Anyone have some tips on how best to put together the two halves of the belly gunners ball turret? It has a horrible fit. Also, from my reference photos, a two windows on the bottom of the turret should extend over where the two halves come together. I’m trying to figure out how best to tackle this thing. Also, the part that holds the turret seems pretty flimsy. I hope it holds ok.
dave to be honest any way you do it you will end up with a seam that will be visible in the ball turrent. now you can sand the peices down a bit and this will cut down the visibility of the seam but it will still be there. my best advice is to future the two halves, sand the areas to be joined, use your glue (whatever it is) to melt the areas before you put them together, should only need a few seconds to do that. and then sand lightly to remove as much as you can.
as for the part that holds it you will be fine. it will hold it with no problem.
joe
Thanks Joe,
I went ahead and tried your suggestion. I had already futured them, but I just really couldn’t think of a good way to do it without having seams. I sanded them down good and tried to get a good melt using liquid cement. I hope it turns out ok. Thank goodness that ball turret is on the bottom. [:D] Heck, the way this R/M B-17G kit is, I’m guessing the ball turret is going to be the least of my worries. I just got the fuselage halves together and they are going to be fun to fill and sand I see.
Here are some pics.
Looking good. I have that in my kit and im kinda getting anxious to start it. Can’t wait to see yours finished.
Squadron sells a replacement canopy set that includes a new ball turret
I have built two of these models, one for my dad and another one for a friend of his. What do they do but hang them from the ceiling thus exposing that turret to all who care to look. If you were to display the model in this fashion you can point the guns down a little bit as if the gunner is going after a bogey. This will help a little bit. You can try a little weathering to hide the seam as well.
If you do hang it from the ceiling you must do the job. The one I built for dad fell due to poor installation by my brother.[V] I always knew there was something wrong with him.[:)] The good news is that after I get my Dauntless finished I get to do another one.
Thanks for the comments, guys. I’ll post some progress pics as I go.
I started the masking job, as you can see, with tamiya tape. After seeing dragonfly’s He-111, I decided to give frosted scotch tape a try. It was definately easier to mask with. Especially on that ball turret. I’m anxious to see how well the masking comes off after painting. There are definately times when tamiya tape still works best, like on really curved surfaces, but I really like how easy it was to see the panel lines underneath the scotch tape and how easy it was to make clean cuts.
You can also see where I started to do some seam filling. This is by far the worst kit I’ve ever worked with for seam filling. One problem I’m having is that I’m sanding down the raised panel lines. I don’t want to scribe my own panel lines, that would be a bit more work than I want to put in this model. I guess there’s not much I can do about losing the raised detail.