The beast has been tamed: B-52F Stratofortress
OK, then. Here we go. Easily the biggest kit box I ever had my hands on. Wow.
.. and what’s inside. The kit plus all goodies I collected for this project. Vacform canopies, Cutting Edge decals, B-52G resin conversion set and brass tubes for spars.
Kit parts. Gosh, what am I getting into? Need more space...
More kit parts and engine parts of the conversion set I will be using.
And duplicate sprues with more parts.
Step 1: front office. This is what you get in the box. Oh well, it’s a start..
Dug up spare crew from the spares bin for a beauty contest. Original on the right. The guy on the left won.
Hard to find resin B-52 seats out there so no weaseling my way out here. Building up the seat. Had to guess which seat to model, opted for late one.
Progressing with the seats, test seating in progress. Cleaned up cockpit floor.
Seat almost complete, added pedestal and throttles, started on instrument panel. Poor guy on the RH side lost his left arm as well.
Gotta do something about that cavern behind the seats. Not sure what can be seen later on but vacform canopy will be much clearer than kit parts.
Building up area behind seats. Added IP seat to busy things up. Not 100% sure what I am building is correct for the F, did not find definite references for that but got to move on.
Rear area assembled, dry-fitting on bigger mounts made from sprue. Happy enough with test fit.
Adding the transparent sunshade above the instrument panel. Hope it will stay on..
Step 1 complete! Added foil to simulate the curtain which I guessed from reference was there. Added some boxes and Frankensteined replacement arms on our RH guy.
Step 2: back office. Tail-end charlie is floating in mid-air, so first order is making a floor and bulkheads. Picked a suitable seat from the spares box.
Assembling floor and bulkheads
Built up the radar sight which will go on to the rear bulkhead from scraps
Added panels and tubing to the sidewalls. Dry-fitting, looking good. Step 2 completed!
Step 3: rescribing the fuselage. Bring out the dymo tape, scriber and references. Corrected several lines in the nose area.
Installing the bomb bay doors, these are designed as moveable, so you get big gaps. Backing up the gaps for flling.
Intermezzo: dry-fit of wings and tail to get an idea of the CoG location. OK, OK, and to toy around a bit 🙂. Darn, it’s bigger than I thought... Will need a plan B for the stand.
Continuing with the bomb bay area, added shims to the center line to close big gap.
Adding lower aft window which RM completely missed, used template to ensure straight edges.
Success!
Phew, RH side done! In just under two weeks.... I will do remaining detail work and the long upper walkway after assembly. LH side up next.
And another two weeks (with little modelling time) and the LH side done as well. Went much faster, scribed this one with the RH side mated up, which turned out to be easier.
Step 4: preparing the vacform replacement canopy installation. Found an old Falcon set on the Internet, used scriber to separate the canopies from the backing. Not sure I will use the gunners canopy.
The scary bit, getting rid of the roof. No way back now.
Test fit, seems OK. With the roof gone it now becomes apparent the gaps around the cockpit are much bigger than I thought. Hmm.
Sorted with a little rework, installed shims around the edges, much more snug now.
Adding ridges to aid canopy installation. Aft end needs to be faired in to the fuselage, front end just butts onto the nose. Will be tricky to cement that.
Test fit on the ridges, looks better. Hopes are up for a succesful install later on!
Adding the four small windows. Upper kit ones were unusable due to sink marks, so both these and added lower ones were made from CD box cover. Worked out well, installed them with tight press fit in the rather soft plastic, hope I will not regret that!
Step 5: main landing gears. Here’s what you get in the box. Four basic but rather bare legs, two ceilings (of which only one is correct) and lots of wheels which look fine to me.
And this is how it’s supposed to go in. Not quite complete with lots of open space around. The ceiling part is only applicable to the rear wheel well. Therefore removed webbing from the front legs.
Main gear legs can use some more detail, like replacing the incorrect retraction cylinders with correct ones from copper tubing.
Adding torque links, an additional brace, missing cross brace for the forward gear mounts and the steering cylinders.
Finishing off with brake lines from soft metal wire. Ready for installation, another step done! Next step: the wheel wells.
