Gaston Posted November 20, 2012 Report Share Posted November 20, 2012 I just discovered that the real B-29 has some sort of tapering of its front fuselage, or at least some kind of departure from the cylindrical that seems more pronounced for the upper half. I overlayed some white lines to reveal where the Monogram kit outlines are, but note this is reversed for the top fuselage "taper", where the white line follows the actual aircraft outline, while the Monogram kit follows the straight and paralell line in red above it. Of note is that both the plastic main canopy and the squadron/Falcon vacu-form replacement are lacking in profile curvature as well (as mildly depicted by my white line), and are also too large in diameter, as is the nose cap. This is a result of the kit's forward fuselage having no taper, and the front clear parts staying in proportion to that undiminished diameter. I have the strong impression most existing B-29 kits follow factory GA drawings which apparently (I'm told) don't reflect this front fuselage taper... One more warning against relying on drawings... This has stopped my build cold (for most modellers, it would quite frankly be more practical to simply ignore this), and my model will likely remain unfinished as this is (to my eyes, now that I see it) quite a severe issue. It would require not only re-shaping the whole front fuselage, but also scratchbuilding entirely new main canopy parts... Pretty hair-raising. Gaston P.S. Yet one of the reasons I am less interested in building Monogram's B-17G is that there is too little wrong with it... Go figure... G. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WesR Posted November 22, 2012 Report Share Posted November 22, 2012 I noticed this too when messing around with my giant Revell one. I have a pair of 1:144 from Minicraft and i'm assuming they have this issue too but it's so tiny i doubt anyone will notice. It's a nice little kit other than they give you the cockpit floor but no seats to go in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaston Posted November 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 27, 2012 Yes I looked at 1/144 kits, and usually they don't have it, or the taper starts in front of the turret. To be fair to the Monogram kit, there is some very slight taper (unlike what my white outline shows), but it starts only in front of the turret as well, and is much too modest. I will try to get the actual diameter of the front nose cap just to see how far off is the 1/48th kit: This is of value, as I already know that the kit's overall fuselage diameter is correct. Gaston Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WesR Posted December 12, 2012 Report Share Posted December 12, 2012 My friend didnt' believe me how massive the B29 kits are at 1/48 until i put my xbox controller next to it in a photo. I have the Revell but they look pretty much the same and I'm betting have the same issues. I'm glad i'm holding off on putting it together as i want to keep an eye on this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghodges Posted December 12, 2012 Report Share Posted December 12, 2012 There is only ONE molding in 1/48 for the B-29; the Monogram molds. Since Revell bought Monogram, their release is the Monogram kit in a Revell box. If you can, find an original release in a Monogram box. The only true advantage might be less flash since the molds were newer then. GIL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmorrissette Posted December 13, 2012 Report Share Posted December 13, 2012 I think it is really minor so I just built mine. There are no other options and to me, the crews that flew them (inlcuding my father) wouldn't care about such a minor inaccuracy but be excited to see them again. Just my thoughts of course as I know this stuff bothers some people Dave PS- I think waiting for a new mold will be a very, very, long wait Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaston Posted December 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2012 I did an extensive online search for the nose cap diameter, and found a guy who owns one but only said it was "around five feet" in diameter. The Monogram kit is at five feet six inches, so 3 mm oversized to that, which is in line with what I expect, but obvioulsy a more precise measurement is needed... 3 mm in the nose cap diameter is an absolutely enormous difference, even taking into account the size of the model. To give an idea, even the very thick plastic of this kit is scarcely over 1.5mm thick... Still scratching my head on how to downsize the entire nose glass area... And to think the B-17G is practically dead-on straight from the box... Gaston Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewahl Posted December 26, 2012 Report Share Posted December 26, 2012 While the academic discussion of a kit's errors can be interesting, I can't get excited about using calipers and a micrometer on the plastic pieces to determine if the kit is worth my time in building it. There are many kits I would never have touched if such accuracy was my standard criterion. Ed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClareWentzel Posted December 26, 2012 Report Share Posted December 26, 2012 There are many kits I would never have touched if such accuracy was my standard criterion. Ed I agree, Ed. To me, the key item is "am I pleased with my final result". I really can't believe that ANYONE who looks at the 1/48 B-29 setting on a table will say "Damn, that nose taper sure looks off". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghodges Posted December 26, 2012 Report Share Posted December 26, 2012 (edited) True, very true! That said, accuracy IS an important criteria to some, and obviouly matters to Gaston. We all have to build models the way that leaves US happy with them when we call 'em "done". While thie info above won't keep me from tackling the Monogram kit, when's the last time any of us had TOO MUCH info? Kinda makes ya wonder IF sometime, somewhere, some pattern maker might have measured a RUSSIAN copy of the B-29, and perhaps when the Russians converted it to metric measurements, they lost some of the nose taper found in the Boeing built planes? Things that make you go hmmmmm...... GIL Edited December 26, 2012 by ghodges Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClareWentzel Posted December 27, 2012 Report Share Posted December 27, 2012 Hmmmmm.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Bell Posted December 27, 2012 Report Share Posted December 27, 2012 If you have an "industrial" vacuform company in town, carve/make a new nose section and have them vacuform the entire thing from clear plastic. Cut off the "offending" part of the model and mate on the new section. Since it's all clear, just mask off what you need to and paint the rest. Scribe in any missing detail. And if you do get them to do it, and many will if you just ask, make a lot of them and sell them as conversions to make back some of the cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaston Posted December 30, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 Actually, the idea of just moulding the entire front end in two clear halves sounds exactly like what is needed!: There is a center frame for the join down the middle... I was toying with the idea of treating opaque/transparent materials in the ususal separate way, but now it strikes me how wrong an approach that is: The clear parts clearly would benefit from removing the huge surrounding join.... These would be far too large clear pieces for me to smash-mould or vacu-form on my own, hence the idea of a vacu-form company is again dead on... Commercially, there's no way sales of such a scary and complicated correction set would reduce the cost of dealing with a company, since modelling standards for the B-29 hardly even recognize how badly done the kit is, even for the cowlings... I think I will either use smaller clear pieces, but more likely I will have to be content with the 50-70 putty tubes canopy master and re-done surrounding nose area section that I did to correct the B-24... At least there the horror is mostly concentrated in just one place... G. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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