as I was looking for more of a faded brownish o/d.

A couple of odd panels are Testors field drab which is pretty close to the Revell 86.

Ailerons and elevators are Humbrol 155 o/d while the large wing patches are Testors o/d, both of these paints are an almost identical greener shade of o/d than the much browner Revell paint. 

The bare metal panels are alclad airframe aluminium sprayed over gloss black. 

 

 

Both pictures were taken in different light, the lower picture being the best likeness.

 

 

 

With three other much more modern B-17 kits in the stash this build was not something I intended to get that heavily into with alterations etc. Life however is rarely that simple and I found myself being side tracked with replacing this kits badly fitting and ugly transparencies. After fiddling about for ages cutting replacement cockpit windows I decided to cut the whole lot out and replace the entire canopy and cockpit roof with the unwanted part in my Revell Memphis Belle kit. 

 

Before applying the decals with Humbrol decalfix I gave the paint a rub down and buff with a Halfords fine finishing cloth, no varnish was used.

 

Edited December 26, 2016 by old thumper

[Stew Dapple]

She's looking good OT, shame it won't be finished before the GB deadline but I'll look forward to seeing her done

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[PhantomBigStu]

I concur, best of luck with finishing it OT

[Blitz23]

I like it, look forward to seeing how it turns out.

[old thumper]

I have finally declared this build as finished.

This was one of those kits that I could of carried on building for the rest of my life but I had to draw a line underneath it in the end as I was getting bored.

Rather than not messing about and just getting on with building the kit straight out of the box as originally intended there were so many bits that I couldn't resist changing.

The clear parts are pretty bad on this kit, firstly they resemble pond ice and secondly they don't fit. In the end I finished up replacing the nose, dorsal turret, radio compartment window and main cockpit windows with unwanted parts from the Revell B17F kit, the smaller windows were mostly done with glue and glaze, the waist gun windows are the original Matchbox windows but have been botched up by surrounding them with filler. The wheels on this kit are rubbish but I wasn't going to pay out on aftermarket and used them anyway. The decals had gotten damp but actually turned out pretty good in the end. The guns and pedestal for the dorsal turret were donated from the spares box as were a number of other bits.

 

I enjoyed building this kit but will never build another. For it's time it was a better kit than the then Airfix or Revell alternatives but is now obsolete. I would still recommend the kit as a fun build, Matchbox kits are still more fun to build than most modern kits.   

 

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2017 by old thumper

[vppelt68]

She and you are both winners V-P