Martin B-51G Panther “Tropic Moon III” Finished!!!

[PR19_Kit]

MASSIVE progress there, well done indeed!

I love your execution of that #2 engine intake, that's excellent. 

[sandiego89]

Nose looks great! I was a little worried at first, but shaping up superbly...

[NARSES2]

Jeez you work fast. 

Yup have to agree. I'm still looking at mine and she's getting jealous of all the neat work yours is getting  Mine will be strictly out of the box

[comrade harps]

That's looking brutal now (in a good way). 

[Captain Canada]

Wow....is she ever coming along fast, and are you ever doing excellent work with that `thing`!

Love the look of it now. Excellent work on the new intake and I really like the nose.

[trickyrich]

thanks for the great comments...

Well the replacement cockpit has finally arrived seeing the first one I ordered didn't arrive....who knows where it will end up! So lot the fun continue.

As mentioned earlier I wanted the cockpit position sorted out before I closed up the front fuselage section. After couple of hours messing about I finally had it in a position I was happy about. This is not its final position but it's close enough to allow me to close up the fuselage.



So after adding lots and lots of superglue gel and accelerator I ended up with gaps and joins like this....scary!!!



Not one to mess around they were given a very rudimentary going over with 240 grit wet & dry before being joined with the rear fuselage section. I wasn't to concerned at the moment about how the front section looked as once it was align with the rear section the whole lot would be sanded to profile. The aligning required a couple of little plastic pegs/wedges to help, bit all was good. So more superglue and accelerator and a really good going over with wet & dry and I ended up with nice joins like this!



The fuselage does have a few dimples/ripples bit some filler will sort them out.

Next the radome/sensor head. The nose needed a bit of surgery for the radome to fit correctly....though I did get a bit carried away!



There is nothing behind the sensor window so I figured while I was here I'd at least add something, so it's now all boxed up and I'll add some sensors to it later. Plus I needed to add some "padding" around the sensor pod to help with the fit.



So again after superglue, accelerator and some filler the nose is on, and I'm happy to say it's even aligned up properly!



So what's all this work look like....

The tail is pretty well complete (she's just sitting there for the photo), I'll give it another quick undercoat to look for any final defects.



The #2 intake so pretty well complete as well, though a little more cleaning up is required. The patch of filler on the side was needed as that section had a very noticeable warp in it. So some plastic strip and filler to the rescue.




The forward wheel well will be fitted once the underside sanding is completed, I did run into a problem here as my new wheel well was slightly wider than the hole and there was very little material left in the fuselage. Some wafer thin sanding of the new wheel well was required....it'll fit....just!



I was just playing around with some possible loadouts, though the drop tanks will be used.



She is a big sucker!!!



While I was waiting for the cockpit to arrive and in a fit of complete madness I decided to build up the Gatling gun! This is another one of those beautiful products for Master Models. As you can see she is tiny and is made up of 17 parts! Amazingly I didn't loose any bits while building it and it didn't take long to build. Pity though that this will be hidden from view under the aircraft!

[NARSES2]

Every time I look at this build and then look at my "raw" kit I just 

Stunning

[PR19_Kit]

That's astonishing, not only for the wonderfulness of the build itself but also for the speed! You and Dizzy are the class of the field on that front!  

I like the gratuitous posing of the other models in the last few pics.  

Is that an XF-103 I see there?

[trickyrich]

That's astonishing, not only for the wonderfulness of the build itself but also for the speed! You and Dizzy are the class of the field on that front!  

I like the gratuitous posing of the other models in the last few pics.  

Is that an XF-103 I see there?

arrr yes...another Anigrand monster, I started that one quite a few years ago but just lost the mojo to complete it! It too was badly warped (the wings and tail still are as a result of being packed away while moving), plus she is covered in pin hole bubbles.

Dragging her for the photo has sort of given me some motivation to finish her off......

[Gondor]

That's astonishing, not only for the wonderfulness of the build itself but also for the speed! You and Dizzy are the class of the field on that front!  

I like the gratuitous posing of the other models in the last few pics.  

Is that an XF-103 I see there?

arrr yes...another Anigrand monster, I started that one quite a few years ago but just lost the mojo to complete it! It too was badly warped (the wings and tail still are as a result of being packed away while moving), plus she is covered in pin hole bubbles.

Dragging her for the photo has sort of given me some motivation to finish her off......

I hope that means  Assemble  rather than the bucket?   

Gondor

[trickyrich]

That's astonishing, not only for the wonderfulness of the build itself but also for the speed! You and Dizzy are the class of the field on that front!  

I like the gratuitous posing of the other models in the last few pics.  

Is that an XF-103 I see there?

arrr yes...another Anigrand monster, I started that one quite a few years ago but just lost the mojo to complete it! It too was badly warped (the wings and tail still are as a result of being packed away while moving), plus she is covered in pin hole bubbles.

Dragging her for the photo has sort of given me some motivation to finish her off......

I hope that means  Assemble  rather than the bucket?   

Gondor

  no she'll go into the production line somewhere, maybe a whif...with the Luftwaffe instead of the F-104??

[trickyrich]

Well another busy day at the office and another of the major items can just about be ticked off and another one to be added!!

Most of the day was spent on two chores, contouring the nose and building the Pave-Gat system.

I started rubbing down the nose section but immediately came onto a problem, with the two small exhaust vents getting in the way and slowly getting miss-shaped. So these were removed to be replaced later, though while researching other stuff I found that Italeri had actually gotten them in the wrong spot in the first place. They should not have been on the radome section of the nose but slightly further back on the fuselage (on the B-57).  With them removed it was easier to clean up all that filler...I do tend too use too much. Then a second lot of filler was applied and left to dry.

Once the second lot of filler was cleaned up, everything was given a light-ish undercoat to see how it looked and what further work was required. All in all it all looks very nice, not to much work required to finish this part off. Re-doing the panel lines will be a fairly big job unfortunately and I hate that job!!!






The forward wheel well was fitted and small fairing strips added to the forward and rear section, I'm quite happy how both wheel wells turned out, so much better than the stock ones!



The tail looks good, though while researching other stuff I found that the brake-chute pod was missing from the tail! So one task completed and another to be done!



Ok the Pave-Gat system, this took up most of the day, as the information is so confusing, the building was actually quite quick! There are very few detailed photos of this system fitted or not, plus there appears to be a very early prototype version fitted to a test frame which looks nothing like the one actually fitted to the aircraft. There appear to be two versions of this weapons system, the TAT-161 (and it was officially called the Pave-Gat) and and earlier(?) version the TAT-157.

The TAT-157 had the M61 fitted at the rear of the pod/platform with the ammunition drum forward of the gun, while the TAT-161 had the M61 fitted to a turret forward of the ammunition drum. Most common photo of the Pave-Gat system shows a B-57B fitted with the TAT-161 system while the B-57G is shown fitted with the other TAT-157 version.




So for this build I will be going with the later version which if the numbering system is correct probably the more advanced version.





The M61 was rotated rearwards for storage when not in use.

It looks pretty good but after a closer look at the photos I may change the turret the holds the M61 slightly, as it does need some azimuth movement. But that won't take long and that bit will be completed.

[PR19_Kit]

I suppose you do sleep sometimes..........

[craigdwpa]

that looks awasome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Old Wombat]

Yep, you really are doing a great job on this.