Hi all, thought I'd showcase the status of the B-17 since I haven't in a while. The wings are not actually attached, but hey it looks a lot better with them on. This model is on hold for the foreseeable future as I've got other kits I'd rather work on.
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And in actual modeling news, I have decided to add wing flaps to my B-26 after seeing
Bustedwing
's modification to his Ki-45. Original idea was to fully cut them out of the bottom half of the wing and then use plasticard to help position them like the real aircraft's split-slotted flaps. The inboard flaps however proved very difficult to fully remove, so I opted to just angle them instead (which probably would have been the better approach in the first place. This does mean the flap positions are somewhat inaccurate as there should be a gap between the flap and wing, but that's as good as I can make it. Plasticard was too annoying to use so I neglected the struts. In the process of cutting the flaps I also cut my thumb (I should really wear gloves), broke the left landing gear strut, the right wheel, the turret mount (letting the turret fall into the fuselage) and one of the waist guns. I was also trying to replace some of the lead block weights in the nacelles with leadshot, so really I spent all day working on this plane. I have fixed everything I've broken, and that was a lot of work. The landing gear in particular required bracing with a metal fork I cut from a paper clip. I'm mostly happy with the model's current state, though there's still work to be done.
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Changes made:
-Wing flaps added (roughly in takeoff position),
-Replaced the old horizontal turret mount that required opening the fuselage to attach with a new stronger vertical mount,
-Removed the waist guns (too annoying to glue the broken gun back together),
-Added pitot tube to the right wing (kit didn't come with one),
-Replaced 2 out of the 5 lead block weights with piles of leadshot glued with PVA.
Changes required:
-Paint the wing flaps,
-Touch up paint overall (unlikely),
-Add more glue to the leadshot because a blob of them sometimes hangs from the bottom of the left nacelle.
Next project should be the group build B-25, but might be the P-36 kit I've bought as I'd like to test out some new tools before using them on the B-25.