Step 6: scratch building the wheel wells. Starting at the front, which is totally different from what RM provides.
Forward bulkhead with passage ways and entrance to equipment bay, started on equipment rack
Center wing box, aft bulkhead and strips for the lower fuselage longerons
Continuous test fitting of parts. Wing box fits around LH wing mounting tab, will need false ceiling to hide fwd mounting tab of RH wing. Started on longeron.
Completed and painted equipment bay, filled with complex looking stuff from the spares box. Added equipment rack and piping to front bulkhead.
Basic structure finished, waiting to be filled with piping, wiring and what not...
But first the basic structure of the aft wheel well. This is one is much simpler and RM parts can be used as a basis, although shape of wheel recess is not quite correct.
Completed in record time compared to the fwd well and ready for further detailling.
Starting with all the machinery, wiring and piping to fill out the wheel well. Building up a biggish piece of machinery in the LH fwd well.
Fleshing out the fwd well, gizmo installed and addition of piping and wiring in progress. Guessing my way through lots of contradicting reference pics here... Apparently there were many variations here.
Adding control wires and wiring in the aft wheel well. Trying all kinds of materials, not always succesfully. Soldering wire works great, the stiffer purple jewelers wire is not so great... Very fine copper wire from electricity cable is also a challenge!
Adding more and more boxes and stuff, progressing to the aft part of the fwd wheel well. Raiding the spares box for suitable shapes.
Endless trial fitting, here on the RH side of the fwd wheel well. Have to make sure it can actually be assembled. Easy to forget and install a pipe somewhere that blocks assembly later on!
Added final braces and last boxes with wiring/piping to the fwd wheel well. Finished!
And aft wheel well finished as well!
Final trial assemly and an idea of what remains visible. Luckily quite a lot 🙂. Closing up the fuselage later on will require something like four hands though...
Step 7: stand socket and wing root strengtening. First a dry-fitting to determine the approximate CoG where the socket will be located.
Socket for the aluminium tube that will serve as the stand, made from tube from the spares bin
Creating bulkheads above the wing tabs to strenghten both the tabs and the wing root area. I do not trust Monogram’s original engineering to prevent cracking of the seams.
Three bulkheads in place, inserted in cut-outs in fuselage top to create strong attachments to prevent fuselage seam cracking
Wing spars of square copper tubing to prevent sagging of the wings and to add strength to the wing root
Cut holes in the wing root to accept spars, spars ready for cut to create the needed crank at the wing root
Cut and bend created, not quite the precision engineering I hoped...
Filled the gap with the scraps of copper I removed and soldered the joint. Result: a nice strong spar. Much easier than I thought!
Joined in the middle using a cutdown bolt and it fits!
Test fit of the spars, looking good, much sturdier now
Glued the spar to the top wing half with CA. Another step done!
Step 8: painting the fuselage interior. Sprayed the interior with a mix of interior green and yellow zinc chromate with a light interior green overspray to match the two colors shown in ref pics.
And followed up with handpainting the various details.
Dry-fit to check the effect. Looks good to me. Only some grime and dirt to add and it's done.
All aboard the cockpit and tail gunners position, ready for installation.
Installing the forward interior parts....
... and the aft ones. All working out as planned thanks to the gazillion dry-fits.
Tail gunner in, tail turret up next. Replaced the gun barrels with coper tubing.
Everything ready for closing up!
Step 9: Fuselage assembly. Closed up and taped tight. Seam is not pretty but not as bad as expected. Closing up went easier then during the dry-fits as the interior parts were not sitting around loose anymore.
Filled the seam, man it’s a long one.... Worth a week of filling and sanding. Seam came out OK in the end, did a litle unscheduled drop test to test the strength with only a small section popping. Duh.
Area around the tail gun is tricky, fit is mediocre at best here. Repeatedly banging 70 cm of fuselage against the stuff on my workbench cost me a gun barrel...
Tail gunners canopy on, required some shims but went on OK. Used the kit canopy, had no feasible idea how to install the vacform one.
Lots of dust, refilling, more dust, Mr Surfacer, etc. and we have progressed to rescribing the lost panel lines.
