1/48 Revell B-17F to E (Part 3)

Coastal Command Conversion

by Matt Swan

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    This has been a fairly intensive painting session and now I need to let these layers of paint cure for a day before continuing. Next I’ll be masking off the upper pattern and shooting the light gray underside. There are a few minor areas that will need touching up with a brush and then the final pieces will be added to the model.

    Now I have some more serious masking to deal with. I’m using a very basic, generic type of masking tape that I buy in bulk from my local automotive paint store – this is Highland tape part #2727 and is a medium tack tape. For each of the engine cowlings I use a quarter as my former and cut out a circle of tape to center on the cowling. Then I use thin strips of tape to cover all of the edge lines. The wings and stabilizers are covered with tissue paper and any other exposed area is covered with more tape. The entire underside, the fuselage sides and the rudder and fin are shot with Polly Scale light gray. The dark green and dark sea gray were both Polly Scale also and gave me no trouble painting but the light gray is very difficult. It wants to clump up and clog the airbrush repeatedly. I thin it out to about 50% with Windex and add several drops of flow aid and this solves the problem.

    With the paint thinned out to this degree I have to apply several light coats to get good color density allowing about a half an hour between coats. Once this has been completed I remove all the large masks and the deicer boot masks as well as the masks over the waist gun positions. The masks on the clear parts stay in place but the tissue packing from the engines and landing gear are removed at this time also. The light gray did crawl under the masks in a few placed but this is touched up with a wide soft brush and I am ready to move on to the main gear.

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    A good sized drop of medium super-glue is placed on the end of the landing gear leg and another is placed on the contact side of the axel where it will connect onto the bay bulkhead and then the gear is put in place. I’ve cut short pieces of Evergreen rod, painted them steel and now super-glue them in place as the visible part of the retraction arm. The superchargers are painted with Polly Scale rust, washed with a black sludge wash then dry brushed with Gunze-Sangyo Burnt Iron to give them a metallic sheen.

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    In each wing leading edge there is a small bay for a landing light and there is a large gap inside each bay that I’ve filled with Squadron White putty. This gets trimmed up with a razor knife and some sandpaper before getting a coat of Testors silver paint. The light itself will be made from some scrap plastic and the lenses will be installed after the final dull coat has been applied.

    The tail wheel has been super-glued in place and the strut brace has been trimmed for a folded position and installed in the tail wheel bay also. The canvas cover around the tail gun position has been done in a rust color to simulate leather. I’ve gone over the entire model looking for defects in paint or surface that need touch-up and feel it is fairly complete. The model is given overnight for all paint to cure and then she gets a good coat of Future.

    Once again there is an overnight drying period and I can begin to apply decals. One thing I can say about those old Revell decals is that they give you lots of little stencils. I’m using those from the kit sheet as well as a few from an old Aero Master B-17 sheet and the national markings are coming from Aero Master, Lancaster Bombers Part 2. The national markings are put down first and then the other decals will be applied after those have dried. The markings on the fuselage are actually three decals layered and I like to give each layer a day to dry before putting another on it so I have three days tied up decaling.

 

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    Before each decal is placed I use a soft brush to dampen the area with some Micro-Set solution. After each decal has been in place for about five minutes I come back with the soft brush and Micro-Sol to treat the decal. The old Revell decals are pretty brittle and the edges want to curl up as they dry until the Micro-Sol hits them and then they settle down nicely. The large Aero Master roundels on the wings gave me a bit of trouble also. They are single layer decals but do not want to conform to the wing surface. I had to hit them three times with Micro-Sol to get a good result. The other Aero Master decals behaved just fine.

She’s starting to look really nice, I can hardly wait for the masks to come off.

     The weathering process has begun and I'm experimenting with different methods of accenting raised panel lines. I tried some standard sludge wash but that did not take very well. I tried some work with a sanding stick to abrade off the top layers of paint and expose the darker plastic underneath but that was a lot of work and I didn't really like the results. Next I tried a .005 Micron archival pen to trace the raised lines but that created a very stark look that I didn't like either. Then I went back to the sludge wash idea and tweaked it with some Higgins brown ink and Liquitex flow aid and ended up with a result that I could live with. I probably should have gone for a different color ink as this one went a little red on me and that was even after I added some Grumbacher Black and Sienna to it.

The wash mixture that I’m using is mixed in a soda pop bottle top and consists of a small dab of Grumbacher Black + a small dab of Grumbacher Sienna + a few drops of Higgins dark brown water soluble ink + a few drops of Liquitex flow aid + a single drop of liquid dish soap and lots of water. I brush the mixture onto the raised panel line and let it dry then, using a good quality paper towel cut into about four inch sections and folded into tight pads and dampened ever so slightly, I wipe the model surface from front to back. This take a little practice to get just right as some area need just a light touch while others actually need some scrubbing to get the ink level just right. The fueling caps were streaked by placing a drop of wash on the cap, letting it dry then slightly dampening my fingertip, placing it firmly on the spot and giving it a quick wipe to the rear.

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Washed

    Now I shall work on some exhaust staining. First point if interest is the vents on the upper surface of the wing. Many times modelers will show heavy staining around these vents but they are vents not exhaust ports. They vent hot air from the oil coolers and intercoolers.

     With this in mind I keep a very light residue track from these (we are talking oil here) and make heavier tracks on the bottom of the wings. The staining is done with Tamiya X-19 smoke thinned 20% with Liquitex flow aid added. My air pressure is set at about 7 psi and I am making several light passes to build up some color. This is only the base layer of the stain. Once this layer has dried the entire model gets shot with Polly Scale clear flat then the pastel chalks come out.

     I’m using a combination of  brown and light gray pastel chalk. I use my razor knife to shave it into a pop bottle cap and mix about 70% brown and 30% gray. Using a cotton swab I wipe the ground chalk onto the model creating the final stains. Just like with the airbrush, repeated passes increase the color density. Using a short brush I dry dab some steel onto leading edge surfaces for some light paint chipping. Once this is complete I cut a small piece of clear plastic from a battery bubble pack for the rear crew door window and install that. The aerial is made from some invisible thread drawn across the tip of a black marker and secured with some super-glue.

    The final pieces are added now; the waist guns are positioned with small dabs of super-glue and the tail gun is mounted. The propellers are all placed with some Tenex 7R and now the masks come off. I used Fast Frames masks and will never use them again. These things are very difficult to get off and, at first, I thought they were leaving behind all their glue but it turned out they were ripping off the Future coating. I had to go back over every clear part that had a Fast Frames mask on it and re-Future it. All areas that were masked with liquid frisket and masking tape came clean without a problem. From now on it’s Black Magic masks for me.

Matt

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Photos and text © by Matt Swan

Below are links to all 5 article relating to this B-17 project.

Model Kit

Resin

Feature Feature Feature

1/48 Revell B-17F

1/48 Paragon Designs B-17E Conversion kit #4851

1/48 Revell B-17F to E (Part 1) Coastal Command Conversion

1/48 Revell B-17F to E (Part 2) Coastal Command Conversion

1/48 Revell B-17F to E (Part 3) Coastal Command Conversion

Review by Matt Swan

Review by Matt Swan

by Matt Swan

by Matt Swan

by Matt Swan