The beast has been tamed: B-52F Stratofortress

1
December 15, 2017
OK, then. Here we go. Easily the biggest kit box I ever had my hands on. Wow.
2
December 15, 2017
.. and what’s inside. The kit plus all goodies I collected for this project. Vacform canopies, Cutting Edge decals, B-52G resin conversion set and brass tubes for spars.
3
December 15, 2017
Kit parts. Gosh, what am I getting into? Need more space...
4
December 15, 2017
More kit parts and engine parts of the conversion set I will be using.
5
December 15, 2017
And duplicate sprues with more parts.
6
December 15, 2017
Step 1: front office. This is what you get in the box. Oh well, it’s a start..
7
December 15, 2017
Dug up spare crew from the spares bin for a beauty contest. Original on the right. The guy on the left won.
8
December 15, 2017
Hard to find resin B-52 seats out there so no weaseling my way out here. Building up the seat. Had to guess which seat to model, opted for late one.
9
December 15, 2017
Progressing with the seats, test seating in progress. Cleaned up cockpit floor.
10
December 15, 2017
Seat almost complete, added pedestal and throttles, started on instrument panel. Poor guy on the RH side lost his left arm as well.
11
December 15, 2017
Gotta do something about that cavern behind the seats. Not sure what can be seen later on but vacform canopy will be much clearer than kit parts.
12
December 15, 2017
Building up area behind seats. Added IP seat to busy things up. Not 100% sure what I am building is correct for the F, did not find definite references for that but got to move on.
13
December 15, 2017
Rear area assembled, dry-fitting on bigger mounts made from sprue. Happy enough with test fit.
14
December 15, 2017
Adding the transparent sunshade above the instrument panel. Hope it will stay on..
15
December 15, 2017
Step 1 complete! Added foil to simulate the curtain which I guessed from reference was there. Added some boxes and Frankensteined replacement arms on our RH guy.
16
December 15, 2017
Step 2: back office. Tail-end charlie is floating in mid-air, so first order is making a floor and bulkheads. Picked a suitable seat from the spares box.
17
December 15, 2017
Assembling floor and bulkheads
18
December 15, 2017
Built up the radar sight which will go on to the rear bulkhead from scraps
19
December 15, 2017
Added panels and tubing to the sidewalls. Dry-fitting, looking good. Step 2 completed!
20
January 6, 2018
Step 3: rescribing the fuselage. Bring out the dymo tape, scriber and references. Corrected several lines in the nose area.
21
January 6, 2018
Installing the bomb bay doors, these are designed as moveable, so you get big gaps. Backing up the gaps for flling.
22
January 6, 2018
Intermezzo: dry-fit of wings and tail to get an idea of the CoG location. OK, OK, and to toy around a bit 🙂. Darn, it’s bigger than I thought... Will need a plan B for the stand.
23
January 6, 2018
Continuing with the bomb bay area, added shims to the center line to close big gap.
24
January 6, 2018
Adding lower aft window which RM completely missed, used template to ensure straight edges.
25
January 6, 2018
Success!
26
January 6, 2018
Phew, RH side done! In just under two weeks.... I will do remaining detail work and the long upper walkway after assembly. LH side up next.
27
January 6, 2018
And another two weeks (with little modelling time) and the LH side done as well. Went much faster, scribed this one with the RH side mated up, which turned out to be easier.
28
January 8, 2018
Step 4: preparing the vacform replacement canopy installation. Found an old Falcon set on the Internet, used scriber to separate the canopies from the backing. Not sure I will use the gunners canopy.
29
January 8, 2018
The scary bit, getting rid of the roof. No way back now.
30
January 8, 2018
Test fit, seems OK. With the roof gone it now becomes apparent the gaps around the cockpit are much bigger than I thought. Hmm.
31
January 8, 2018
Sorted with a little rework, installed shims around the edges, much more snug now.
32
January 8, 2018
Adding ridges to aid canopy installation. Aft end needs to be faired in to the fuselage, front end just butts onto the nose. Will be tricky to cement that.
33
January 8, 2018
Test fit on the ridges, looks better. Hopes are up for a succesful install later on!
34
January 8, 2018
Adding the four small windows. Upper kit ones were unusable due to sink marks, so both these and added lower ones were made from CD box cover. Worked out well, installed them with tight press fit in the rather soft plastic, hope I will not regret that!
35
January 21, 2018
Step 5: main landing gears. Here’s what you get in the box. Four basic but rather bare legs, two ceilings (of which only one is correct) and lots of wheels which look fine to me.
36
January 21, 2018
And this is how it’s supposed to go in. Not quite complete with lots of open space around. The ceiling part is only applicable to the rear wheel well. Therefore removed webbing from the front legs.
