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Revell 1/72 Fortress Mk.II FINISHED!!


modelling minion

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Time to stake my place in this STGB as I signed up for it earlier this year.

I do like the B-17 but I don't have any completed ones in my collection and that is something I need to remedy. I have 5 kits in the stash in the form of Monogram's 1/48 classic B-17G, 2 X Academy/Italeri 1/72 B-17C/D's, Airfix's new 1/72 Fortress Mk.III and the subject of this build, Revell's 1/72 B-17F. I don't have a box for it, no big loss with Revells' useless end opening boxes, but here are some shots of what I do have, all of which is still sealed in it's cellophane packaging, starting with the instructions which also has the original decals included;

44818808605_1c36558f86_o_d.jpg

 

And a shot of a couple of bags of still sealed sprues;

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Now I do like the options in the kit, at least one of which is already being built in this GB, but fancied doing something a bit different so I bought this set from DK Decals;

 

44818814355_7b834cc472_o_d.jpg

 

As it says it has markings for 16 different RAF/RCAF B-17's ranging from early Mk.1's right through to Mk.III's in use at the end of the war. There are a couple of Fortress Mk.II's (the RAF designation for the B-17) and I'm torn between either of these Coastal Command options (8 and 9 on the instruction sheet);

43915159360_54520682f0_o_d.jpg

 

And these two options in use by Bomber Command for jamming purposes (10 and 11 on the sheet);30792483557_4475b08395_o_d.jpg

 

I do like option 8 a lot but it has different windows in the nose than those provided by Revell in their kit so I might stick to either options 9 and 10, we will see. I am in the middle of building a Tamiya 1/48 Beaufighter at the minute so progress will not be dramatic to start with but bear with me as it is one I really do want to build.

 

Thanks for looking in and any and all help with the build is gratefully received.

 

Craig.

Edited by modelling minion
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38 minutes ago, PlaStix said:

Hi Craig. Hope you are well. Looking forward to seeing your build in progress. :popcorn:

Kind regards,

Stix

Hi Stix,

Doing okay thanks, hope all is well with you too.

As my Beau is coming along nicely and all my bases are done (or just about) for Telford I hope to be able to make a start on my Fort sometime this week.

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Welcome Craig! Regarding your decal option #8: check if that window solution could be done simply by masking and painting (and maybe scribing) the smaller windows out of the bigger ones. I plan to do a very early G one day, some of them had the same layout. Another option would be to kitbash Revell F and G cheek panels to do that. :hmmm:letter to Revell spare parts dept is actually already sent :coolio:. V-P

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39 minutes ago, vppelt68 said:

Welcome Craig! Regarding your decal option #8: check if that window solution could be done simply by masking and painting (and maybe scribing) the smaller windows out of the bigger ones. I plan to do a very early G one day, some of them had the same layout. Another option would be to kitbash Revell F and G cheek panels to do that. :hmmm:letter to Revell spare parts dept is actually already sent :coolio:. V-P

Cheers VP.

I shall have a look at whether the windows can be altered to match what I need, may well be a possibility.

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Ohh, while we've got the maritime, cc gb fast approaching its my guess you've got something far more exciting up your sleeve than option 9 for that  ,which  by the way is is what I'd choose for this, if you do go with 9, i look forward to your entry into the maritime, cc gb, nevertheless I will enjoy watching what you do here, 

Edited by Hewy
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2 hours ago, Hewy said:

Ohh, while we've got the maritime, cc gb fast approaching its my guess you've got somthing far more exciting up your sleeve than option 9 for that one ,which  by the way is is what I'd choose for this, if you do go with 9, i look forward to your entry into the maritime, cc gb, nevertheless I will enjoy watching what you do here, 

Oh Glynn, you know me too well!

I have a couple of ideas for what to do for the coastal/maritime GB, not even sure which time period to go for yet, either WWII or Cold War, decisions, decisions!

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That decal sheet looks very tempting indeed. I'll keep a look out for one at Telford this weekend. Oh, and a couple of B17's to go with it.

 

... things are going to spiral out of control here, I can feel it in my bones.😉

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14 hours ago, Thom216 said:

If you are taking votes, mine would be on #9. I do like the look of the B-17 in RAF camo, but an all white bird looks so good too, esp with that splash of camo color on top!

Thanks for the input Thom, #9 is indeed tempting but I just prefer the camo scheme on #8 as it is slightly different ans #9 seems to have hardly any armament, hardly a Fortress!

6 hours ago, TonyW said:

That decal sheet looks very tempting indeed. I'll keep a look out for one at Telford this weekend. Oh, and a couple of B17's to go with it.