Some unexpected work on the glare shield, the instrument panel is riding higher than anticipated. No sweat, some more plasticard to the rescue. Also added upper escape hatch.
Masking the vacform cockpit windows. Did I already mention I really dread these transparent monsters? Nice and clear though...
Adding the flash curtains from alu foil and litte rods. There is not much room for the front ones and hope the aft ones stay on
Moment of thuth, installed the cockpit windows with Clearfix and Tamiya extra thin at the aft end. Setting aside to dry with fingers crossed.
Fit of the cockpit is not perfect, shims are nedeed below to windows
Some more careful filling and sanding and it looks good
Adding external details like the escape hatches and antennas
Filling intakes and grilles not present on B-52F
Step 10: Tail feathers. First task: rescribing.
Adding interior of leading edge intake
Assembly, lots of pressure on thinned traling edge...
Same process for the horizontals
Step 11: Engine nacelle modification and assembly
Improved the engine exhausts, big improvement over what's in the kit
Modification to F nacelle is fairly straightforward, fit of resin parts is OK but still needs lots of filler
Have to find my own solution for the F specific bumps on the nacelles. Bit of a challenge, in the end I used two old bombs to make these, even though they are not as streamlined as the real thing.
Instaling the bumps
Adding the pylon, need some shims to improve the fit
All four assembled, just some minor filling and sanding on the rear of the pylon-nacelle joints.
Test fitting, looking good!
And a coat of Tamiya primer and correcting some of the scribing finishes another step.
Step 12: Rescribing the wings. Gathering tools and courage. Big area to cover but only long straight lines. How hard can that be?
Also need to instal the spoilers, designed to be movable so fit is crappy. Had to fill huge gap around one of them with plastic rod.
Darn, my ruler is not long enough... And amazing how often I goofed up these seemingly easy long lines. Like scribing two and filling one again all the way...
OMG, done! Another two weeks worth of scribing, phew.
Step 13: Flap well interiors. Took a long hard look at what RM offers and decided to scratch it all. Starting with adding a rear spar.
And away with all these clunky fake details, which are designed around the movable flaps feature.
Made the first ribs from plastic card, starting with the flap tracks. Still have to remove the upper wing detail.
Upper wing details gone and damage repaired. Added attachment angles for the flap tracks, deeply scribed the location of all ribs.
Ribs, ribs and more ribs. 60 in total and I cheated and ommitted a pair because the kit’s flap and flap well geometry appears not entirely correct.
All ribs are in! I used masking tape templates to fabricate them.
Added intercostals, flap track lower flanges and some more structure detail. Checking the effect. Nice!
Dressed it up with some hydraulics using B-52H references, guessing the F was closer to this as it did not have the D’s bleed air ducting to drive the generators.
Improving the flaps, starting with thinning the trailing edge of the inboard flaps.
Covering the huge trenches that are another part of the movable flaps feature with 0.5 mm plastic card, correcting the flap thickness at the same time.
Curving the plastic card around the leading edge. Cut new, more shallow throughs in the right location in the added skin.
Adding carriages to the inboard flaps and repeating the process for the outboard flaps.
Sawing of the carriages using a template to end up with the correct flap angle (35 degrees).
Boxed in the inlets in leading edge, will be cleaned up after assembly.
Added structural detail to the outrigger wheel wells. Easy job compared to all the other stuff.
Step 14: Wing assembly. wing parts readied for spraying the flaps, flap wells and wheel wells. No amount of Googling got me a definite answer for the color...
... so I went for interior green (which looked too dark) sprayed over a yellow base coat.
Detail painting, mainly greased surfaces and a dab of aluminium color on hydraulic components.
After drying its assembly time! Fit is forgettable but hey, what’s new. Strapped each wing on a plank to ensure a straight wing.
Sanding flush the boxed inlets and correcting mismatched panel lines
Underwing stuff: the kit MER’s are rather obese and the HSAB is too wide. Took the whole thing apart (why not...) and dug up spare MER’s.
Reduced the HSAB width, reassembled the pieces and repairing all damage. The Hound Dog pylons itself look OK shapewise...