37
January 21, 2018
Main gear legs can use some more detail, like replacing the incorrect retraction cylinders with correct ones from copper tubing.
38
January 21, 2018
Adding torque links, an additional brace, missing cross brace for the forward gear mounts and the steering cylinders.
39
January 21, 2018
Finishing off with brake lines from soft metal wire. Ready for installation, another step done! Next step: the wheel wells.
40
February 9, 2018
Step 6: scratch building the wheel wells. Starting at the front, which is totally different from what RM provides.
41
February 9, 2018
Forward bulkhead with passage ways and entrance to equipment bay, started on equipment rack
42
February 9, 2018
Center wing box, aft bulkhead and strips for the lower fuselage longerons
43
February 9, 2018
Continuous test fitting of parts. Wing box fits around LH wing mounting tab, will need false ceiling to hide fwd mounting tab of RH wing. Started on longeron.
44
February 9, 2018
Completed and painted equipment bay, filled with complex looking stuff from the spares box. Added equipment rack and piping to front bulkhead.
45
February 9, 2018
Basic structure finished, waiting to be filled with piping, wiring and what not...
46
February 9, 2018
But first the basic structure of the aft wheel well. This is one is much simpler and RM parts can be used as a basis, although shape of wheel recess is not quite correct.
47
February 9, 2018
Completed in record time compared to the fwd well and ready for further detailling.
48
March 12, 2018
Starting with all the machinery, wiring and piping to fill out the wheel well. Building up a biggish piece of machinery in the LH fwd well.
49
March 12, 2018
Fleshing out the fwd well, gizmo installed and addition of piping and wiring in progress. Guessing my way through lots of contradicting reference pics here... Apparently there were many variations here.
50
March 12, 2018
Adding control wires and wiring in the aft wheel well. Trying all kinds of materials, not always succesfully. Soldering wire works great, the stiffer purple jewelers wire is not so great... Very fine copper wire from electricity cable is also a challenge!
51
March 12, 2018
Adding more and more boxes and stuff, progressing to the aft part of the fwd wheel well. Raiding the spares box for suitable shapes.
52
March 12, 2018
Endless trial fitting, here on the RH side of the fwd wheel well. Have to make sure it can actually be assembled. Easy to forget and install a pipe somewhere that blocks assembly later on!
53
March 12, 2018
Added final braces and last boxes with wiring/piping to the fwd wheel well. Finished!
54
March 12, 2018
And aft wheel well finished as well!
55
March 12, 2018
Final trial assemly and an idea of what remains visible. Luckily quite a lot 🙂. Closing up the fuselage later on will require something like four hands though...
56
March 25, 2018
Step 7: stand socket and wing root strengtening. First a dry-fitting to determine the approximate CoG where the socket will be located.
57
March 25, 2018
Socket for the aluminium tube that will serve as the stand, made from tube from the spares bin
58
March 25, 2018
Creating bulkheads above the wing tabs to strenghten both the tabs and the wing root area. I do not trust Monogram’s original engineering to prevent cracking of the seams.
59
March 25, 2018
Three bulkheads in place, inserted in cut-outs in fuselage top to create strong attachments to prevent fuselage seam cracking
60
March 25, 2018
Wing spars of square copper tubing to prevent sagging of the wings and to add strength to the wing root
61
March 25, 2018
Cut holes in the wing root to accept spars, spars ready for cut to create the needed crank at the wing root
62
March 25, 2018
Cut and bend created, not quite the precision engineering I hoped...
63
March 25, 2018
Filled the gap with the scraps of copper I removed and soldered the joint. Result: a nice strong spar. Much easier than I thought!
64
March 25, 2018
Joined in the middle using a cutdown bolt and it fits!
65
March 25, 2018
Test fit of the spars, looking good, much sturdier now
66
March 25, 2018
Glued the spar to the top wing half with CA. Another step done!
67
August 12, 2018
Step 8: painting the fuselage interior. Sprayed the interior with a mix of interior green and yellow zinc chromate with a light interior green overspray to match the two colors shown in ref pics.
68
August 12, 2018
And followed up with handpainting the various details.
69
August 12, 2018
Dry-fit to check the effect. Looks good to me. Only some grime and dirt to add and it's done.
70
August 12, 2018
All aboard the cockpit and tail gunners position, ready for installation.
71
August 12, 2018
Installing the forward interior parts....
72
August 12, 2018
... and the aft ones. All working out as planned thanks to the gazillion dry-fits.
73
August 12, 2018
