The original Lindberg Line B17G appeared in the late 1950s and has undergone several releases through the years. My Dad built this one but I am not sure how long ago. Brother Bob recalls the landing gear always in the up position. Since the kit is for retractable gear I suspect that this plane was built in the 60s, played with in the 60s, broken in the 60s and repaired in the 60s! While a solid kit (and the molds have held up well over the years according to reviewers) there are issues which will be covered as the rehab proceeds.
This is what I am starting with out of the storage box. I was able to pop off the cowl on engine 4, outboard/starboard side. The prop in the foreground has broken off from engine 1 and will need to be drilled out later (I am hoping I can remove that cowl also). Note the gear in the foreground has had a piece of wood dowel attached as an old repair - the dowel was discarded.
Extremely dirty, large seams need putty; the top turret has the only guns that remain. The turret plastic is clear but the kit molds do not include framing. The exception is the "plexiglass" nose that was used in the B17F and G. It was a simple two piece instead of the ten piece framed nose that preceded the B17F. The Lindberg boys got this one right!
The underside is also quite dirty, there is a large hole for the Styrene stand that comes with the kit (and no longer exists for this one!) and the Ball Turret - Yuck, glue all over the inside. I plan to attempt detailing both turrets for the framing - tape and a very sharp xacto will be required. When completed, at least you will no longer be able to see the interior glue blobs.
As I mentioned the nose plexiglass does have a molded frame, but on the inside surface of the piece! I masked and painted and added the bombardier's platform (from flat stock).
Reviewer's of this kit point to the flat engine insert as the weakest element lacking detail and impossible to replace due to the 1/64 scale. What I did was paint the hub and fill in with silver around the hub and between cylinder impressions to give some highlight and simulate the Wright 1820 Cyclone.
It does help somewhat.
What to do about the landing gear? Since I can't get into the wing the gear will be replaced in the down position, but first I have to figure out how to replicate the one gear that I was able to remove in one piece.
How do I fabricate a complete gear from the frame that is above?
Why with sprue of course! I snipped off a right angle sprue corner and matched it up to the one complete gear leg. I then cut smaller pieces for the cross member and wheel axel. I used a small round file to create a concave surface on the ends of the leg to accept the cross members.
The four pieces of spruce with the frame and a small piece of PE all put together with the wheel and I now have a matching landing gear. That is one challenge answered!👌
Here is the difference between Dad's gloss black and Red and the refinished wheel.
Hard to tell the difference now! At this point I want to mention one saving grace and that is the control surfaces; ailerons. rudder and elevator. They are all intact and movable like they are supposed to be which, frankly, I find amazing. If they had been broken or missing I may not have attempted this rehab.
Let's move on to the propeller(s), I only have three! While agonizing whether I could take on this rehab I considered after market parts, but that was before I knew that the scale was 1/64. Coming out of the storage box I assumed it was a 1/72 model, until I checked the math. At 103ft-9in a 1/72 scale wing would be a 17-1/4 inch span. What I had on the bench was 19-1/2 inches. Working in reverse told me this was 1/64! That is when I did the research that showed me this was the Lindberg kit. Fortunately brother Bob has the capability of molding resin parts, so I am sending my loose prop to him so he can make some more for me. Of course I had to drill out the back side of the prop hub for the eventual shaft I need, plus remove the red paint from the tips and hub nose and clean it.
The inboard engines, 2 and 3 are intact with props that rotate and I have the engine shaft from the cowl in this picture, but I have to fabricate an additional shaft for engine 1 since I will have to drill out the old one. More old sprue to the rescue. Heated and stretched, and attached to an unused tub from my USS England kit, I just had to glue it to the hole in the tub, insert through the engine and snip it off at the proper length to insert into the back of the prop.
This is where we are at today. I will continue to try and remove the other cowls to facilitate the engine detailing while also sanding down and repainting the other parts painted in "gloss" black.
It is Monday, 9-21-20 and I have to show the state of the existing decals. They are solid but yellowed. If you have seen my other rehabs you know I have worked around old decals before (Dornier D17 and JU88) but this is a big model and I want to spray paint. I can touch around the yellowed edges but masking off the decals for spray will be tricky. I have to thoroughly clean this beast so I can give it a clear coat primer. I am hopeful that will protect the decals to the point I can mask with Silly Putty as suggested by brother Bob (clever idea).
