Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

[Second Air Force]

I have been far too slow to put up my first thread on the Forum.

I started this model over a year ago and am making slow progress. I find most of my weekends taken up with working on a 1/1 scale B-17, 44-8543, known as Chuckie, at the Vintage Flying Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

I started with a 1/48th scale Monogram B-17G and Koster B-17C/D conversion kit. If you have never built a model using a Koster product I highly recommend his kits. Here are a few photos of the very beginning of the project:
The initial cut of the aft fuselage:

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

The shortened forward fuselage common to all small-tailed Fortress variants:

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

This is what comes with the Koster kit. Not only the parts for the "shark fin" C and D model Fortress, but the transparent sheet also include the pieces needed to build a Cheyenne tail turret for the later Gs.

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

If anyone is interested I'll post more in-progress photos and text.

Scott

[samuraj77]

Welcome mate...
Sure we are interested... Unusual subject and daring conversion, I will follow this topic 

[Second Air Force]

Thanks for the interest--now you'll have to be patient as I am a rather slow modeler! I will have several posts to add to the thread before I get caught up to the current state of the project. I've not been able to spend more than a couple of evenings on it this winter. Fortunately, for the first time, I've kept documentation of how I fabricated parts so that duplication for the other side of the airplane is much easier.

Here is a general photo of the finished product. I will be using a slightly different paint scheme and the airplane I'm building will have the later Hydromatic propellers.

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

Scott

[No.1]

Excellent project! I have seen just few conversions were is used KAE parts and all of them looking amazing. Model will look for sure nice as well it have shiny metal cover. I am sure that you are better informed but maybe this material in attachment could be informative for other members here, mix of very early and later models of B-17.

Keep on good work 

[Second Air Force]

Thanks for posting those pics, Srecko. When I first ran across the two camouflaged airplanes in the Amarillo Army Air Field Historical Records I was surprised a little that they were still around in 1943/44.

I'll transfer the photos from WIX over here as I get time to do so, and then (hopefully) some new progress as I move forward.

Here are a few photos of the transparencies in the Koster kit, starting with the overall sheet less the early cockpit enclosure:

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

These two are the early effort at fitting the new cockpit area. I had to remove the Airplane Commander's observation dome as these were not used on the YBs.

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

More later,
Scott

[No.1]

There will be a lot of work on the transparent parts One question about the first series, they have small turret in the nose transparent cover. On some images this turret is in top and in some in bottom position. Does it mean that nose cover rotate?

Cheers

[Second Air Force]

You're correct--the entire nose transparency rotated on a set of rollers so that the gun could be brought to bear on targets. I don't exactly know how easy it was to operate, but it must have kept the gunner very, very busy! I have a good photo of the nose of the Model 299 but I'm having computer issues right now......

Scott

[No.1]

Thank you for info And hope you will solve PC trouble, I know what headache it could made.

Cheers

[Second Air Force]

Well, the evil PC is working right now, so here is the nose photo of the prototype 299:

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

The small ball pivots in the nose piece and the entire nose rotates. That might be one of the most challenging parts of the model to construct. I have a Mattel Vacuform machine so can experiment until I find the correct solution. Also, all four of the aft gun positions will be vacuformed but these should be a bit easier to fabricate.

Here is a photo of the first time I mated the two fuselage sections.

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

S

[No.1]

Very challenging project!! Thumbs up mate

Image of the nose is very good, maybe I should consider to finish profile of this plane I have start several months ago...

[Second Air Force]

If your profile isn't too far along , this is the ship I'm modeling.

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

The cowls are yellow and black checkerboard, and I have a color profile of the Squadron emblem somewhere in the reference photos for the project. She was in the 38th Recon Squadron at the time this photo was taken. There is a color photo of her and a sister in flight in the group of pictures you posted earlier.

Scott

[No.1]

I will consider this subject Nice colors

[Letipapa]

Hey, Scott, hello and welcome
This is going to be one wonderful model, I see. Go on man :-and thanks for sharing. wave

[Second Air Force]

Here's another little installment on what I've done to the poor ol' model so far. I have jumped back and forth from one section of the plane to another during the building process and my updates aren't necessarily in that order.

The radio room is shaped quite differently on the sharkfin Forts due to the teardrop shape of the gunner's transparency. I glued the kit glass in place and filed off the little bit of dorsal fin and the wind deflector for the radio gun:

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

After the glue had dried I did some filling and cut out the opening for the early bubble. After getting the opening shaped correctly I used my Dremel and files to reshape the turtledeck fairing--it is much narrower than big-tailed Fortresses and tapers to match the bubble:

Boeing Y1B-17 Project--1/48th Scale

The photo reference that is under the fuselage in the second photo is actually of a B-17B, but the YB is the same shape with different framing on the bubble.

Scott

[No.1]

Very good progress Please tell me what kind of the brick red filler you are using?