 

... things are going to spiral out of control here, I can feel it in my bones.😉

Thanks Tony, it is a great sheet and the options on it are quite difficult to choose from, as you say it just means more kits will need to join the stash!

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My opinion would be for option No 8, due to the fact that there are already a couple of B-17s in the option No 9, whilst I do not think that there are any in the other one. Plus it does look a little better.

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Thats the trouble with big decal sheets, we get like kids in a sweet shop, 

I'm in a similar quandary, I like the camo version of the intruder but i may lose interest after a bit, but the more i look at my AOA  lntruder sandbox decal sheet the more i want to build a war horses ship from operation prairie fire, choose well, you can always change your mind up to a point😊

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Hi craig, hope you managed to smuggle your booty from telford in without too much trouble, i was caught on entry by the customs officer (mrs hewy) and told to explain where on earth i was to be  storing all of the boxes😁

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I bet that narnia  wardrobe is bursting at the seams, Happy belated  birthday by the way, unfortunately i never mentioned i got hit with customs duty for my boxes, (hair do, and a clothes shopping trip) still we live we learn😁

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14 hours ago, Hewy said:

I bet that narnia  wardrobe is bursting at the seams,

The wardrobe doors are holding, just. I chucked out some scruffy old lion that was in there and that made some room :) .

Well I actually have some progress to report, not a huge amount but it is actual progress. As there isn't going to be a huge amount visible when it is finished I'm not going to be adding much, if anything, to the contents of the kit so I have started by painting the interior colours, chosen thanks to some very helpful posts in the reference section, so we will start with the main fuselage;

45890601041_209dcd149e_o_d.jpg

 

The whole of the inside was sprayed with Vallejo Aluminium and the cockpit section was sprayed in the bronze green used in that area and the insides was then given a dark wash,

the cockpit will get a dry-brushing later.

The bomb bay has been built up but not painted on the inside as it will be closed up, the outer faces of the bulkheads at either end have been painted and will receive a bit of detail painting;

44074168920_129378c44b_o_d.jpg

 

The cockpit floor and other bulkheads have also been painted, not sure if I should have done the cockpit floor in wood or the bronze green that I have used, still have time to change it;

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The floor for the nose and the area around the ball turret have been painted in a kind of wood effect but might get a bit more work done to them, might also have to paint areas covered by non-slip mats in a black colour which will cover most if not all of the areas painted like wood;

45841041152_4349d7b878_o_d.jpg

 

As I have said progress will be slow to begin with but stick with me as I do want to get this one done, and I have decided on building my original option (#8 on the sheet) as I can easily mask one of the clear nose areas supplied in the kit to get the desired result.

 

That's it for today so thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

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Hi Craig. Hope you are well. Great to see you’re making some progress and it’s looking good. The interior paintwork and especially the wood effects are very impressive. :clap2:

Kind regards,

Stix

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Cheers Stix, you are as usual way too kind, the wood looks okay from a distance but I have to paint non-slip mats onto it which will hide most of it anyway. Done a little more this evening but nothing worthy of photos yet, I have masked off the 3 windows in the nose side panels though so I need to paint around them on the inside face.

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Decided to spend most of my modelling time this weekend on this build rather than my Beaufighter, not sure if that will be a good move in the long run or not, we shall see. Anyway as you can imagine the time has been spent working on the interior and even though I'm not adding anything to the kit (unlike @Thom216 and his superb scratch-building) it is taking me ages and the fuselages are still not ready to join together, but has been progress never the less.

I started by adding the kit decal for the instruments to the panel which had been pre-painted in an off black and I am quite happy with how it looks, particularly as it's in 1/72 and nobody will be able to see it soon anyway, so here is how it looks;

45894377242_9f9a6c00fc_o_d.jpg

 

Next up were the crew areas for the nose. cockpit and radio room. The areas in the nose and radio room had been painted earlier in a wood effect and I now masked the areas for non-slip mats ( I have no idea how accurate this is but I quite like the effect) gave them a light weathering and added the seats, we'll start with the radio room;

45894380062_7869a86080_o_d.jpg

 

And then the nose area;

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And the cockpit area;

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The bulkheads for these areas have also had their little extras added and been detail painted, again starting with the radio room;

32072617578_562cb92ca0_o_d.jpg

 

And finally the cockpit rear bulkhead;

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That's it for today, I have started fitting the assemblies into the stbd fuselage half and adding the glazed area at the front of either side of the fuselage halves but no photos as yet. Will probably spend the next couple of days on the Beau so might be a few days before another update.

Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

 

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Wow! Seriously Craig - you're cockpit detailing is looking superb and as V_P and Thom mentioned above - the wood effect works really well!! :clap2:Shame it won't be that well seen.......:cry:

Excellent progress!

Kind regards,

Stix

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