Meng's B-17G

[AntoineG]

Hi,

 

Eggplanes have always looked to me as a good bit of fun and when a fellow from my club came back from a show with an F4U-4, I told myself ‘ I’ve got to get this one ’.

A few months later, at Cosford model show, I was able to find it on a stand. With it was nearly the complete range of eggplanes from Meng and when I saw the B-17G, I knew this was the one I was going to build.

 

 

Back to the club stand, we looked at it with some fellow members (that is the reason I don’t have pictures of the complete sprues  ). It appears that the kit belongs to ‘Meng Kids’ brand and for sure it can be managed by kids: one can assemble the model without glue, without paint (like good old Matchbox kits, the sprue are coloured to fit the paint scheme) and the decals are replaced by stickers. Internal details are non-existing, appart from the bomb bay that is represented opened with two big bombs.

On the other hand, the surfaces details are very nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One word about the packaging which is very well done with all the big parts and sprues packages individualy in plastic bags.

In addition to the parts, the stickers and the instruction, one also get a explaining card, which, unless you read japanese, explains really few...

 

 

So it could have been an express built, like shown here partially built...

 

 

Could have….

… unless you like to have some details in your kits, like I do.

 

So now the main challenge will be to add some details while keeping the spirit of an eggplane, if you see what I mean.

 

To start with, I’ve decided to add pistons to the engines; Meng is only providing the central hub.

The pistons are sourced from the spare box, from a (bad) representation of a Twin Wasp engines. With two of them, I had enough to do four Cyclones.

After many tries, the preferred way to build the engine was:

·         Place the central hub in position in the wing

·         Remove the (ugly) piston heads from the pistons.

·         Identify where the ejector mark is on each piston

·         Remove one piston at the time from the carter.

 

·         Flatten the large section of the cylinder where the ejector mark is : this will keep the mark at the back of the engine; the identification is only there to help you finding the mark when the piston is removed from the carter.

·         Cut the thinner part of the cylinder with an angle so that it will fit on the central hub.

·         Place the piston around the hub; trim if necessary.

 

·         Repeat for the eight other cylinders.

·         Once all cylinders are in place, apply a tiny amount of glue to set them on the central hub, be careful not to glue the wing in the process.

·         After a few minutes, remove the engine from the wing

 

·         To hide a bit the junction between the hub and the cylinders, I had a ring of wire in front of them.

 

As it then looked like I had a nice sunflower, I decided to try a new way to reproduce it: put it in the garden, watered it a bit... and you’ll quickly got three more.

 

 

and you’ll quickly got three more 😁

 

 

Cheers,

 

Antoine

 

 

[Azgaron]

Cool, fun plane! Good start and nice work with the engines!

 

One of the planes/kits on my wish list.

 

Håkan

 

[AntoineG]

While the engines are sunbathing, I am preparing the interior of the fuselage.

 

To keep it short, there is no details. What can be found in the inside of this egg are structural frames to allow a quick and easy built… and to resist any crushing.

I think my dog (a good lovely lab) could have walked over it without causing any damage.

Actually, she did put a paw over it (with my help) after I've emptied it... no damage

(no dog nor model has been hurt during the footage)

 

Anyway, before adding anything, let’s gut the beast (no Fw-190 in the vicinity though)

So first thing is to remove all those structural bits to transform this highly engineered kit into an empty shell. On the picture, you can see the part before and after. I’m keeping some element though, just in case. We’ll see how it goes when I’ll start to reconstruct.

 

 

 

You can also see that on the lower fuselage/wing assembly, I’ve opened an space for the lower gun turret. As provided, this (upside down) turret is only half a plastic ball (see instruction sheet on the first post). I’ll try to improve that. We’ll come later on it.

In addition, you may see I’ve already started some reconstruction with the rear gunner position where I have added some plasticard to close the area. I'll come later on it too.

 

In the end, I ended up with a good enough basis to try and recreate a decent-ish eggplane-style interior.

 

 

Antoine

 

[Azgaron]

Nice work! Love to see how it turns out!

 

Håkan

 

[AntoineG]

Oups...

'forgot the engines under the sun... they are all dried up now... where are the famous UK rains?!?

 

 

fortunately, I managed to get some seeds...

 

[Pete in Lincs]

Tsk.

Modellers.

They buy a nice easy kit that should take a couple of hours to build,

And they make it all complicated and time consuming.

It's brilliant, Antoine.

[AntoineG]

Thanks Pete!

 

Now that I have removed what I need to start rebuilding, I did a "plastering" of the inside of both fuselages. After a good wet sanding, I've got nice and smooth interiors (even it doesn't realy looks that way on the picture).

 

While the putty was drying, I strated to work on the bomber/navigator place in the nose.

The 'Norden' bomb sight is made of a piece of sprue and thick plasticard. The rest is plasticard.

 

 

I also start to work on the bomb bay. This is indeed on the critical path. So the ceilling and the sides of the bay are glued and the bombs have been puttied, sanded and primed with Tamiya white (this is to give a good base for the yellow)

 

I also start to work on the cockpit but only manage to cut the floor. Here is a fit test with everything in (I may have to move the navigator seat forward).

 

 

Cheers,

 

Antoine

 

[Azgaron]

Nice scratch building!

 

Håkan

 

[AntoineG]

Hi,

 

Now that I have managed to free some space on my workbench, I have decided it was time to start clearing the shelf of doom too. First on the list was this funny B-17 on which I never really stopped working. It was just a very slow process…

So, what happened since July 2018 ?

I’ve tried to summarise some of the job done on the following picture.

 

 

First thing was to finish to paint the bomb and to close the bomb-bay.

Once completed, it was possible to work on the flight deck: dashboard, central console, seats with their belts, control levers and throttles.

Further back in the aircraft, a floor was installed for the side gunners.

Finally, a seat was created for the rear gunner.

A layer of interior green (Gunze H58) was applied (before adding the details), except for the dash board that received a layer of flat black (Tamiya). And everything was sealed with a coat of matt varnish (Gunze H20) that in fact gives a nice satin effect.

 

I’ll explain what other mods I’ve done later this week.

 

Cheers,
 

Antoine