Tail gunner in, tail turret up next. Replaced the gun barrels with coper tubing.
74
August 12, 2018
Everything ready for closing up!
75
August 12, 2018
Step 9: Fuselage assembly. Closed up and taped tight. Seam is not pretty but not as bad as expected. Closing up went easier then during the dry-fits as the interior parts were not sitting around loose anymore.
76
August 12, 2018
Filled the seam, man it’s a long one.... Worth a week of filling and sanding. Seam came out OK in the end, did a litle unscheduled drop test to test the strength with only a small section popping. Duh.
77
August 12, 2018
Area around the tail gun is tricky, fit is mediocre at best here. Repeatedly banging 70 cm of fuselage against the stuff on my workbench cost me a gun barrel...
78
August 12, 2018
Tail gunners canopy on, required some shims but went on OK. Used the kit canopy, had no feasible idea how to install the vacform one.
79
August 12, 2018
Lots of dust, refilling, more dust, Mr Surfacer, etc. and we have progressed to rescribing the lost panel lines.
80
August 12, 2018
Some unexpected work on the glare shield, the instrument panel is riding higher than anticipated. No sweat, some more plasticard to the rescue. Also added upper escape hatch.
81
August 12, 2018
Masking the vacform cockpit windows. Did I already mention I really dread these transparent monsters? Nice and clear though...
82
August 12, 2018
Adding the flash curtains from alu foil and litte rods. There is not much room for the front ones and hope the aft ones stay on
83
August 12, 2018
Moment of thuth, installed the cockpit windows with Clearfix and Tamiya extra thin at the aft end. Setting aside to dry with fingers crossed.
84
August 12, 2018
Fit of the cockpit is not perfect, shims are nedeed below to windows
85
August 12, 2018
Some more careful filling and sanding and it looks good
86
August 12, 2018
Adding external details like the escape hatches and antennas
87
August 12, 2018
Filling intakes and grilles not present on B-52F
88
August 12, 2018
Step 10: Tail feathers. First task: rescribing.
89
August 12, 2018
Adding interior of leading edge intake
90
August 12, 2018
Assembly, lots of pressure on thinned traling edge...
91
August 12, 2018
Same process for the horizontals
92
August 12, 2018
Step 11: Engine nacelle modification and assembly
93
August 12, 2018
Improved the engine exhausts, big improvement over what's in the kit
94
August 12, 2018
Modification to F nacelle is fairly straightforward, fit of resin parts is OK but still needs lots of filler
95
December 1, 2018
Have to find my own solution for the F specific bumps on the nacelles. Bit of a challenge, in the end I used two old bombs to make these, even though they are not as streamlined as the real thing.
96
December 1, 2018
Instaling the bumps
97
December 1, 2018
Adding the pylon, need some shims to improve the fit
98
December 1, 2018
All four assembled, just some minor filling and sanding on the rear of the pylon-nacelle joints.
99
December 1, 2018
Test fitting, looking good!
100
December 1, 2018
And a coat of Tamiya primer and correcting some of the scribing finishes another step.
101
December 1, 2018
Step 12: Rescribing the wings. Gathering tools and courage. Big area to cover but only long straight lines. How hard can that be?
102
December 1, 2018
Also need to instal the spoilers, designed to be movable so fit is crappy. Had to fill huge gap around one of them with plastic rod.
103
December 1, 2018
Darn, my ruler is not long enough... And amazing how often I goofed up these seemingly easy long lines. Like scribing two and filling one again all the way...
104
December 1, 2018
OMG, done! Another two weeks worth of scribing, phew.
105
December 1, 2018
Step 13: Flap well interiors. Took a long hard look at what RM offers and decided to scratch it all. Starting with adding a rear spar.
106
December 1, 2018
And away with all these clunky fake details, which are designed around the movable flaps feature.
107
December 1, 2018
Made the first ribs from plastic card, starting with the flap tracks. Still have to remove the upper wing detail.
108
December 1, 2018
Upper wing details gone and damage repaired. Added attachment angles for the flap tracks, deeply scribed the location of all ribs.
109
December 1, 2018
Ribs, ribs and more ribs. 60 in total and I cheated and ommitted a pair because the kit’s flap and flap well geometry appears not entirely correct.
110
December 1, 2018
All ribs are in! I used masking tape templates to fabricate them.
111
December 1, 2018
Added intercostals, flap track lower flanges and some more structure detail. Checking the effect. Nice!
112
December 1, 2018
Dressed it up with some hydraulics using B-52H references, guessing the F was closer to this as it did not have the D’s bleed air ducting to drive the generators.
113
December 1, 2018
Improving the flaps, starting with thinning the trailing edge of the inboard flaps.
114
December 1, 2018
