As I said in my Enola Gay thread, I’m a glutton for punishment. Building two Monogram B-29 bombers at the same time (and one with all that conversion effort to get rid of turret fairings and fill the resulting hole in such as way as to have it flush with the surrounding fuselage surface) is really not a great idea. Well, if one wants to keep their sanity…
Initially, I was going to do this build as the Bocks Car, but after determining (a) the amount of work necessary to do a Silverplate bomber and (b) that this boxing did not include all of the bulged turret covers, I opted to build a conventional B-29. I looked at aftermarket markings from Kits-World and the like, but I was really wanting to avoid dealing with painting de-icer boots on either of these builds, and all the decal options I found were for B-29s with the de-icer boots. That also meant the “Thumper” option included on the original release’s decal sheet was out. But this kit does come with an attractive WWII option with no de-icer boots, Humpin’ Honey, a B-29 belonging to the 770th Bombardment Squadron / 462nd Bombardment Group, flying out of Chengtu, China, in July 1944. I believe this bomber was shot down around that time.
The kit is a re-release circa 2004-2005.
This boxing includes two sets of propellers, one cuffed (typically used on the Silverplate bombers), and one not cuffed, which were typically fitted to conventional B-29s. Doing a conventional bomber for this build meant that I didn’t face too much difficulty in getting her together.
I opted to add some detail to the bombs, lead wire for the arming mechanism. I found that detail in a reference book that I referred to religiously during these builds.
Paints were AK Interactive Extreme Metal duraluminum, dark aluminum, white aluminum, and stainless steel. I also added Model Master Acryl chrome yellow for the tail, prop tips, and nose gear doors. Vallejo flat black for the props, and the interior is largely Vallejo dark green.
I added a little heavier weathering on this B-29 than I did onthe Enola Gay (the Enola Gay was a virtually brand new aircraft at the time of the Hiroshima bombing, having made the trip to Tinian and as far as I could tell, one practice run for the bombing itself). Had I built this bird wheels down, I would have dirtied her up a good bit more. The weathering is heavily diluted Vallejo black for the exhaust staining, which I applied at low PSI in multiple passes until I had built it up to what I think is visible in the photos. There is also a Flory wash across the flaps and ailerons.
The photo of the nose landing gear reveals that I lost one of the pitot tubes.
I think the metal variation looks good on this build, which is a 180 for me when I first applied the paint. Initially I thought the variation was too stark. I also think this build looks better than the Enola Gay because it looks … complete, for lack of a better word. The B-29 should have a bunch of guns befitting its name of Superfortress, but the lack of those guns on the Silverplate bombers just makes it look … barren. (Which clearly was not the case)
Next up, a 1/32 Trumpeter SBD-3 Dauntless. Seeing the movie Midway back in November prompted this next build.