That bomb door mod: Oh Man!

I've patched a lot of the dodgy spots with more milliput and am waiting for it to dry before sanding again.
There's an unforeseen problem however: I was extremely careful to glue the two doors together such that they fit the bomb bay perfectly.... but now a test fit shows that they are a little wider than they should be. I don't know if this was some property of the milliput (which I doubt) or whether my applying the putty too forcefully has spread the doors 'flat'.

It's nothing that can't be fixed but it's an annoyance.

Paul,
Welcome back. Really quite glad to see your latest update, and what a update it is.

I feel like your scratched out gas tank is shaped a lot better then you're giving yourself credit for.

Tamiya's 1/32 Mossie kit has the correct shorter tanks used by the MK VI rather then the longer tank that is molded in the 1/48 scale kit.



Both the long and shorter tanks as you can see from this picture are of a square shape as you've created. As for your fuel lines out, well, that's conjecture compared to the pictures I have, but they do look convincing.

You mounting straps as Gary pointed out, really do look rather nice, and since they're actually separate straps, not molded on ones like I opted for, really do look exceptional. Since you're modeling the tank's top, not the bottom as I've done, the straps are indeed solid as they wrap around the tank. Tamiya's British Crimson is a really close match to the color of the Bakerlite tanks.

I really like your method of creating those bulging bomb bay doors. Well thought out, and so far very well executed.

Well done my friend.

Joel

Perhaps a dumb question, but are you planning on having the doors open or closed?

Paul,
Thanks for the tip about freezing milliput! I never would have guessed.

I've never known milliput to warp or shrink...but the. Again, I've never frozen it, either.

Gaz

Thanks Joel, and that image is quite nice in that it shows more of the depth of the tank. I think my guestimate of that depth wasn't too far off. Thanks for the tip about the British crimson. I may go and buy a pot but I was planning on a basic red and using washes of browns and blacks to "dirty" it up a lot. We'll see....

The tank is done and good enough but I'd still love to see one of them stripped out of the aircraft just for curiosity! What does the top really look like I wonder ?

Not at all Brian, but the doors will be closed. I've enough to do without stripping out all the bad mounting points in the bomb bay and scratch building a Tallboy bomb !

I'll need to scribe the centreline again and add some rivet lines. That should be an adventure in itself.

If the doors were open I'd also have to carve out the inside of the bulge to maintain the same thickness throughout and that's way beyond my capabilities. I have no idea how that could be done for that matter. I'm sure an obscure tool exists for such purposes.

Odd fact isn't it? The epoxy hardening reaction halts when the putty is frozen and commences where it left off when you pull it out of the freezer.
The stuff I was working with hadn't been frozen by the way and as you say milliput has no great movement as it cures. I suspect human error

Paul,
I imagine the stresses from sanding and the fact that you have three open sides has caused the plastic to warp and or stretch a bit. Even the best quality styrene is quite soft compared to other plastics.

When deciding when to shape the bomb bay doors on the B-29, I elected to wait until they were fully secured and cured to the fuselage, for fear of taking off too much. Turned out to be a good choice.

I've come to the conclusion that bomb bay doors and wheel well covers are rarely made to fit their recesses properly. Like they were subcontracted out, but not inspected once delivered.

Cheers,

Gaz

Gaz, I discarded the idea of glueing the the doors to the fuselage before modifying them as the amount of handling and sanding worried me. I didn't want something like the landing gear flying off !

I seem to be jumping around between quite a few jobs at the moment as I'm sanding and fine tuning the doors with more milliput patches which take time to dry. Thankfully things are going in the right direction and the fixes are considerably smaller each time.

In the meantime....







Once again, Thanks for keeping me company on the adventure !

Paul,
The gun mount looks 100X better than the kit piece. I like your approach to detailing shady spaces. Gives me ideas for future efforts.

Gaz

It's time once again for the progress update for this week.
One step forward, two back etc etc

Paul,
That IP does look nice. Probably wouldn't have noticed the throttle levers had you not mentioned it.

Gaz

Tamiya probably copied the throttle layout of the very rare three engined variant - two on the port wing and one on the starboard - The " Yawcaster"
Joking aside you are doing a beautiful job - I've been watching from the start.
Cheers ! Richard

Yeah, it's a very minor detail that I'm glad to say I'm not concerned enough about to fix !

The Yawcaster, i like it !
Thanks for leaving a kind comment. It means a lot

Some more baby steps towards getting the fuselage halves closed up :

Paul,
Love the bombsight. Not as much as I love the eduard Ip. It's nice that there are those kind of details out there for those who want them.

Gaz

Paul,
As far as I'm concerned, any update means that there is some progress.

Looking forward to how you contour those doors to blend into the fuselage. I have no doubt that the final result will look as though Tamiya molded it that way.

And that gas tank really came out looking just like the photos I sent you. A job well done.

I already missed a small update this past week, but hope to have enough work completed on the Mossie for one this coming weekend. It's not that I haven't been working on her, it's just that the work doesn't translate into things that would show up in pictures.

Joel

Thanks Joel, I too have been working away at small things that don't really merit an update.

The bomb doors have been receiving repeated sandings to bring the edges closer to the fuselage sides. They are nearly there but I think I'd like to get the fuselage halves together before I finalise this part.

In other news, I'm continuing to add those small extra details that are so fun to make and really help make the model look more interesting.

Looking good! As you know, I love the little "extras."

Cheers Brian ! I think you mean ALL the little extras !

Paul,
Those little extras are adding up to a really super detailed build.
Joel

Still following, watching and marvel...
Fantastic work so far, Paul! Beautiful presentation of your log. Move on
Thomas