Covering the huge trenches that are another part of the movable flaps feature with 0.5 mm plastic card, correcting the flap thickness at the same time.
115
December 1, 2018
Curving the plastic card around the leading edge. Cut new, more shallow throughs in the right location in the added skin.
116
December 1, 2018
Adding carriages to the inboard flaps and repeating the process for the outboard flaps.
117
December 1, 2018
Sawing of the carriages using a template to end up with the correct flap angle (35 degrees).
118
December 1, 2018
Boxed in the inlets in leading edge, will be cleaned up after assembly.
119
December 1, 2018
Added structural detail to the outrigger wheel wells. Easy job compared to all the other stuff.
120
December 1, 2018
Step 14: Wing assembly. wing parts readied for spraying the flaps, flap wells and wheel wells. No amount of Googling got me a definite answer for the color...
121
December 1, 2018
... so I went for interior green (which looked too dark) sprayed over a yellow base coat.
122
December 1, 2018
Detail painting, mainly greased surfaces and a dab of aluminium color on hydraulic components.
123
December 1, 2018
After drying its assembly time! Fit is forgettable but hey, what’s new. Strapped each wing on a plank to ensure a straight wing.
124
December 1, 2018
Sanding flush the boxed inlets and correcting mismatched panel lines
125
December 1, 2018
Underwing stuff: the kit MER’s are rather obese and the HSAB is too wide. Took the whole thing apart (why not...) and dug up spare MER’s.
126
December 1, 2018
Reduced the HSAB width, reassembled the pieces and repairing all damage. The Hound Dog pylons itself look OK shapewise...
127
December 1, 2018
... except for a big gap when fitted on the wing. References show a slightly thicker upper part which is added from thin card strip which helps closing the gap.
128
December 1, 2018
Test fitting the (huge!) wing tanks revealed... more gaps! More shims of plastic card to the rescue again. Busy with cleaning up wing leading and trailing edges.
129
December 1, 2018
Installing the tanks with lots of pressure to close as much of the gaps as possible. Succeeded quite well, Mr Surfacer sufficed for the remaining gaps.
130
December 1, 2018
The tail end required more work, should have come up level to the upper wing surface but no luck here. More plastic card needed.
131
December 1, 2018
Almost there, pylons still to install, correcting sink marks etc. not spotted earlier. Outrigger wheel doors are installed temporarily. Engine pods will be installed later, somewhere in the painting sequence.
132
January 6, 2019
Pylon installation, filling of the now manageable gap.
133
January 6, 2019
134
January 6, 2019
Another dry fit of all main assemblies.
135
January 6, 2019
Masking the wheel wells.
136
January 6, 2019
And let the painting begin! First a coat of primer.
137
January 6, 2019
... the fuselage only just fits in my spray booth.
138
January 6, 2019
The primer coat revealed shoddy workmanship on the fuselage seams. Darn, more rework. Bring out Mr Surfacer again...
139
January 6, 2019
Seam OK now after another primer coat, mapping out the fuselage walkways.
140
January 6, 2019
Walkways and pre-shading done in black. I don’t expect any of the pre-shading to survive but had an airbrush full of black so applied it anyway.
141
January 6, 2019
Masking miles of walkways using 1 mm masking tape.
142
January 6, 2019
Great stuff this 1 mm tape, getting long straight lines was not half as difficult as expected.
143
January 6, 2019
Sprayed radomes white and masked, also sprayed lower surfaces of fuselage and engine pods white in prepation of weathering with salt treatment.
144
January 6, 2019
Next up the natural metal parts, mostly fin and pylons, sprayed with VallejoAir. After studying lots of images I (rightly or wrongly) concluded that the F’s had a coat of aluminium paint over most of the airframe.
145
January 6, 2019
Masking between the various natural metal shades created by adding drops of black or tan.
146
January 6, 2019
Lots of masking on the engine pods in between shades, pretty time consuming.
147
January 6, 2019
Several runs later and after adding dark streaks with black pastel I am happy with the result. First major airframe part done!
148
January 23, 2019
Installation of the engine pods. Big gap on outer pylon but unexpectedly also on inner ones. Until I realised I swapped the inner pylons 🙁 Managed to pull them off and re-install. Phew.
149
January 23, 2019
Checking the line-up. Looking good.
150
January 23, 2019
Filling and sanding of the joints, tricky job but went OK.
151
January 23, 2019
Restoring the walkway borders.
152
January 23, 2019
Fin installed, minor gaps dealt with by Mr Surfacer.
153
January 23, 2019
In the meantime sprayed the wheels black and masked with masks I bought. Great stuff.
154
January 23, 2019
More masking, this time the aft turret anti-glare panel.
155
