Here
is my B-29 ‘Atomic Tom’ from the Korean War. The kit took me about 180
hours to complete spread out over about a year. In addition to the kit, I
added resin-weighted wheels, resin .50 gun barrels, and decals from
Aeromaster.
After spending
many hours on the interior, I didn’t want to waste all the effort by
closing up the fuselage and never seeing it again. I decided to cut out
some random shapes from the side of the fuselage, so you can see inside.
I
took inspiration from another modeller's B-29 on the net, and added the
magazine, poster and map to make things a bit more interesting.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The main issue
I found with this kit is getting the canopy to fit and blend with the
fuselage. It took a lot of effort and help from an excellent masking set,
to get decent result.
The raised
panel lines were replaced in some areas with scribed panel lines due to
sanding them off. I couldn’t face a total re-scribe, and I don’t think
it is really that obvious between raised and scribed lines.
The engine
nacelles were also difficult to fit, especially as you needed to fill these
with weight to get the aircraft to sit correctly on its wheels. I made
some locating points from scrap sprue, which made it a little easier.
Painting was
completed with various shades of silver & aluminium from Humbrol and satin
black on the underside which were all airbrushed on. I am not sure if this
colour scheme is correct as I could not find any pictures showing ‘Atomic
Tom’ with the black underside, but I thought it looked more interesting this
way.
The decals were then
added. The Aeromaster set were the best I have ever used, and took little effort
to get them to sink down and conform to the panel lines. The kit decals were a
bit more effort and needed a few applications of micro set to get them down the
same.
Weathering was done
with pastels and a stubby brush, followed by a coat of clear acrylic.
I added the resin
.50 cal machine guns that had much better detail than the standard kit parts.
I
fixed 3 to the rear position (after removing the 20mm cannon) as this was
depicted in many pictures of Korean B29’s. Again I am not sure if ‘Atomic
Tom’ carried three 50’s, but again I liked it because it was different.
I am fairly happy
with the end result, but don’t think I would build another one, having now
completed this one successfully. A couple of smaller kits might be on the agenda
next.
Thanks for looking,
and any comments or advice are always welcome.
Chris
Click on
images below to see larger images
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