Academy 1/72 B-29A finished 4/11

[reserve]

The next victim



I've been jonesing to start that B-50 but decided to do this one first; they are nearly identical and I'll learn the mousetraps. I'd rather bungle something that I can replace easily

[lyle]

Ooohhhh!

[kyledehart5]

Oh yeah. Another beauty of a plane. Can't wait.

[reserve]

Did a few things to feel out the charachter of the model. One thing's for sure, this is not the sweet tempered, well fitting and finely molded A-10 Academy has recently released. Things do not locate tight and positive so one has to proceed with care...when I did the interior decks I stuck them together quick as I could, then fit them into the fuselage halves while wet and adjusted them. I was glad I did this as things would have been badly off in spots otherwise. Thirty years difference in mold tech makes quite a difference.







This is on about the same level as the Monogram kits; perhaps a bit better in ways so I see no reason why it should not build up well unless one takes into account the most unreliable part of the system. Which is me
..

[Tojo72]

Good start,very nice.

[jeaton01]

Nice to see how the build goes. Thanks for the heads up on fitting the internal parts.

[kyledehart5]

Nice start despite the age of the kit.

[406 Silverado]

Aside from the fit issues that you're having, that's a pretty well detailed interior right out of the box Mark. This is gonna be another classy build outta you.....

[stikpusher]

Looks like a very nice interior. Especially when you think that most of it will be quite hard to see!

[Mence]

Nice start, impressive even in this small scale.

[handiabled]

Bookmarked! For a 1/72 kit the detail looks great!

[reserve]

Thanks gents

While sticking stuff together I noticed the surfaces on this model are pretty slick, too slick I thought. That did not seem right so I started to look at B-29 pictures and found there's a tremendous amount of surface detail missing...rivets, panel lines...%#$& whadda I do now. Looks like another decision coming up, it'll probably be fine without the extra work but it'll probably bother me every time I look at it if I do not. I just had to get curious didn't I

[jeaton01]

If it is natural metal I would deal with it with different treatments on panels. In OD/Grey maybe different fading on panels? Hard to do rivets because they were all flush heads on the B-29.

[Steve Zuleski]

Sweet. Can you imagine a 1/35th scale B-29? Better be working in the garage, HA!

[reserve]

Yeah, best I forget about modifications and just treat it as it is for what it is. The tools to do that are expensive. Thanks J for the advice

Z perish the thought! In my place wherever such a thing would be built it'd have to stay, would not be able to get it out the door

[jmarc]

NNNNNNNNNNeat start !

[reserve]

Thank you sir

'Mo done

As S speculated, not much of the flight deck will be seen



Bare plastic on the places I had to trim while fitting the flight deck so the fuselage halves would close up tight



The rear of the cowlings need some serious thinning



The whole mess so far



Because of the lack of visibility in the cockpit I cut some stuff off the floor behind the pilot's seats so I'd have a place to get some split shot into the nose. The B-50 instructions say that it needs forty two grams to get the front gear on the ground; that does not seem enough to me I'll be going a bit heavier methinks. Now I have thirty two bombs to put decals on that's why I'm up here hiding on the computer

[kyledehart5]

I feel like they’re always optimistic on how little weight will be needed to avoid a tail-sitter. Nice progress. Looking forward to seeing the bombs all decaled up. Lol

[reserve]

So am I 'cause that'll mean they're done. If I leave 'em overnight perhaps they'll do themselves?

[Medicman71]

It's looking great!

[kyledehart5]

Mar 2, 2024 19:19:01 GMT -5 reserve said:

So am I 'cause that'll mean they're done. If I leave 'em overnight perhaps they'll do themselves?

😂😂😂 Please let me know how this tactic goes

[handiabled]

I agree with blowing off the fuselage modifications, it can become a energy draining time vampire super quick. Looks like this is coming together nicely with some fitting here and there.

[reserve]

Thanks gents

Left in unmodified kit form, the cowling to nacelle fit is sloppy and unpositive at best. Once I reamed out the ends so the cooling flaps would not look six inches thick even that disappeared so I added a bit of surface area and a stop to get two positive contact points

The bomb decal thing ain't happenen. I tried one and the effect is so small, especially up in the dark bomb bay that putting all nintey six decals on is not worth the time and effort

The two flight deck windows are too small for the opening in the fuselage, they fall right thru the hole. I taped the outside of the fuselage to hold them in place

then a very light application of Tammy quick grab followed by a hopefully filling application of Testor's clear canopy glue


With any luck the glue won't wick out between the window and tape. I'm trying to give a progressive report on the quality of this kit. I'm not down on it yet and altho my opinion of it is steadily dropping, I still think it can be a decent model with some care

[reserve]

Ready to close up



Doing the deed required some clever clamping



At the end of the day I only had one really ugly joint



Considering everything that went into the fuselage halves I feel pretty lucky it closed up as well as it did. Still, it's gonna take a fair amount of filling as the molding is incosistent along the edges. The pin marks are pretty pronounced and numerous on this one also.

Good practice eh?

[kyledehart5]

Yay. Filling and priming. Still they almost closed up cleanly with the clamps. Nicely bludgeoned so far.

[jeaton01]

[reserve]

Thanks gents

K I may need a bigger hammer

Putty applied



and ground off. Here I began trying to restore panel lines. After doing a few I thought there was a noticeable difference in what I'd done and what was there so I decided to rescribe the whole model, not adding anything just enhancing what's already there. The pictures may not show it well.





'm n

I'm not very good at it yet but am improving. Note to self...some areas would have been much easier to do before assembly

[keavdog]

Coming along nicely. I'd guess you'll be painting soon! Do you plan to glue the wings on first then paint or vice versa? Gotta be a bit unwieldy all assembled - depends on the wing joint I'd guess.

[reserve]

Thanks K

Not sure about paint, this rescribing is gonna take some time. I lean toward assembling it first...as you say the quality of the wing joint will be the deciding factor but I really don't like joining finish painted surfaces. The B-52 being swept wing would have been obnoxious assembled fully but this with its straight wings may be more friendly.

For years I've been reading about guys rescribing model kits and I always wondered if it was worth the bother having never done it before myself



Yeah it's worth it

[Real G]

One thing to watch for on this kit is the fit of the upper canopy.  Better test fit now and check the curvature of the canopy and fuselage mating surface.  Way back in the 1990s, there was this great magazine where they built the model without paint or putty to show potential customers how well it fit.  When the Academy B-29 was reviewed, they mentioned that there was a discrepancy where the canopy met the upper fuselage.  I have the Enola Gay boxing, and on the side panels, you can see where the factory builder cut the upper fuselage and angled the roof a bit down to meet the canopy line.  Better to deal with this problem now vs later!  I learned my lesson building Italeri kits!