January 23, 2019
And the first major coat, aluminium from a Tamiya spray can. Didn’t work as well as expected, finish is acceptable but not perfect. Notice the white coat sprayed earlier with Vallejo Air...
156
January 23, 2019
Aaaand... more masking. This monster is eating Tamiya tape by the mile 🙁
157
January 23, 2019
Aluminium masked, ready for salt treatment for weathering and the gloss black coat, also from a Tamiya spray can...
158
January 23, 2019
... and fast forward to disaster 🙁. Never occured to me that Tamiya spray cans eat Vallejo Air acrylics for breakfast. Darn. No choice but to sand back the black coat and start over. Say bye bye to all these nice antennas. Sigh...
159
January 23, 2019
... and the salt treatment bit me as well. The coat from a spray can is much too thick for this to work, leaving little craters instead of bare spots...
160
January 23, 2019
... oh, and did I mention dust? No Vallejo to eat, no salt grains, but here dust did the trick. One of my worst spraying jobs ever!
161
January 23, 2019
OK then, plan B for the black coat. This time with Vallejo Air black, quick check on underside pylons shows it’s all fixable...
162
February 4, 2019
Plan B executed. No problems this time, nice and even coat.
163
February 4, 2019
Following up with a gloss coat (which I never can get to shine like a mirror but luckily wasn’t looking for that effect....
164
February 4, 2019
Removing the masking, looking good.
165
February 4, 2019
The thin paper (the stuff found in shoeboxes) is not foolproof when using spray cans. Had to redo the lower nose radome in white due to leakage.
166
February 4, 2019
Lots of green boxes on my airbrush planning, and an angry red one of course...
167
February 4, 2019
Painting phase is now officially done and its decaling time! First decal is on.
168
February 4, 2019
Highlighting of the panel lines before decaling the nose.
169
February 4, 2019
Not too many decals, some of them ar big though. Based on the reference pics I swapped stars & bars between fuselage and wing compared to what the Cutting Edge instructions said.
170
February 4, 2019
First decals on the nose are on. This area will be quite full so lots of measuring before applying.
171
February 4, 2019
I located the decals with 1 mm tape which worked very well. Once measured in it’s easy to get the decals in the right spot and aligned.
172
February 4, 2019
Port side done. Discovered only now that the lower square window (still masked) is located too far forward. Oh well...
173
February 4, 2019
Minor mishap here when the US AIR decal folded up on me big time. Took me ages to unfurl it but managed to apply with only minor damage. For now...
174
February 4, 2019
Final satin coat to seal the decals.
175
February 4, 2019
Another moment of truth. Peeling of the window masks. Not too bad, hardly any dust inside and everything still in place.
176
February 4, 2019
Installing wheels and wheel doors Glad this one will be soaring, no way I got eight wheels touching the ground...
177
February 4, 2019
Installing the flaps using a cardboard jig. All worked as planned. Also installed the MER’s.
178
February 4, 2019
Adding the final details like the flap actuator linkages.
179
February 4, 2019
All done, ready for final assembly!
180
February 4, 2019
Final trial fit of the main parts. Alignment looking good. I considered leaving the wings detachable but the fit was not tight enough for that. Would have saved me some grief though...
181
February 4, 2019
Some more precision engineering for the stand.... Hacked a slot into the top of the aluminium rod.
182
February 4, 2019
Wing assembly in progress with liberal amounts of glue.
183
February 4, 2019
Wing-to-fuselage fit is fair on top but there are steps near the leading and trailing edges. I decided against a big filling and sanding session and faired in the joint with putty smoothed with aceton.
184
February 4, 2019
Masking and spraying of the joint. I reverted to Vallejo Air, accepting the slight color difference with the Tamiya Aluminium. Forgot to mask the wheel door so had to fix that again.
185
February 4, 2019
Removing the masking... Aargh, I used low tack 3M paper tape over the decals. Stupid! This worked in other builds but now pulled of the decal I damaged earlier....
186
February 4, 2019
No time for elaborate fixes. Steaming on and fixing with bits of black decals. This built will be finished today, no matter what!
187
February 4, 2019
And OMG were done! Unbelievable.
188
February 4, 2019
Mixed feelings due the final decal disasters but still happy with the result!
189
February 4, 2019
In its final position, perched on its stand. Man, this thing is casting shadows!
190
February 4, 2019
A bit more up close and personal. All the scratch building in the wheel wells and flap wells is easy to see. Nice!
191
February 4, 2019
And a final view from a different perspective. Another build completed, thanks for watching!

