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Tankman

Meeting Minutes

What’s New In Town

MOTY Update

Building up Monogram’s monster B-29 (by Earl Hosmer)

Calendar of Events

How are you doing in the Modeler of the Year competition? Check out the latest tally sheet on page 5. There is still some time to bring up those point totals!

His latest article (page 6) will bring you up to date with his trials and tribulations in the quest for the ultimate B-29.

This is a call for articles once again!!! You can not tell me that Earl, Al, Derek, Terry, and Steve are the only guys in the group that know how to write!! C’mon guys….I need more input from you….book reviews, kit reviews, kit build-up reports, trip/tour reports, contest reports, etc. etc. etc.….anything goes!

With the reduction in show-and-tell time at the monthly meetings, you can still rave about your latest news, reference addition, or kit troubles here in the newsletter…type it up!

President, Derek Brown, called the January 2^nd, 2002 meeting to order at 7:00 PM at Burt Chevrolet with well over 40 members and guests present. Yes, we had over 40 people show up tonight. It must be an all time high.

Al Gonzales showed us a Hasegawa 1/48 A-4 Skyhawk and a Revell Germany 1/35 SpaePz Luchs that he is currently working on. Steve Lawson had a completed 1/48 Spad XII. Ted Smith brought in an older completed Tamiya 1/35 M-106. Bill Stolte showed us a Tamiya 1/24 Ford Mustang GT painted with the actual Chrome Illusion paint that Ford uses. Dallas Lloyd brought in his ID Models 1/32 Vacu-formed Boeing B-17G that he is working on. Cliff Davis had a completed Renaissance 1/24 Nissan R390 GT1 transkit and an older Revell 1/28 Fokker D7. Terry Tuytschaevers showed us a completed AFV Club 1/35 M35A Quad 50 truck. Mike McDanal brought in a completed Aero Club 1/160 photo etched Wright Flyer. Doug DeCounter had a completed DML 1/35 Grizzly Bear, a Alan 1/35 Panzer V 105, a AFV Club 1/35 LVTP 5, and a Skybow 106mm Recoilless Rifle. David Reinecke showed us his A-4 Skyhawk that was still under construction. Todd Liva brought in an Italeri 1/24 Freightliner truck frame that was under construction. Darren McTee had a Hasegawa 1/72 MDD F-4J Phantom II finished in British markings for a Tiger Meet. Steve Negley, in a first time visit, showed us three beautifully finished 1/32 fighters. Jason Alterman had a completed Chevrolet Impala, Caprice, and a Dodge. Char Corbitt showed us her 1/25 1957 Chevrolet Pick-up project and an all chrome Motorcycle kit. Alan Harrison brought in a 1/24 Rolls Royce Custom painted with 3 different pearl colors, a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado finished in a Metal-Flake Organic Green, and a AMT 1/25 1962 Pontiac Catalina in a bright candy orange finish. Eric Johnson had a recently purchased Danbury Mint 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air Pro Street machine. Steve Ruiz showed us a 1/25 1968 Pontiac Bonneville and a 1/24 Chrysler Cirrus. John Morrissey showed us a Monogram 1/48 F-105 Thunderchief finished in a black and yellow scheme, and a 1/24 1967 Chevrolet corvette convertible. Alisa Morrissey had a 1/25 Ford Mustang. John Trueblood showed us a Tamiya 1/48 Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat and a Tamiya 1/48 V-1.

CORRESPONDENCE: Cliff Davis received:

A Region 10 Newsletter.

Info on the Colorado Springs show and contest at the Radisson Inn at the Airport

More info from the Pueblo Air Museum concerning their upcoming displays and contests.

A letter from the Chamber of Commerce in Granby, Colorado concerning a display of models for there Granby Days celebration on August 23^rd.

Dallas Lloyd reported a balance of $2396.83 in the treasury of which $736.00 belongs to the contest fund.

Derek Brown reminded us about the Colorado Springs show and contest.

John Trueblood talked about the progress of the upcoming Regional in Denver

Mike Gawell still needs some volunteers and help for his aviation merit badge for the scouts on February 17^th.

Derek Brown mentioned that we should give Colpar a big thanks for the kits donated to tonight’s kit auction. There were some real winners in the pile.

PROGRAM: The program for the night was our annual kit auction. The auction was highly successful and our club raised well over $400.00.

After finishing the cockpit and nosewheel well (Part 1) I moved on to the wings, where there was a LOT of work to be done. After completely rescribing all surface detail and removing the horrid "fabric" texture on the ailerons, I was ready to start. I decided early on not to use the KMC resin flap set for this kit, partly because of the high price but mostly due to the problems dropped flaps would create in handling this big, heavy model!

The kit wheel wells are vomit-inducing…shallow by about half, with prominent raised "MMI" trademark stampings, and inaccurate to boot. There wasn’t much to do except scratchbuild all new mainwheel wells. Using Evergreen sheet in .020 and .040 thickness, I built a new firewall, front spar, sidewalls, "roof" (actually the underside of the upper wing skin, and rear spar, along with the "shelf" that the gear trunnions mount to. Evergreen strip was used for the stiffeners on the sidewalls. Support braces, complete with lightening holes, were added to the front and rear spars. Two egg-shaped access panels were cut out and added to each firewall, with fastener holes added using a thumbtack.

