Belle of the Ball

[Steve Nelson]

Finished this one a couple weeks ago. It's the old Revell "Memphis Belle," which I think may have been the first 1/72 B-17 kit. This was a "retro" build four our club's "Golden Oldie" contest this month. I built at least a couple of them as a kid, and had been considering picking one up kit for the past few years just because of that fantastic Jack Leynnwood box art, and this gave me the perfect excuse. I found an original 1962 issue on Ebay for 28 bucks including postage. Interestingly, the current boxing of the exact same kit only costs about a dollar less at the LHS (it was probably only a dollar or so when new.)



By modern standards, the kit is straight out of the Triassic Period. Encrusted with rivets, zero interior detail, foot-thick trailing edges, some dicey shapes and tons of nifty operating features. I did my best to build her with no modifications..I even left the grossly short gun barrels. I also tried to keep all the working features, including the retracting landing gear (a major selling point when I was a kid.) The only structural modification I made was to the windows above the cockpit and nose. The kit is molded with just rectangular depressions in the plastic, into which you're supposed to glue the clear parts. I opened the areas up to make them true windows. I also opened up the various intakes and exhausts, and drilled out the gun barrels.

I painted the underside with a spray-bomb of generic gray I found for $1.49 at Wal Mart (can you believe Model Master doesn't make Neutral Gray in a spray can?) The rest was painted with a brush. I used Humbrol Olive Drab (lightened a bit for the control surfaces) with blotches of some '70s vintage generic Humbrol medium green. I also painted the de-icers freehand with a brush..talk about nerve-wracking! I even used the 49-year-old decals, which performed surprisingly well. They silvered a bit, and of course the colors are wrong..the mission marks and name should be in yellow, and the yellow of the serial number and fuselage codes should be a bit more orangy. The nose art is also about twice the size it should be. Since the girl was just printed as red on white, I painted in the flesh areas, and repainted the bathing suit blue on the left side.



As usual, the kit lay on my bench partly completed for months, and then I ended up rushing through the final week to make the deadline. It's probably the worst model I've build since high school, but at least it's done. It also won the contest.



I just noticed I still need to add the pitot tubes and ADF "football" antenna. I may also do some touch-ups and bit of weathering to cover up the worst of my painting offenses. I'd like to build the new Revell B-17G to put beside it to show just how far model kit technology has come in the past half-century. Unfortunately the kit hasn't gotten over to this side of The Pond yet.


Cheers!

Steve

[CDF]

Kudos Steve, those old Revell kits are hard work to bring up to date, but very rewarding when your finnished.

[Second Air Force]

Agreed, great job with a difficult old kit!

That cockpit enclosure just defies description, doesn't it! I last built one of these in the early seventies so your post brings up good memories.

Scott

[The Inspector]

Building an 'oldie' every once in a while makes you appreciate just how far the industry has come and how much better modern kits are, everyone should build an antique once in a while, looks good, nice job, you might want to consider building a HASAGAWA 'F' as a mid point of your display as it was a leap over the REVELL blob.

[b29flteng]

I flew well over 100 missions with that kit back in the 60s, she always brought me home.

[hang the expense]

As a kid, a friend of mine and I would set everything up to work on our B-17 models and watch Quinn Martin Productions 12 O'clock High.Those were some fun times and so very long ago.

[spookythecat]

Very sharp! Nice to see an oldie done up so nice.

[wendovertom]

How did you get the brushed on paint to look so good?? Or maybe it is that I am so not good at painting . . . .

Tom P

[Steve Nelson]

How did you get the brushed on paint to look so good?

Well, as I mentioned the light gray is from a spray can..brushing a light color over dark plastic is almost impossible. For the darker colors I used Humbrol, which is probably tthe best brushing paint ever made. I especially like the old Humbrol Authentic Colors from the 1970s. I run across them from time to time on the second hand market and always grab them up. As long as you keep them sealed, those old Humbrol paints will last indefinately. I have 35-year-old tins that are still perfect.

SN

[Second Air Force]

Funny that you should mention ancient Humbrol tins as I just "found" several (all the RAF and several RLM colors) I had forgotten about. I bought them in the seventies and every one is still just fine.