Komentáře

1 15 December 2017, 19:37

Demigod
What a massive project! Hope you have the shelf space ...

15 December 2017, 19:41

Hans Zwetsloot
Hi everyone, a few weeks ago I finally started on what to my standards is a monster project. I am going to tame the big Monogram 1/72 B-52 beast. Bought this kit years ago and decided I wanted to build it as one of those cool looking metal-and-black Vietnam War B-52F's. How hard can that be? Well... it took a several years and patience to collect all the now out-of-production bits and pieces I needed but I finally succeeded. Finding the crucial resin engine conversion set took forever.

15 December 2017, 19:49

Hans Zwetsloot
Ha yes, shelf space is a bit of an issue (did I mention this thing is huge?) so I decided to model it in flight, coming in for landing, so that I can put it on a stand on top of my display cabinet. Hope I eyeballed that correctly but we'll find out as we progress. To preserve my sanity I am breaking up the build in small steps. So far I have completed the first two, next up: wheel wells.

15 December 2017, 19:50

Cuajete
Looking so good. Very good job so far. Will you re-panel?

15 December 2017, 20:04

Hans Zwetsloot
If you mean re-scribe, yes, I intend to. Not yet looking forward to that part, however most of the lines are long and straight. Still a lot of them though, do hope I don't lose my nerve 🙂

15 December 2017, 20:20

Cuajete
Yes, I meant to say re-write. Sorry for my bad english. I have to restore mine ("Big, Bad & Beautiful" box). It has 25 years old and paint by brush. It's suspended from the ceiling (very big for shelf).

15 December 2017, 20:45

Daniel Phelps
Watching

16 December 2017, 01:27

Ekki
Following.

16 December 2017, 10:34

Gordon Sørensen
Looks great, Hans! Very nice scratchbuilding in the cockpit and rear pit!

16 December 2017, 11:31

Hans Zwetsloot
Happy new year to everyone 🙂! A short update on my progress with this one. Due to all the talk of re-scribing I realized it would be a good idea to get re-scribing of the fuselage out of the way before continuing with detailing the interior. A slow and bit of a boring job but quite doable, with only the curved nose and tail areas tricky. Still managed to mess up quite a few times 🙁. Installing the bomb bay doors on the other hand was not so boring, took a lot of work to get a decent fit here.

6 January 2018, 11:34

Hans Zwetsloot
And completed another (small) step: tackled the nose area glazing preparations. Working with vacform canopies is not something I am very good at but looks like this time I pulled it of 🙂. We'll see for sure when the time comes to install the canopy.

8 January 2018, 19:17

Hans Zwetsloot
Hi there, completed another step in this long journey. Things are progressing well so far, just got the main gears ready for installation. Started on the wheel wells, which will require quite a bit of scratch building.

21 January 2018, 20:03

Thomas Bischoff
nice work on a big bird - I'll be watching the show!

21 January 2018, 20:21

Martin Oostrom
I think I'm happy I didn't buy this kit. She's huge.
You're doing marvellous work on her.

21 January 2018, 20:30

Alexander Grivonev
Missed this one, now you've got my interest!

21 January 2018, 20:36

Łukasz Gliński
I have to watch that

21 January 2018, 20:40

Hans Zwetsloot
Progressing slowly but surely. Completed the basic structure of the wheel wells. Fwd well was a lot more work than the aft one as the fwd well looks totally different than what RM provides. Had to study a lot of pictures an Youtube movies to figure everything out. Now gathering courage to start filling them up with pipes, wiring and all the other stuff that's crammed in there.

9 February 2018, 20:31

Spanjaard
amazing job you are doing in this big bird. i love all the scratch building you are adding. excellent!

10 February 2018, 10:17

Stephan Ryll
Great work Hans 👍

10 February 2018, 11:39

Gordon Sørensen
Wheelwells look great, Hans! The detail is fantastic!

10 February 2018, 11:57

Alexander Grivonev
Man that is some seriously awesome detailing👍

10 February 2018, 12:49

John Thomas
Nice work

10 February 2018, 13:40

Łukasz Gliński
Great progress sir, watching with pleasure

10 February 2018, 17:38

Oliver Zwiener
Very nice - keep watching😉

10 February 2018, 18:58

Erik Leijdens
Fantastic work there Hans. Your scratch and scribing work really pays off.

10 February 2018, 19:30

Burkhard D
I'm in 🙂

10 February 2018, 20:50

Bernd Korte
Following

11 February 2018, 08:15

Hans Zwetsloot
Thx everyone. Starting to like this scratchbuilding and my skills are improving. Does take a lot of time though, it is modeling at snails pace.. 🙂 Will keep you posted.