... except for a big gap when fitted on the wing. References show a slightly thicker upper part which is added from thin card strip which helps closing the gap.
Test fitting the (huge!) wing tanks revealed... more gaps! More shims of plastic card to the rescue again. Busy with cleaning up wing leading and trailing edges.
Installing the tanks with lots of pressure to close as much of the gaps as possible. Succeeded quite well, Mr Surfacer sufficed for the remaining gaps.
The tail end required more work, should have come up level to the upper wing surface but no luck here. More plastic card needed.
Almost there, pylons still to install, correcting sink marks etc. not spotted earlier. Outrigger wheel doors are installed temporarily. Engine pods will be installed later, somewhere in the painting sequence.
Pylon installation, filling of the now manageable gap.
Another dry fit of all main assemblies.
Masking the wheel wells.
And let the painting begin! First a coat of primer.
... the fuselage only just fits in my spray booth.
The primer coat revealed shoddy workmanship on the fuselage seams. Darn, more rework. Bring out Mr Surfacer again...
Seam OK now after another primer coat, mapping out the fuselage walkways.
Walkways and pre-shading done in black. I don’t expect any of the pre-shading to survive but had an airbrush full of black so applied it anyway.
Masking miles of walkways using 1 mm masking tape.
Great stuff this 1 mm tape, getting long straight lines was not half as difficult as expected.
Sprayed radomes white and masked, also sprayed lower surfaces of fuselage and engine pods white in prepation of weathering with salt treatment.
Next up the natural metal parts, mostly fin and pylons, sprayed with VallejoAir. After studying lots of images I (rightly or wrongly) concluded that the F’s had a coat of aluminium paint over most of the airframe.
Masking between the various natural metal shades created by adding drops of black or tan.
Lots of masking on the engine pods in between shades, pretty time consuming.
Several runs later and after adding dark streaks with black pastel I am happy with the result. First major airframe part done!
Installation of the engine pods. Big gap on outer pylon but unexpectedly also on inner ones. Until I realised I swapped the inner pylons 🙁 Managed to pull them off and re-install. Phew.
Checking the line-up. Looking good.
Filling and sanding of the joints, tricky job but went OK.
Restoring the walkway borders.
Fin installed, minor gaps dealt with by Mr Surfacer.
In the meantime sprayed the wheels black and masked with masks I bought. Great stuff.
More masking, this time the aft turret anti-glare panel.
And the first major coat, aluminium from a Tamiya spray can. Didn’t work as well as expected, finish is acceptable but not perfect. Notice the white coat sprayed earlier with Vallejo Air...
Aaaand... more masking. This monster is eating Tamiya tape by the mile 🙁
Aluminium masked, ready for salt treatment for weathering and the gloss black coat, also from a Tamiya spray can...
... and fast forward to disaster 🙁. Never occured to me that Tamiya spray cans eat Vallejo Air acrylics for breakfast. Darn. No choice but to sand back the black coat and start over. Say bye bye to all these nice antennas. Sigh...
... and the salt treatment bit me as well. The coat from a spray can is much too thick for this to work, leaving little craters instead of bare spots...
... oh, and did I mention dust? No Vallejo to eat, no salt grains, but here dust did the trick. One of my worst spraying jobs ever!
OK then, plan B for the black coat. This time with Vallejo Air black, quick check on underside pylons shows it’s all fixable...
Plan B executed. No problems this time, nice and even coat.
Following up with a gloss coat (which I never can get to shine like a mirror but luckily wasn’t looking for that effect....
Removing the masking, looking good.
The thin paper (the stuff found in shoeboxes) is not foolproof when using spray cans. Had to redo the lower nose radome in white due to leakage.
Lots of green boxes on my airbrush planning, and an angry red one of course...
Painting phase is now officially done and its decaling time! First decal is on.
Highlighting of the panel lines before decaling the nose.
Not too many decals, some of them ar big though. Based on the reference pics I swapped stars & bars between fuselage and wing compared to what the Cutting Edge instructions said.
First decals on the nose are on. This area will be quite full so lots of measuring before applying.
I located the decals with 1 mm tape which worked very well. Once measured in it’s easy to get the decals in the right spot and aligned.
