I wasn't sure if my account would still be active but it looks like I'm still here!
I guess I've started most of my posts here with excuses and apologies, and this one will be no different. When I signed up here I had great intentions of contributing regularly, but outside of the couple things I've posted here I haven't built any models in that time. In 2014 I had to knock out a B-29 quickly (the same as I'll be building here), along with three 1/48 Navy planes that went to the USS Hornet Museum. With all of these projects going on at once, their deadlines and other pressures I had going on at the same time, I got burnt out on modeling enough that I haven't really picked it back up since. Around the same time my passion for making music resurfaced and that has taken up most of my free time since.
In 2014 I lost a good friend, Master Sergeant George L Voltz. George had an extensive Air Force career flying in many aircraft including B-50, KB-50, KB-29, KC-97, KC-135, B-36, and most importantly with regards to this thread, he completed a tour in the B-29 Haulin Ass over Korea. He flew 35 missions there if memory serves. He was later a boom operator, but he flew the radar/electronic countermeasures position in the B-29. When I learned he wouldn't be around for long I built him a 1/72 scale B-29 in the markings of Haulin Ass. When he passed away it went to one of his sons and at the time I promised his other son that I'd build him one also; and I had always intended to do one for myself too. I found out this week that the other son is retiring soon (he's been my employer for almost 20 years) so I now need to stop procrastinating and make good on my promise from five years ago. As I've started to immerse myself in this again I've discovered maybe part of not having done this already is because I'm still not over losing my friend.
So I've picked up a couple Academy kits...the first one of these I built I used a kit that I already had in the stash which had raised rivets and I've always regretted building it that way. (and I don't know how a B-29 kit with raised rivets would be designed and approved for production either).
I had Josh from bedlamcreations.com do the custom nose art decals for me, along with the 98th Bomb Group insignia that goes on the port side of the nose. Josh does great work and I've used him several times for custom decals. As you can see I have a huge sheet of these. I may put some on eBay just to spread them around and allow some others to build this plane.
I also have a couple sets of 98th Bomb Group decals to steal the Square H and US Air Force fuselage decals from, and I have the letters for the wings. I have some fluorescent orange on the way for the nose gear doors and top of the vertical stabilizer, I realized tonight I may need to order some national insignias. I bought several different shades of Alclad back when I decided to do this project and hopefully they are still ok - I'm concerned about how much solvent is in some of the bottles. They haven't been opened but I think some evaporation may have happened over the years.
I ran out of time tonight because of some other commitments and hope to start cockpit assembly tomorrow night.
