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Scratch built 1:20 scale B17G finally in her resting place in California!


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Hi everyone

 

Well it is time to get down and finally attempt to finish this Mammoth B17G project. Some of you may know that I started this 7 years ago with a few breaks in between sections to build other stuff.

As a recap :  I was originally going to just scratch build the nose section but kind of got hood winked in carrying on down the length of the fuselage! .....so I then built the Bomb bay....followed by the radio room and ball turret section and now it is time to finish this off with the tail section. Just to let you all know that I will not be building the wings and the 4 engines that go with it!😉

 

I got together some old post photos from the start of this project and thought I would show you of how I got to this point today!

 

This first photo shows the completed fuselage up to the ball turret position.....

 

Nose-Bomb-bay-and-Radio-room-sections-jo

 

Here is a shot of the cockpit.......

 

hhh-006.jpg

 

...and the bomb bay looking from the radio room through to the cockpit....

 

Bomb-bay-complete-5.jpg

 

Here is the radio operators table in the radio room.....

 

Equipment-beneath-the-radio-ops-table-an

 

...and finally the ball turret in place on the hanging harness.....

 

oxygen-bottle-and-the-complete-fit-1.jpg

 

So my aim has always been through out this project to display as much of the internal detail as possible as I have always been fascinated with the Flying Fortress!.....so to that end I have tried to construct the whole fuselage with the top removed. This over the years has given me many headaches and will continue to I'm sure ... because I didn't want to take away the shape of the B17!... For example my next problem will be how to display the detail with that ruddy great dorsal Fin attached?......well I have an idea which I will show you as we get on with the build.

The other problem I have is how to ship it back to the UK from here?....I have made a bespoke box out of MDF but I am getting ahead of my self!....lets put that to one side at the moment and get this last section underway!

 

So here we go then..the first of many photos and posts that I will have to make!!

 

I am going to make the fuselage out of balsa wood as I did with the the front sections....so after digging out the scale plans that I scaled up to 1:20 I cut out all the formers I would need.

 

BUILDING-THE-FUSELAGE.jpg

 

The bottom half was built up first ...then the top half .....here they are temporarily joined.

 

BUILDING-THE-FUSELAGE-1.jpg

 

BUILDING-THE-FUSELAGE-2.jpg

 

A few years ago I started strengthening the fuselage by filling in between the stringers with scrap pieces of Balsa wood. All you have to do then is sand down carefully to the formers and stringers to get the ...hopefully.... correct shape. Here is the bottom half.....

 

BUILDING-THE-FUSELAGE-3.jpg

 

Here is the top half just  placed in position.....

 

BUILDING-THE-FUSELAGE-4.jpg

 

So here the scrap balsa was filled in the gaps and sanded. You can see that I have left an area open at the top so you will be able to see down into the detail......

 

BUILDING-THE-FUSELAGE-5.jpg

 

BUILDING-THE-FUSELAGE-6.jpg

 

Now I turned my attention to the dorsal fin which runs along the top of the fuselage which eventually turns into the tail fin.At this stage I am only building so far back and will complete it by somehow attaching the tail fin at a later stage...there is method in my madness as you will see later!

 

BUILDING-THE-FUSELAGE-7.jpg

 

Once I had filled the gaps with balsa ,I glued the dorsal fin on top of the fuselage and as you can see there is still enough open space to eventually look at all the detail.

 

BUILDING-THE-FUSELAGE-8.jpg

 

I thought I would clamp the front section onto this to see what it might look like......JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! 

 

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Well that's as far as I have got with this so far!

 

I do hope some of you will come along with me for the ride on this final stage of this project...would appreciate the support!

 

Until the next post.....thanks for looking in and stay safe guys!

 

Fozzy

 

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Smashing! So far it's been easy to mistake pictures of your interior for walkarounds of the real thing.

 

That does seem to be a lot of tail - almost the same length again!

 

Regards,

Adrian

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13 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

Smashing! So far it's been easy to mistake pictures of your interior for walkarounds of the real thing.

 

That does seem to be a lot of tail - almost the same length again!

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

She's a BIG bird Adrian!...cheers!

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Do the wings . .   do the wings . . . do the wings.

 

 

I DARE ya!

 

Rgds

 

Martin

 

PS very nice, so far.

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4 minutes ago, mike romeo said:

Do the wings . .   do the wings . . . do the wings.

 

 

I DARE ya!

 

Rgds

 

Martin

 

PS very nice, so far.

 

Stop it Martin!!!!!😉

 

10 minutes ago, perdu said:

Huge pleasures ahead for us now, yippee

 

Glad you're on board again Bill!😃

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So pleased to see this back - I was only thinking about this build the other day and wondered if you’d made any more progress. 
 

Resubscribing!

 

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This has been a great project to follow.

I can't wait to see how you tackle the wings and engines.

 

Because you won't be able to stop yourself, will you? 😆 😁 😆

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2 hours ago, Fozzy said:

JEEZ!.....It's about 3 feet 5 inches long!! 

And boy, doesn't it look good! Glad to see you're still with us and still on the yoghurt, Fozzy.

There might be a seat for me at the end of the front row, I hope.

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When I read the title and it said 1/20 B17G, my first thought was that you must be insane.  It would be huge.  But then actually 3 ft 5 ins is only 4 inches longer than a 1/350 USS Nimitz or 6 inches longer than a 1/72 Flower Class corvette and there are lots of those out there.

2 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Smashing! So far it's been easy to mistake pictures of your interior for walkarounds of the real thing.

 

 I thought that too.  The detail, especially for something that is scratchbuilt, is amazing

 

But the piece de resistance has to be that Shepherd Neame ashtray in the background.  To take a quite from one of their rivals, "Probably the best brewery in the world"!

 

2 hours ago, Fozzy said:

BUILDING-THE-FUSELAGE-2.jpg

 

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Your work is not only beyond what I do, it's beyond what I dream of doing. It's truly wonderful!

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Hi Guys.... thanks a lot for all your comments!.....except the ones that are trying to encourage me to tackle the wings....and engines !!......Brian!🤨

 

It's also great to see that some familiar faces are re joining this wagon!.....it's gonna be a big ride!😉

 

I'll be back soon!

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5 hours ago, mike romeo said:

Do the wings . .   do the wings . . . do the wings.

 

 

I DARE ya!

 

Rgds

 

Martin

 

PS very nice, so far.

Well, I’m with Martin on this one.

 

Great to see ya back.

 

Graham

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1 hour ago, GrahamS said:

Well, I’m with Martin on this one.

 

Great to see ya back.

 

Graham

......and you can stop it too Graham!😉

 

57 minutes ago, Spookytooth said:

Wow great, something to cheer us up.

Good to see that you are safe and well Fozzy.

 

Simon

Hi Simon...yes all good here ...hope you're are ok also!

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