11 February 2018, 10:14

Spanjaard
Good results take time. and yours are excellent😉

11 February 2018, 15:01

Cuajete
Fantastic scratchbuilding. Job take time, but the result is worth it.

11 February 2018, 18:45

Marcel Klemmer
Fantastic job, I am in

11 February 2018, 18:59

Kees Kleijwegt
I'm in, great scratchbuilding so far 👍
And this kit is a true giant!

11 February 2018, 19:14

Hans Zwetsloot
Hello again, time for another update. Spent the past weeks plodding along with the wheel wells of this beast. Today made a Modelers Decision: enough is enough. I am done with straining my eyes and CA-ing my fingers and bits and pieces of metal and plastic together 🙂. Because the F didn't have all these bleed air driven generators etc. inside the fuselage I leaned towards the wheel well interior of the later B-52 models, as far as I could identify this from the dozens of pictures I looked up on the net (thx to everyone out there who posted useful pictures!). Still I am pretty sure I have created an irresponsible mix of B-52B through H features but hey, there it is. What counts is that I have achieved enough of the busy look inside the wheel wells that I was looking for. Now it is time to move on to the next challenge...

12 March 2018, 19:34

Nikolaos Kouzinis
Following...

12 March 2018, 19:38

Spanjaard
very nice interior. busy indeed! no idea if it is B or H ... but it looks good to me!

12 March 2018, 19:44

Burkhard D
Awesome work!😎

14 March 2018, 20:12

Alexander Grivonev
Try lead wire for wiring/hydraulics and stuff! Soft like butter, great to handle. Incredible amount of work btw, great detail!

14 March 2018, 21:23

Hans Zwetsloot
Another short update on my progress. After all the tiny bits and pieces in the wheel wells the next step involved some heavy engineering to create a socket for the stand and to strengthen the wing root. During dry-fitting I noticed the high stresses on the fuselage and wing root seams and since my model will not have the support of the wing tip wheels I decided a little extra work was needed. I had already planned spars to prevent wing sagging but I decided to use these to create a carry-through structure as well. Was not half as difficult as I expected it to be. Now it is on to the spray booth for interior painting.

25 March 2018, 19:28

Spanjaard
very interesting way of making the structure a lot stronger. i think i would have used a rounded tube and bend it into shape, but your idea of cutting it and solder it is probably much better. if this does not hold it in place, nothing will 🙂

25 March 2018, 20:17

Hans Zwetsloot
Hello, more in-progress pics of my B-52F. I have progressed quite a bit, with the fuselage now closed up, seam cleaned up, most re-re-scribing done and canopies installed. Further detailing of the fuselage exterior is up next.

15 April 2018, 11:32

Andrei Kandyba
Following)

15 April 2018, 15:02

Alexander Grivonev
This is truly great stuff, Hans!

16 April 2018, 13:57

Cuajete
Very good progress. Awesome!

12 August 2018, 11:10

Alexander Grivonev
This is quite a progress, following with great interest! Would you give a hint where you got these round rescribing templates? (pic79)

12 August 2018, 15:11

Hans Zwetsloot
Hi there and thx. Picked up those circular scribing templates up long ago in my favorite webshop. Just checked, they are from HQT tools and still available.

12 August 2018, 17:37

Spanjaard
huge amount of work, but it will pay off at the end 🙂

12 August 2018, 20:56

Oliver Zwiener
Second look after 6 months and wow - simply amazing work !!!

25 August 2018, 08:38

Hans Zwetsloot
Thx! Wouldn't be surprised if I need another six months 🙂. Right now I'm a bit distracted by my ESCI F-111A build but still making progress step by step. Engine pods are almost done, wings are up next. Kind of putting of to get going on the rescribing... 😳

29 August 2018, 19:48

Hans Zwetsloot
Hi everyone, back again. In case anyone wondered if this one was banished to the shelf of doom, rest assured it wasn't. Despite delays due to my in-between F-111A build, I'm still making slow but steady progress. To my own surprise I passed the 1-year build time marker last week but completion is nearing with the painting phase now on the horizon.
Over the past few months I have tackled the wings, a job I somewhat underestimated. Rescribing was a big enough job but the decision to rip out all flap well "detail" and start from scratch kinda added to the build time as well 😄. Worth the effort though, really improves this area that will remain quite visible. Modelling flaps up was an option as well of course though I can assure you that would have posed a whole different set of challenges.
With the wings almost done I am now trying to get my head around how to get this baby painted. Already decided most of it will have to be done before final assembly and I have even resorted to writing down the paint & mask sequence of all assemblies 🤔.
Stay tuned, will be back in few weeks or more likely months 🙂

1 December 2018, 15:45

Cuajete
Amazing work with flaps and engines. The wait is worth it 👍

1 December 2018, 20:31

Hans Zwetsloot
And another happy new year to everyone! My B-52F has by now progressed well into the painting phase. I am about one-third in and things are going well so far. I am almost ready for these huge areas of aluminium and black. Fingers crossed...