Plain water and a Q-Tip cleans up the paint and the decal fairly well. I think the technique described above should work!
Here is another of many challenges, that of putting windows in for the tail gunner (who is missing - let's say he is shooting the breeze with the waist gunners). The openings are too big to use window glue so I will have to try sheet plastic/bubble packaging. Good luck to me as it will be my first attempt at this process. This is also another example of the seam puttying that is required. One other mystery is my Dad's choice of camo color. I find no evidence of a B17G with this paint scheme. I will be repainting in a typical single olive with the light sky gray on the underside. Now wish me luck as I try and remove the remaining engine cowls.🙏
Eureka! Scribing around the engine No. 1 cowl facilitated its removal along with the prop shaft, although the shaft may not be reusable.
This is a potential coup! I was able to remove the landing gear pin holding bracket from the end of the pin lugs inside the nacelle. This is something easy to fabricate. It may mean that I can install the repaired landing gear (pins) into the lugs and then reattach the holding bracket to once again have retractable gear. If I can remove cowls 2 and 3 as I did cowl 1, then that will allow me to put the holding bracket back in much easier. I don't want to get too pumped about this but it seems doable!
Well it took a bit of work and the starboard wing broke free in the process but no damage done and both the number 2 and 3 engine cowls are removed. Some dish soap in warm water and Q-Tips were effective in cleaning the wing. All of the red paint that was on the prop. tips and hubs was easily scraped off with the xacto. Most likely reason is that the parts were not washed before painting back in the day. Other than the red, the props are unpainted and in the molded aluminum color. I will be painting the props black with yellow tips as this is what I see on most all B17G photos I see. One other thing to note on the wing is the scraping I have done at the confluence of tan and green. I could see a ridge formed from brushing on the green paint and since I don't want to see those ridges after repainting, and I don't want to lose the rivet detail, I am avoiding sanding in favor of the more tedious xacto work! Now on to working around the props to detail the engines.
It was a bit fiddly working around the props, but it turned out ok. Now I need the return from brother Bob's casting. USPS will determine the timing for the completion of the engines. In the meantime I have researched 50Cal aircraft machine guns. I can easily get 1/72 scale aftermarket. Although only slightly smaller than 1/64 I don't think the difference will be readily apparent since all guns except the top Sperry turret are missing. Shapeways has a set of 6 complete guns with ammo boxes. That should take care of the Tail, Waist and Nose. I will get 4 barrels via eBay for the front and Ball turrets.
Today is Friday, Sept. 25 and there have been a few developments, some good and some not so good. My brother Bob is having a difficult time casting the fourth propeller. If he can't get his resin to fill the mold and set, then my goose is cooked unless I reach out and try and obtain another kit - which is not the point of this build! The other thing is that the Sperry turret gunner and guns have fallen into the fuselage - AHHHH. As Jimmy Buffet said "It may be my fault". I did have the plane upside down working on defining the bombay doors with my xacto - I pushed down too hard?
Here is a positive! My masking and spraying the underside of the starboard wing. The decal is solid and I really don't mind the "patina"😁
I should have taken a before picture to show how the tail plane was shoved out to the right. While trying to repair the crack just under the rudder I come to realize that the fuselage was cracked and separating at the rear gunner position. I pushed the tail back into position, separated the fuselage a bit by inserting my knife and applied some loctite in the gap. I closed it up and also ran a bead of window glue along seams. It holds!! Now the elevator is free to go up and down. I still have to putty the crack immediately in front of the gunner window. I have cleaned the tail and scrapped along the green/tan boarders. I purchased new Testors Olive and experimented on the engine cowls and it flows nicely. Work will continue with sawing open the Sperry turret to extract the gunner and 50 Cal guns - UGH!
The cutting of the Sperry went well and I saved the piece to put back in. I removed the guns but the crew is too big and I will have to Modify him to get him out.
Once again the Ball Turret.
