My apologies for the poor color of these pictures. I'm going to get the digital camera figured out one of these days! :-)
If you're interested in seeing pictures of the B-29 being built, check out this page.
This is the 1/48 scale Monogram kit that was originally produced in 1975 (or so). As you can see, this kit is heavily modified to show interior detail. The framing was opened up by a fellow club member by using a dremel motor tool to remove much of the plastic from between the grid. He then finished by filing down each square to clean up the lines. From there I took over and finished cleaning up the lines and I opened up the rear of the cockpit.
Oh, the weight! This is one tail heavy machine! I now have an appreciation for how heavy the B-29 engines were. In order to balance this beast I superglued two lengths of lead tire-weights under each side of the cockpit, beside the front wheel well. I then filled the front lower gun position full of lead tire-weights and that still wasn't enough weight. I then put two lengths of lead into each engine nacelle in hopes that the plane wouldn't be a tail sitter. I thought I had it balanced perfectly until I removed the masks I had in the cockpit and front wheel well. Suddenly I have a tail sitter again. ARRRG! What it finally took was to add 5 pennies to the rear cockpit hatch that I opened. That is just enough weight to make this beast sit on all three tires. Wow.
For those who don't know what SNJ is, let me fill you in. SNJ is a "metalizer" paint produced by SNJ Model Products (http://hometown.aol.com/snjmodprod/myhomepage/business.html) which is aluminum powder in an enamel carrier. The paint must be misted on lightly in multiple coats, waiting between 10 and 15 minutes between each coat, which on the B-29, isn't a problem since it's so big. :-) Once you're done spraying your last coat of SNJ, wait about an hour and then start polishing using their aluminum polishing powder. This is where the magic happens. Before polishing, the finish is very flat but by polishing with the powder the finish can be smoothed to a high shine. The pictures below don't really show the variation in the finish, but each panel was polished to a different shine to simulate real aluminum. I didn't apply a clear coat since I wanted to show the "real" metal finish. I am very happy with the results.
A major advantage of SNJ over the Model Master Metalizers (which also leave very nice finishes) is that SNJ is robust. I had to touch up the top seam of the fuselage and was able to mask each side of the seam with scotch tape without pulling any of the paint up. Too cool. The only thing I had to do was re-polish the masked areas lightly to return it to the finish I wanted.
Feel free to send me your opinions, comments, suggestions, flames, etc. at percified@pacificcoast.net.
Overall shot of the Superfortress. You can just make out the
"Enola Gay" decal by the nose. After market decals were used for the Enola
Gay specific decals while the kit decals where used for the insignia.
Big mistake, I should have invested in the after market insignia decals
since the kit decals broke apart while I was applying them. Fortunately
I was able to make them work (mostly).
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