I’m building, slooooowly but surely, a Monogram 1:48 B29. I noticed the number assigned to the propeller on the sprue (54) doesn’t match up with the number given on the instruction sheet (55).
“No big deal” I say to myself. I figure there was a misprint, and move on. These things happen.
But…these misnumbered propellers aren’t the only ones in the kit. There are also four other props (stamped as part no. 120) that have a different shape to them; kind of a fat section at the root of each blade. These props aren’t listed anywhere in the instruction sheet, so I make the assumption that they are part of an alternate version of the kit, i.e. the Enola Gay.
I’m planning on using the plain, smooth, just-like-the-picture propellers, but the thing that gets me is that those props are on a small sprue by themselves with a couple of small antennas, while the “mystery props” are part of a larger sprue with engines, bombs, etc., almost like they’re the ones that were intended for the kit.
My question is this: what is the purpose of the second, fat-propeller set? Are they for an alternate design? Do they represent prototype parts? Are they incorrect and the company just left them in? Or do model companies give us extra pieces on purpose, like a reward you can add to the spare parts bin?
While not at all a dilemma that will interfere with my build, I am curious, and I figured if anyone would know, it would be you guys.
I’m gonna take a shot at this.
I built this kit many years ago, when it was first released, and there weren’t any extra propellers. The original kit had the markings for the ‘Enola Gay’. So, I would be inclined to say that the extra props are for the particular aircraft that the markings supplied with the new release of the kit are for.
This is just my guess and I have been known to be wrong before.
Which release of the B-29 are you building? I haven’t seen the latest release, but I’ve seen several of the releases and there were only one set of props in every kit I’ve seen. In fact all the more recent releases had exactly the same parts as the original release. The only differences were the box, decals, and instructions.
In every release I’ve seen, there is a large tree of black parts and the propellers are on that along with a number of detail parts. The extra tree with the extra propellers sound like an addition for a recent release.
I have that kit too but those other parts are for a late war B-29 and a Korean War B-29 plus the kit still retains the Fat Man and Little Boy Atomic Bombs.
Sounds like you have the latest release of the kit. Monogram added a new set of props to the latest release to address the cuffed/non-cuffed issue. The original release only had the cuffed propellers, not that many aircraft actually used the cuffed props – check your reference material for correct prop usage.