I have two pieces of styrene drilled and ready to inert into the ball turret gun openings. If you research the ball turret you will know that the guns protrude but are not movable. It is the ball turret itself that moves in two planes (rotation and up and down) unlike the Sperry turret that only rotates while the gunner manipulates the twin 50s up and down. Since I have metal replacement gun barrels on the way I am not too concerned about non movable gun breakage in the future.
Jumping back to the tail I cut sheet styrene to make windows. I put masking tape up to the opening as a guide and transfered to the styrene sheet, glued one edge then added window glue to another edge before removing the masking tape. It works out well.
Etched out the bombay doors for painting later.
I removed the bombardier to facilitate install of the 50Cal. This will also allow painting some of the interior the correct Olive color and some detailing of the bomb sight. Then there is some more good news/bad news. Bad news first - brother Bob could not get the resin casting of the prop to work out. the good news is that I scored on eBay for another Lindberg kit so I will have propellers and other parts, should I need them, I did not want to have to buy a kit, but this was too reasonable to pass up and cheaper than buying after market parts (as if they exist for 1/64 scale), and that is based on the price of 1/72 parts that I researched. The way this rehab is going I sort of feel like this guy! What am I going to end up with when Im done!😬
Sept. 26 and I masked the decals etc. and sprayed the light gray. Note that the Bombs Away decal looks Ok, which were the ones I was particularly worried about. All decals, save one, went undisturbed.......
.......The letters on the starboard side pulled off along with the masking tape. Maybe I should have followed up on Bob's suggestion of using Silly Putty, since a lot of old paint also came off with the tape it may be a good thing to discover and plan for. A lack of original surface preparation by Dad???? Oh well, when the purchased kit arrives we can determine whether to replace or paint! It is probably a good thing that I did not spray a dullcoat first as that would have been good paint on bad. It will be a little more work but now I can better prepare the surface for new paint.
All of the cowls were masked and pushed onto the nacelles to receive the gray coat. Since these are all a tight fit on the nacelles there is not a good reason to glue them back on!
I set up the starboard wing to see how it looked - not bad, although I did forget to mask the port wing ice bladder - no big deal, I will paint that back on. One thing that now stands out is the bombay doors! I think that I will have to drill and add pins when setting the starboard wing back on. Now it is time for a dullcoat spray. But first..............
.......let's bring the beast upstairs and do more scraping of that loose paint - extremely flaky. I am also beginning paint experiments on the fuselage seams, as well as in the nose and Bombardier. While I am looking at the starboard side paint and decal destruction I should reiterate that this did not occur on the Port side, Another interesting snafu by the Lindberg people is that the waist gunners are back to back. This would be ok for any model other than the "G". When the B 17G was built they had offset the waist gunner positions so they would not get in each others way. Oh well, I can't be too critical of Lindberg, it took the USAF how many iterations before they figured it out?😁
The waist gun positions were also enclosed to protect from the extreme temperature at high altitude - these can be added from sheet styrene. Actually the "only" thing that distinguishes this kit as a "G" is the chin turret. Everything else about this plane is a B17F.
Only a Bombardier dry fit.
The next item I gravitated to was the tail guns. After looking at more B17G photos the tail guns take many forms including a hard turret. The Lindberg molding is rather more squat in the tail than the photos indicate, but at least there were "G"s that sported a sort of "blast bag" such as that on battleship turrets. I figured I could fabricate something in between using a piece of flat styrene and the guns from the Sperry turret.
I first taped over the blunt end and cut around it. I placed the tape on the styrene sheet and cut around the shape, drilled holes for the gun barrels and inserted the guns.
Now the assemble is ready to be inserted in the slot in the tail and the styrene plate glued in place. The tape to which I will add small bits, will then be painted creating a blast bag appearance (I hope😬).
Being all black it is difficult to tell in the photo how well or not this went. I had to do some trimming to make it fit, but I got it glued in. I give me a 6 out of 10. Next I really need to mask the glass and spray this down with dull coat before getting carried away. After that I can finish the tail gunner windows while awaiting the "New Parts".