Port side done. Discovered only now that the lower square window (still masked) is located too far forward. Oh well...
Minor mishap here when the US AIR decal folded up on me big time. Took me ages to unfurl it but managed to apply with only minor damage. For now...
Final satin coat to seal the decals.
Another moment of truth. Peeling of the window masks. Not too bad, hardly any dust inside and everything still in place.
Installing wheels and wheel doors Glad this one will be soaring, no way I got eight wheels touching the ground...
Installing the flaps using a cardboard jig. All worked as planned. Also installed the MER’s.
Adding the final details like the flap actuator linkages.
All done, ready for final assembly!
Final trial fit of the main parts. Alignment looking good. I considered leaving the wings detachable but the fit was not tight enough for that. Would have saved me some grief though...
Some more precision engineering for the stand.... Hacked a slot into the top of the aluminium rod.
Wing assembly in progress with liberal amounts of glue.
Wing-to-fuselage fit is fair on top but there are steps near the leading and trailing edges. I decided against a big filling and sanding session and faired in the joint with putty smoothed with aceton.
Masking and spraying of the joint. I reverted to Vallejo Air, accepting the slight color difference with the Tamiya Aluminium. Forgot to mask the wheel door so had to fix that again.
Removing the masking... Aargh, I used low tack 3M paper tape over the decals. Stupid! This worked in other builds but now pulled of the decal I damaged earlier....
No time for elaborate fixes. Steaming on and fixing with bits of black decals. This built will be finished today, no matter what!
And OMG were done! Unbelievable.
Mixed feelings due the final decal disasters but still happy with the result!
In its final position, perched on its stand. Man, this thing is casting shadows!
A bit more up close and personal. All the scratch building in the wheel wells and flap wells is easy to see. Nice!
And a final view from a different perspective. Another build completed, thanks for watching!
Comments
1 15 December 2017, 19:37
Hans ZwetslootHi everyone, a few weeks ago I finally started on what to my standards is a monster project. I am going to tame the big Monogram 1/72 B-52 beast. Bought this kit years ago and decided I wanted to build it as one of those cool looking metal-and-black Vietnam War B-52F's. How hard can that be? Well... it took a several years and patience to collect all the now out-of-production bits and pieces I needed but I finally succeeded. Finding the crucial resin engine conversion set took forever.
15 December 2017, 19:49
Hans ZwetslootHa yes, shelf space is a bit of an issue (did I mention this thing is huge?) so I decided to model it in flight, coming in for landing, so that I can put it on a stand on top of my display cabinet. Hope I eyeballed that correctly but we'll find out as we progress. To preserve my sanity I am breaking up the build in small steps. So far I have completed the first two, next up: wheel wells.
15 December 2017, 19:50
Hans ZwetslootIf you mean re-scribe, yes, I intend to. Not yet looking forward to that part, however most of the lines are long and straight. Still a lot of them though, do hope I don't lose my nerve 🙂
15 December 2017, 20:20
CuajeteYes, I meant to say re-write. Sorry for my bad english. I have to restore mine ("Big, Bad & Beautiful" box). It has 25 years old and paint by brush. It's suspended from the ceiling (very big for shelf).
15 December 2017, 20:45
Gordon SørensenLooks great, Hans! Very nice scratchbuilding in the cockpit and rear pit!
16 December 2017, 11:31
Hans ZwetslootHappy new year to everyone 🙂! A short update on my progress with this one. Due to all the talk of re-scribing I realized it would be a good idea to get re-scribing of the fuselage out of the way before continuing with detailing the interior. A slow and bit of a boring job but quite doable, with only the curved nose and tail areas tricky. Still managed to mess up quite a few times 🙁. Installing the bomb bay doors on the other hand was not so boring, took a lot of work to get a decent fit here.
6 January 2018, 11:34
Hans ZwetslootAnd completed another (small) step: tackled the nose area glazing preparations. Working with vacform canopies is not something I am very good at but looks like this time I pulled it of 🙂. We'll see for sure when the time comes to install the canopy.