After the basic structure was complete, I sprayed the wells with Tamiya acrylic Aluminum (war-built B-29s had wheel wells unpainted…those that survived were later sprayed Interior Green as a corrosion inhibitor prior to Korean service). The kit retraction motors were detailed out, painted Black, and added to the firewalls. All wiring was then added (the large size of the wheel wells made for a lot of working room!), along with brake lines running back to the main gear units, along with accumulators made of Evergreen tube mounted to the rear spars. The mainwheel well doors were rebuilt, with a new outer "skin" added so that I could box in the attach points for the door actuators. New actuators were made of Evergreen rod.

Each engine nacelle had the molded-in intercooler door removed and replaced by one made of .010 sheet, for a much better scale appearance. A sheet firewall was added to the front, along with a mounting pad for the resin engines I planned to use. The kit exhausts were a poor fit, and lacked the smaller pipe behind each large turbocharger exhaust. I filled in the molded depressions in the nacelles and sanded them flush, then restored all panel and rivet detail. The kit exhausts were hollowed out using a Dremel tool and were usable for the inner nacelles. Holes for the smaller exhaust aft were drilled out, and pipes made of brass tube were shaped and inserted. The pipes for the outboard nacelles were shorter and different shaped, so I had to modify the kit pipes, along with hollowing them out. The smaller aft pipes were made of brass tube as well.

The wingtip lights were next. The kit supplies a clear "cover" for each tip light, which were glued on after sanding and painting each receptacle, and adding a small "light" made of shaped Evergreen rod. The covers were sanded flush, then I restored the clarity using a Micro Mark polishing kit. The flush-mount landing lights on the underside of each wing were drilled out, then a piece of aluminum foil was glued into the hole. Clear lenses were made with a Waldron punch and glued on, then sanded flush.

The wing halves were joined and seams cleaned up. Fit was mediocre and some shimming was required, particularly in the nacelles. It now became clear that the kit-supplied "spars", which run through the fuselage and protrude into each wing about 3 inches, would be marginal in terms of strength, since they were only about .040 thick. In addition, the rear one was too far forward. I made new ones, long enough to fit about 6 inches into each wing, out of 2 pieces of .040 sheet glued together. These were closely mated to slots made of .040 sheet glued into each wing. Additional sheet plastic was glued into the wing halves to give me the highest possible surface area when attaching the wings. The center of each new spar was then detailed out, since they form the outer faces of the center fuselage fuel tank which is visible from the bomb bays. I’ll cover the building and detailing of the bomb bay area in the next installment.

The kit engines would clearly have to be replaced. I picked up some resin R-3350-21s made by Engines and Things, which conveniently came in a 4-pack. They were much better than the kit engines but would need a lot of work to make them contest-worthy! After a lot of tedious cleanup of mold lines and flash, I drilled out the ignition harness and crankcase, into which a brass prop shaft would be inserted. The molded forward exhausts were too short so I had to cut each one off, drill out the mounting, and make a new pipe from Evergreen rod. I cut off the molded-on pushrod housings and made new ones of plastic rod. I also had to scratchbuild four prop governors.

After painting the basic engines, I added cooling baffles made of .010 sheet ( a total of four per front cylinder, one on each side of the cylinder, and two on top). Next up came the ignition wires (two per cylinder, for a total of 288!) made of stretched sprue. Wiring one radial is a chore, doing four was a tedious exercise to say the least. The engines were finished off with oil sump lines and magneto pressurization lines made of wire. I was a little concerned that the resin engines might look too "rough" to use, but after all the work they look great, and are a huge improvement over the kit engines.

The kit cowlings were used, but needed a lot of cleanup. The thick cowl flaps were removed and replaced by new ones made of .010 sheet. The openings for the oil coolers and carb intake were opened up, with small pieces of screen used for the oil cooler faces. A forward exhaust collector made of resin was supplied with the Engines and Things R3350s but they were too rough to use, so I heat-formed new ones using Evergreen rod. This collector is "built-in" to the forward edge of the cowling on the B-29.

The kit props were clearly wrong. The cuffed blades were only used on some, not all, post-WWII B-29s. They would have to be replaced, in my case with KMC resin Hamilton-Standard units, which are very nice. After cleaning up the individual blades and hubs, I drilled out the hubs and blade ends to accept brass rod supports. I made up a jig to keep all the individual blades in proper 90-degree separation and equal incidence as they were mated to the resin hubs using 5-minute epoxy. Another brass rod was added to the hub to serve as a mounting shaft, to be inserted into the drilled-out crankcases of the resin engines during final assembly.

The finished wings were polished out in preparation for the natural metal finish to come, and then set aside, along with the completed engines, props, and cowlings. Next installment will cover the bomb bays and remaining fuselage work. Stay tuned……

March 6, 2002 -- Club Meeting; 7:00pm, Burt Chevrolet; Denver

March 20 -- Deadline for March newsletter submissions

March 23 – KC Con 2002; Holiday Inn Express, 8787 Reeder Rd., Overland Park, KS. Contact Darren Roberts (913) 781-1159

April 3 -- Club Meeting; 7:00pm, Burt Chevrolet; Denver

April 15 – Tax Deadline.

April 17 -- Deadline for March newsletter submissions