Monday, Sept. 28 and still waiting for parts, but to get ready I started in on my idea to create a reasonable facsimile of a ball turret, sacrificing movement for a look of accuracy. It was a fiddly exercise of cutting small bits of Tamiya masking tape on my Holtz work glass, lining the bits up on the ball turret and then painting. I had sprayed the underside with dull coat last night so the turret was better apt to accept paint. I could not find the Testors 1233 aircraft gray in touch up bottle so I just sprayed some into the cap and brushed it on the turret (I needed it also for some touch up work).
While still a work in progress it gives the idea of what a ball turret looks like instead of a glue globbed piece of clear plastic. Recall what it looked like?
When completed it should not look too bad! This was STAR WARS before Star Wars!
The Dragon Model 50Cal gun barrels arrived-amazing detail,but only one pair - I thought I had ordered two. Just as well. Although the length looks fine, they seem to me that they are too thin (they are 1/72 scale). I will wait to receive the other guns I have ordered and compare with the Kit parts. It is more likely that the Lindberg parts may be too big, even for 1/64 - we'll see!
For now I cut out and inserted the remaining tail gunner windows - fiddly stuff. I also cut out windows for the B17"G" waist gunners. Once the new guns arrive and I give the fuselage a dull coat spray I can insert those windows as well. This rehab is one long and tedious project, but I am starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.
I could not help myself. I started to watch the debate and it immediately drove me crazy, so I decided to watch Apollo 13 and paint. Started in on the Port wing......
.....moved to the tail and then....
....around the canopy. Although repainting in a more accurate scheme, adding details and replacing parts, I want to keep the decal character that Dad put down in the 60s when he built this kit. I am trying hard to retain his nose art choice. It is a challenge since I have to leave some of the underlying color. I had to cover some of the bombs that laid over the dark green, but I don't mind the tan! The Port side worked out ok as the same number of bombs remain, but I had to cover the words Bombs Away as they were on the dark green and hardly visible......
....I think Dad would be OK with this.
As we wave goodby to September I have the starboard wing painted and dry fit to get an overall progress photo. It is starting to look like a Flying Fortress!👍 Still waiting for parts - kind of like a real B17 restoration (it is beginning to feel that way). I will continue masking around decals to finish up the paint, but I may want/have to change the tail number since, similar to the port side "Bombs Away" they are on the old dark green, and I can't really do a paint around of those. The kit I am waiting for has different decals, including yellow numbers, but they will have to be placed individually - AHHH!
The Port side decal work around is completed. I was able to do some masking, which helped. Filling in the "P" was bit fiddly. The thing is, this is the easy side. I have to recreate the letters on the Starboard side.😟
In the meantime I realize that the superchargers are molded into the wing and really deserve to be detailed as much as possible. A little black wash and metalizer should do the trick (of course to use the metalizer I had to scrape off the aircraft gray first). I will also paint in the cold air intakes either side of the nacelles (trying to cut openings into the wings could be a disaster at this scale). A good thing is that both the Shapeways 50Cal guns arrived today as well as the Lindberg kit I scored on eBay. Despite the decades the kit has not changed and all my assumptions about it are true. The only difference is new decals and it is molded in white instead of silver.
Back to working on masking and painting around decals. the Port side is done and I decided it was now time to put the tail numbers on. The new kit decals being different from those 50 years ago required a change in tail numbers - just as well since the old ones were black against a dark green and nearly invisible. The new decal set had sets of yellow numbers in order one through ten. They were the right size so I made my job easier with a two step application as you can see.
Nice because they are not only readable but match the yellow T in the triangle. I completed the starboard side as well but I still have the "Y" to create on the fuselage.
BTW, I found the fuel port impressions on the wings!
Working on the props for engines 1 and 4
Here is a Kit 50 Cal and a Shapeways 50Cal. The relative difference between the two scales (1/64 vs 1/72) is correct, but not too noticeable if not next to each other. What I like is the level of detail in the shapeways print and the barrel diameter is much closer to correct than the too thick kit barrel. The Shapeways will be particularly effective in the waist gun position.
Note a little paint distress? The underlying mold being silver I can simply chip off paint as might have happened in flight/combat. I am getting ready to try installing the landing gear to be retractable. If it does not work I will fix them in the down position.
