hi i was wondering if any body has tips on how to modify the revel-monogram kit so the landing gear are in flying position. any help would be greatly appriciated [:)] i also was wondering if anybody had tips for painting the ballturret. but my biggest problem is i want to build this b-17 in flight but i cant figure out how to acuritly modify the gear into the up position.thanks for your help [bow][bow]
Take a close look at any pictures of airborne aircraft that show the bottom of the plane. Determine how much of the gear assembly is visible. The bottom portion of the tire and part of the strut, at least. Take the model and move the gear strut/tire through a retraction cycle and see how it looks once it gets completely into the well.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
thank you yardbird78 for you hellp
I did this with a 1/48 B-17E conversion, here is an excerpt from the construction article.
“I knew right from the beginning that I wanted to build this “in flight” with gear up and now I must consider the changes that will be needed to accomplish this. The gear bays are devoid of detail, which for my purposes is a good thing, less stuff to get in the way. First thing I need to do is to get rid of the retraction arm on the front of the gear strut. This would normally fold up and just a small part would be visible from beneath the aircraft. Folding the strut and laying it in the bay would consume too much room however putting a piece of Evergreen rod in the bay for just the visible portion works okay. With the retraction arm removed I’ve placed the assembled wheel on the axel and test fit it into the bay. Guess what, it does not fit. I have to open up the hole in the interior bulkhead and trim the end of the axle to get it to fit into the bay properly. The exterior opening needed a little sanding to allow the tire to slide into position and I think it looks pretty good. The second bay is treated in the same manner and now I can glue the bay bulkhead in place and paint the interior Model Master Green Drab. I know that a lot of B-17 instructions tell you to paint the interior chromate green but the truth of the matter is that they were painted a variety of colors. Some were chromate green, some were O.D. while others were dark olive, natural metal and in one case black with messages written in white chalk from the production crew to the ultimate flight crew. The bottom line was that the lack of the correct shade of paint was not going to slow down bomber production by one second.”
You can see the entire article at my website under the “Allies” tab.
Hey totten,
Have this kit on the shelf and was wondering if you could tell me how its
going so far…How’s the fit and quality of the kit? Are you having any
major problems with it and is it worth trying to build? I’m a bit suspicious
of these Revell kits so any info you had would help me a great deal.
Thanks,
Tankbuster
thanks for your help swanny. tankbuster2005 im not very far into this project yet im only on step 3 but ive looked at the parts on the sprue and they mostly seem to have very little to no flash but on the back of the radio room bulkhead wich is double sided the cock pit has good detail. but the balll turet has no seat it just has a gun and the rear gunner position doesn’t have a lot of detail inside but it shuold look good from the outside i will keep you posted as i get further along in construction. and i will lett you know if i run into any big fit problems. but i would recomend building the kit it seems good overall and should be a lot of fun. i build alot of revel kits and there aircaft are surrprisingly well detailed for the most part and usual fit together with little problem.exept for there japanese zero wich doesent have a very good cockpit and it has no cockpit floor!
I went to a lot of trouble to scratch build the interior of the ball turret on my PB4Y-1 and guess what, once complete you could not see any of it, go figure. Here is one of the reference pics I used when I did mine just in case you are interested.