8 January 2018, 19:17
Hans ZwetslootHi there, completed another step in this long journey. Things are progressing well so far, just got the main gears ready for installation. Started on the wheel wells, which will require quite a bit of scratch building.
21 January 2018, 20:03
Martin OostromI think I'm happy I didn't buy this kit. She's huge.
You're doing marvellous work on her.
21 January 2018, 20:30
Hans ZwetslootProgressing slowly but surely. Completed the basic structure of the wheel wells. Fwd well was a lot more work than the aft one as the fwd well looks totally different than what RM provides. Had to study a lot of pictures an Youtube movies to figure everything out. Now gathering courage to start filling them up with pipes, wiring and all the other stuff that's crammed in there.
9 February 2018, 20:31
Spanjaardamazing job you are doing in this big bird. i love all the scratch building you are adding. excellent!
10 February 2018, 10:17
Erik LeijdensFantastic work there Hans. Your scratch and scribing work really pays off.
10 February 2018, 19:30
Hans ZwetslootThx everyone. Starting to like this scratchbuilding and my skills are improving. Does take a lot of time though, it is modeling at snails pace.. 🙂 Will keep you posted.
11 February 2018, 10:14
Kees KleijwegtI'm in, great scratchbuilding so far 👍
And this kit is a true giant!
11 February 2018, 19:14
Hans ZwetslootHello again, time for another update. Spent the past weeks plodding along with the wheel wells of this beast. Today made a Modelers Decision: enough is enough. I am done with straining my eyes and CA-ing my fingers and bits and pieces of metal and plastic together 🙂. Because the F didn't have all these bleed air driven generators etc. inside the fuselage I leaned towards the wheel well interior of the later B-52 models, as far as I could identify this from the dozens of pictures I looked up on the net (thx to everyone out there who posted useful pictures!). Still I am pretty sure I have created an irresponsible mix of B-52B through H features but hey, there it is. What counts is that I have achieved enough of the busy look inside the wheel wells that I was looking for. Now it is time to move on to the next challenge...
12 March 2018, 19:34
Spanjaardvery nice interior. busy indeed! no idea if it is B or H ... but it looks good to me!
12 March 2018, 19:44
Alexander GrivonevTry lead wire for wiring/hydraulics and stuff! Soft like butter, great to handle. Incredible amount of work btw, great detail!
14 March 2018, 21:23
Hans ZwetslootAnother short update on my progress. After all the tiny bits and pieces in the wheel wells the next step involved some heavy engineering to create a socket for the stand and to strengthen the wing root. During dry-fitting I noticed the high stresses on the fuselage and wing root seams and since my model will not have the support of the wing tip wheels I decided a little extra work was needed. I had already planned spars to prevent wing sagging but I decided to use these to create a carry-through structure as well. Was not half as difficult as I expected it to be. Now it is on to the spray booth for interior painting.
25 March 2018, 19:28
Spanjaardvery interesting way of making the structure a lot stronger. i think i would have used a rounded tube and bend it into shape, but your idea of cutting it and solder it is probably much better. if this does not hold it in place, nothing will 🙂
25 March 2018, 20:17
Hans ZwetslootHello, more in-progress pics of my B-52F. I have progressed quite a bit, with the fuselage now closed up, seam cleaned up, most re-re-scribing done and canopies installed. Further detailing of the fuselage exterior is up next.
15 April 2018, 11:32
Alexander GrivonevThis is quite a progress, following with great interest! Would you give a hint where you got these round rescribing templates? (pic79)
12 August 2018, 15:11
Hans ZwetslootHi there and thx. Picked up those circular scribing templates up long ago in my favorite webshop. Just checked, they are from HQT tools and still available.
12 August 2018, 17:37
Hans ZwetslootThx! Wouldn't be surprised if I need another six months 🙂. Right now I'm a bit distracted by my ESCI F-111A build but still making progress step by step. Engine pods are almost done, wings are up next. Kind of putting of to get going on the rescribing... 😳
29 August 2018, 19:48
Hans ZwetslootHi everyone, back again. In case anyone wondered if this one was banished to the shelf of doom, rest assured it wasn't. Despite delays due to my in-between F-111A build, I'm still making slow but steady progress. To my own surprise I passed the 1-year build time marker last week but completion is nearing with the painting phase now on the horizon.