Initially I was apparently successful, but later on I pulled the gear to the down position and the Port side broke apart. I had to repair both the pivot pin and glue the wheel back on. That was the easy part, but now I had only one remaining retaining clip from the new kit. I reinstalled the gear and glued on the clip. It is the next morning, Sunday, Oct. 4 and the gear is stiff. I don't wish to force it and possibly break it a second time. The Port gear will remain down - oh well, not everything goes smoothly with a rehab. I was just glad I was able to repair the the gear as it looks pretty good. BTW, before installing I did paint the interior of the wells the appropriate interior green.
This post is way longer than I initially contemplated, but we are nearing completion, so let's review. I sawed open the Sperry turret to remove the old guns and the gunner, but the gunner won't fit through the hole! So I said to myself (yep, this rehab has me talking to myself), I have a brand new turret in the kit I bought. Let's see if I can destroy both of them! My plan is to saw the turret off of the fuselage leaving only the retaining ring. Next, saw the retaining ring off of the new turret. This will allow removal of the old gunner and the installation of a new gunner and new guns in the manner called for in the kit instructions. All I have to do is mate the turret to the ring as seamlessly as possible - NO PROBLEM!!! It should also facilitate the painting of proper framing. I wish me luck!😬
Part one - success - cutting off the ring on the new kit turret, masking and painting in the framing.
Part two (scary) cutting off the old turret.
New sits on old - whew! Now that the gunner is free I work on a means of installing the new Shapeways guns. First I have to fix a loop for the shaft between the guns, but I also add an ammo box.
Drilled the guns and connected with wire threaded through the gunner.
Loaded the assembly and glued down the turret top. I have the barrels to paint but I think it turned out surprisingly (to me) fairly well, and the turret still rotates. Next I can add guns in the nose, return the Bombardier to his post and reinstall the nose plexiglass. Then the chin turret guns.
Previously I compared the kit guns (too big) with the 1/72, but more scale appropriate Shapeways 3D print guns. Here are the remaining four painted on the sprue. Silver with a flat black wash works pretty well for the barrels.
Now let's install a couple in the nose. I have also put the Bombardier in place and reinstalled the original plexiglass as modified. Note that "wire" pitot tubes have also been added and kit guns placed in the chin turret.
Waist guns will go in next!
It is Tuesday, Oct. 6 and the waist gun install was staring at me. I started with kit parts - machine guns. I stood them on end butt side down, snipped off some of the barrel flush with the bottom of the waist opening and glued inside the fuselage. I attached ammo cans to the gun glued everything in place. Despite the fact that waist openings are not offset, the "G" did put in windows to protect the gunners from the extreme cold at high altitude. So it's a mixed bag, but windows are B17G appropriate. Sheet styrene cut to fit (like the tail gun windows) and notched at the gun location. I ran a bead of window glue along the bottom and set the window in place. When the bead had set I ran the window glue around the entire window. Note that I painted a thin black line around the opening to represent a seal. I repeated on the Port side.
Next I press fit the completed engine cowls on to the nacelles.
I completed the engines by filling in the olive color but leaving some off for weathering (along with the paint chipping). I also rubbed my Tamiya "makeup" behind the cowl flaps for exhaust.
I inverted in order to attach the starboard wing. Note the detail added to the molded-in superchargers, again adding Tamiya soot for exhaust weathering. When my brother had earlier inquired why I had not attached the wing sooner I did not think much about it, but I came to realize that being right handed the absence of the starboard wing allowed more freedom to complete the work arounds on the fuselage - Duh! The final install is the metal gun barrels for the Ball turret.
Well, they are in. glued to the styrene inserts (left the masking tape in the front side). I twisted the styrene with the tweezers to fit the slant in the gun openings and glued them in. Now just have to touch up with the aircraft gray.
A little touch up here and there and add the radio wires and I will be able to take completion photos. Each rehab presents a series of different challenges (the rather rare 1/64 scale being a biggy), which take some thought and then learning how to overcome on the fly. This was a real labor of love and the biggest challenge to date😅, literally and figuratively.
Just happened to notice the backlight through the windows.
My apologies for all the photos, but this was the largest rehab attempted and the many and varied challenge I wanted to document - lest we forget!
Finally, my brother staged a "Glamor Shot for me. Enjoy and Stay safe out there.