6 January 2019, 12:11

Glenn
Very Nice Work!

6 January 2019, 13:09

Jozef Goos
Nice!

6 January 2019, 13:48

Cuajete
Nice painting work so far.

6 January 2019, 19:25

Roland Sachsenhofer
Great work I have just noticed. For sure I will follow this build- marvelous and gorgeous work!

6 January 2019, 19:39

Hans Zwetsloot
Hey there, another update on my B-52F. Still in the middle of the painting phase and recovering from a nasty setback with the gloss black coat. Damage control is now done and I am ready for a second try on the black. Is that the finish line I see on the horizon? 🙂

23 January 2019, 20:28

Bryn Crandell
Going to follow this one. Great work so far.

23 January 2019, 20:38

Patrick Hagelstein
Wow! Somehow this attracted my attention... Glad I looked in: amazing scratch building on all the interior parts!!! Ik ga voor je duimen voor het volgende spuitwerk! 👍 👍

23 January 2019, 21:47

Dave Flitton
What a massive project!!

23 January 2019, 21:48

Thomas Bischoff
Pity that the sprayjob did not work out. I had never issues with Using Tamiya and Vallejo colours at the same tome

24 January 2019, 16:54

Hans Zwetsloot
Hmmm, that made me think. I just assumed the stuff in the Tamiya spray cans was the same as the stuff in the glass bottles. Stupid... 🙁 A few seconds of Googling taught me the spray cans are lacquer based. Lacquer over acrylics is just as bad an idea as lacquer over enamels (guess how I learned that one...). Duh... Should have isolated the acrylics with floor polish.

24 January 2019, 20:14

Patrick Hagelstein
Well, the good thing is that you might be able to clean it up using Isopropyl alcohol. It will eat away the lacquer paint without harming the plastic. Well, at least for Mr. Paint and Mr. Color paints, that is. I would test it on a painted piece of scrap plastic first though!

24 January 2019, 20:39

Patrick Hagelstein
VAQ-209 Prowler | Album by Hagel (1:72)
This is where I put my painted parts straight into the alcohol.

24 January 2019, 20:43

D N
That hurts... I hope you persevere!

24 January 2019, 20:49

Oliver Zwiener
Third look - still astonishing !

25 January 2019, 05:21

Hans Zwetsloot
Hello, I have finally done it and tamed this beast! Sort of. Recovery from the "black disaster" went smoothly, hardly any harm done there. The remainder of the painting phase was also smooth sailing but I got bitten once more just before the finish line.
The decision to install the wings at the very end was not a happy one. Not that I have any idea how I would have managed spraying and decaling this monster with wings attached. I opted out of another full blown seam filling-and-sanding-and-respray session with lots of potential harm. Despite this I had another lapse in higher brain functions and still did something stupid when finishing of the wing-to-fuselage joints. The result: parts of the US AIR FORCE lettering on the nose destroyed... More cussing and pulling out hair... After briefly considering buying another set of decals or printing my own I took the very much faster shortcut of restoring them with pieces of decal from the spares box. With (of course) a slightly different color. Duh.. Might fix it better somewhere in the future, or not...
Nevertheless it is done and I now have one impressive piece of plastic hovering over my display cabinet! I am (for now) done with huge models and have three positively tiny cessna's on the the bench 🙂. Thank you all for watching and your patience. Until the next build!

4 February 2019, 21:04

Spanjaard
congratulations on this monster. nice!

4 February 2019, 21:46

Patrick Hagelstein
Impressive....

4 February 2019, 22:10

Clifford Keesler
Nice B-52.

5 February 2019, 01:19

Alexander Grivonev
Fantastic work, Hans. Followed the whole build with interest. Great patience and dealing with those mishaps! The beast has been tamed quite literally! 👍👍👍

5 February 2019, 10:12

Cuajete
Beauty tamed beast. Congrats!

5 February 2019, 12:06

Thomas Bischoff
Impressive build! Very well done - all the extra work paid out well 👍 👍 👍

6 February 2019, 07:50

Ekki
Indeed, very impressive work. 👍

7 February 2019, 18:09

Bryn Crandell
Quite impressive. What a beast.

10 February 2019, 21:00