¹⁄35

The Mother Child ReUnion

Now The Mother Ship The B-29 Super Fortress kit by Airfix

I searched through my “stash” and came up with an idea. After a couple of weeks of research (mostly photo searches), and a lot of brain storming, I decided to use my old Airfix B-29 to show the “Goblin” in an operational state.

The B-29 turned into quite a project on it’s own. Considering it was initially intended as a “backdrop” for display of the X-85. I not only had to construct most of the B-29 to establish the scale of add-ons, but because of all the wait time (for paint to dry and other components to be assembled) I did a lot of experimenting, with detail and paint, on it. The First meeting of the “Mother” and “Child” was quite inglorious. I placed the mostly complete “Goblin” in the B-29 box, just to contemplate what was ahead. My first thought was, “Are you crazy?” speaking to myself of course.

I’d like to say that the 29 was a straightforward build, but a couple of factors enter into the equation, first it’s an old kit and needs some work, second almost from the first piece I had to keep an eye out for modifications that may be needed.

The cockpit was spartan by today’s standards, and I didn’t do much to improve it. I was hoping that enough would be going on elsewhere that a cockpit wouldn’t matter much, as it is not really visible in 1/72nd scale. I did however at this early point have to start considering where to locate weights to balance the airframe. I also had to insert backing material for the areas where the turrets were to be removed.

The turret removal became a very long process. After the fuselage halves were fitted together the areas were puttied over with Squadron Putty and carefully worked back to the fuselage profile. I made a quite concerted effort to minimize the amount of surface detail loss. Oh, did I mention the kit has raised rivet detail. Here again I used the method, I described in the Goblin assembly, of sanding/filing then buffing with SnJ powder. This took place a number of times as you can probably imagine.

To be honest, I didn’t achieve the fit and finish I was hoping for, but I think I wound up with something that does look like a retrofit, which a revamp of the old bomber in fact was.

The next step was to build and fit the wings to the fuselage. The wings were pretty straightforward, a little filing and fitting, but not bad. My main concern was “will they stay on?” I was very surprised at how heavy the wings felt in comparison to the fuselage. In other large bomber kits I’d seen large wing spars to support the wings, but here none was provided. I actually voiced this concern to one of our fellow modelers, Merlin. I carefully fitted and glued them into place and supported them overnight, as he suggested, well they held. So far, so good.

Now it was time for the application of the NMF. This time I did do some priming over the areas where Squadron white putty had been applied, as they appeared very light when compared to the rest of the fuselage. For ease of application none of the clear canopy parts, landing gear, landing gear, or bomb bay doors were fitted. The engine nacelles were also left off at this time. I simply stuffed the bomb bay and cockpit areas with tissue and applied an overall coat of MM Aluminum Metalizer.