Over the past few months I have tackled the wings, a job I somewhat underestimated. Rescribing was a big enough job but the decision to rip out all flap well "detail" and start from scratch kinda added to the build time as well 😄. Worth the effort though, really improves this area that will remain quite visible. Modelling flaps up was an option as well of course though I can assure you that would have posed a whole different set of challenges.
With the wings almost done I am now trying to get my head around how to get this baby painted. Already decided most of it will have to be done before final assembly and I have even resorted to writing down the paint & mask sequence of all assemblies 🤔.
Stay tuned, will be back in few weeks or more likely months 🙂
1 December 2018, 15:45
Hans ZwetslootAnd another happy new year to everyone! My B-52F has by now progressed well into the painting phase. I am about one-third in and things are going well so far. I am almost ready for these huge areas of aluminium and black. Fingers crossed...
6 January 2019, 12:11
Roland SachsenhoferGreat work I have just noticed. For sure I will follow this build- marvelous and gorgeous work!
6 January 2019, 19:39
Hans ZwetslootHey there, another update on my B-52F. Still in the middle of the painting phase and recovering from a nasty setback with the gloss black coat. Damage control is now done and I am ready for a second try on the black. Is that the finish line I see on the horizon? 🙂
23 January 2019, 20:28
Patrick HagelsteinWow! Somehow this attracted my attention... Glad I looked in: amazing scratch building on all the interior parts!!! Ik ga voor je duimen voor het volgende spuitwerk! 👍 👍
23 January 2019, 21:47
Thomas BischoffPity that the sprayjob did not work out. I had never issues with Using Tamiya and Vallejo colours at the same tome
24 January 2019, 16:54
Hans ZwetslootHmmm, that made me think. I just assumed the stuff in the Tamiya spray cans was the same as the stuff in the glass bottles. Stupid... 🙁 A few seconds of Googling taught me the spray cans are lacquer based. Lacquer over acrylics is just as bad an idea as lacquer over enamels (guess how I learned that one...). Duh... Should have isolated the acrylics with floor polish.
24 January 2019, 20:14
Patrick HagelsteinWell, the good thing is that you might be able to clean it up using Isopropyl alcohol. It will eat away the lacquer paint without harming the plastic. Well, at least for Mr. Paint and Mr. Color paints, that is. I would test it on a painted piece of scrap plastic first though!
24 January 2019, 20:39
Patrick HagelsteinVAQ-209 Prowler | Album by Hagel (1:72)
This is where I put my painted parts straight into the alcohol.
24 January 2019, 20:43
Hans ZwetslootHello, I have finally done it and tamed this beast! Sort of. Recovery from the "black disaster" went smoothly, hardly any harm done there. The remainder of the painting phase was also smooth sailing but I got bitten once more just before the finish line.
The decision to install the wings at the very end was not a happy one. Not that I have any idea how I would have managed spraying and decaling this monster with wings attached. I opted out of another full blown seam filling-and-sanding-and-respray session with lots of potential harm. Despite this I had another lapse in higher brain functions and still did something stupid when finishing of the wing-to-fuselage joints. The result: parts of the US AIR FORCE lettering on the nose destroyed... More cussing and pulling out hair... After briefly considering buying another set of decals or printing my own I took the very much faster shortcut of restoring them with pieces of decal from the spares box. With (of course) a slightly different color. Duh.. Might fix it better somewhere in the future, or not...
Nevertheless it is done and I now have one impressive piece of plastic hovering over my display cabinet! I am (for now) done with huge models and have three positively tiny cessna's on the the bench 🙂. Thank you all for watching and your patience. Until the next build!
4 February 2019, 21:04
Alexander GrivonevFantastic work, Hans. Followed the whole build with interest. Great patience and dealing with those mishaps! The beast has been tamed quite literally! 👍👍👍
5 February 2019, 10:12
Thomas BischoffImpressive build! Very well done - all the extra work paid out well 👍 👍 👍
6 February 2019, 07:50
Album info
Conversion of the Revell-Monogram B-52D to a Vietnam War B-52F
