Boeing B-54B, the Half-Way Bomber

[PR19_Kit]

Lots of heavy plastic engineering today trying to 'American-ise' the very Russian looking wings of the Bear. I filed off the numerous wing fences and sawed off the engine fairing bulges as the engines will be pylon mounted underneath. That left gaping holes top & bottom, but nothing some 30 thou and a hefty PSR session can't put right.

Before taking a 'before and after' pic I took a good look at the OOB wing mouldings and was surprised to see that they're re-enforced on the inside. There are strips moulded into the inner surface of both upper and lower halves, presumably to stiffen these very large surfaces and so they don't need much thicker styrene to support their own weight. I hadn't noticed them when I built the starboard wing.

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See what I mean? I doubt they reproduce the internal structure of a RW Tu-95 though.

I glued the port wing parts together after filing off the numerous sprue gates that encroached onto the gluing surfaces  a fault that Trumpeter seem to share with many Eastern producers. I did the same as I did with the starboard wing and glued the flaps and ailerons in place a) because I don't like moveable surfaces like that, and b) because the pins to make them moveable are MILES too big for the holes they're meant to fit!

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Here's the 'Russian' and 'American' wings, the former on top and the latter below.

And to show what I did last night here's two props, the 'American' one built up on the left and the original 'Russian' one on the right.

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[kerick]

I like the clipped props and the reworked wings. Looking forward to seeing more of this'

[NARSES2]

I like the clipped props and the reworked wings. Looking forward to seeing more of this'

Ditto 

[zenrat]

So, you preformed a Carrotectomy eh.

[PR19_Kit]

After posting last night's pics I came upon a rather serious problem with the fuselage. Not insurmountable, but troubling.

Either the Russians didn't exactly copy the B-29's fuselage for the Tu-4/Tu-95 breed, or Trumpeter and Academy didn't quite get their scales correct, but they AREN'T the same diameter, not quite anyway. When I glued the bits of the starboard side together I didn't manage to see that the B-29 was slightly larger in diameter than the Tu-95 because the joint faces weren't a complete half circle, there's a hatch/bomb bay/space right at the joints, but last night I started sawing and fitting the port side bits and it's only too clear now.

The current plan is to trim the bottom edges of the B-29 parts back until they can be squished (that's a technical Whiffing term....) into shape to match up with the Bear bits, but it'll mean UN-gluing the starboard side too, a bit of a PITA for sure. The B-29 nose will have to taper back out to its proper size though as otherwise the transparencies won't fit.

Ho hum, if it was easy everyone would be doing it...............

[Gondor]

My personal Motto would apply in this situation.

"The theory's fine,
The practice is something else"

Gondor

[Snowtrooper]

The usual quote attributed to Stalin suits the situation just fine: "big country,  big tolerances".

It's a good question just how much the actual dimensions varied due to the measures being converted to metric from Imperial, and the structure being adapted to the tooling, material thicknesses, and alloys already being used in the Soviet aircraft industry, so a slight change in the fuselage diameter may even be accurate.

[PR19_Kit]

I'll blame it on Stalin then. 

[PR19_Kit]

"The theory's fine,
The practice is something else"

Actually it worked a treat. 

The B-29 is 3 mm wider than the Tu-95, so I marked off a 1.5 - 0 mm taper on the underside of each of the rear sections and then filed away. Taping them back together, with a little tension to squeeze the lower surfaces together and they fit exactly.

Now for the nose section, using the same method.

[Wardukw]

  
This is gonna look so cool Kit 😎..so very cool 😊

[Rick Lowe]

Agree.
And the props look really good. 

[Wardukw]

This is going to rock so good 👍

[PR19_Kit]

I've got so many fuselage parts scattered all round the place it's getting to be difficult to figure out which is which now.

The forward fuselage taper filing worked OK, but I have to scratch up the bomb bays, escort fighter bays and the landing gear bays before I can glue them up.

Yes, that does mean it'll have a bicycle undercarriage, a bit like a B-47. That's because with the engines on pylons below the wings and those big props it'll need more ground clearance than the stock B-29 or Tu-95 has, so with luck the big Tu-95 gear mounted in the fuselage will do the job. If not I'll add some longer legs and stuff.

That's the plan anyway.

[Wardukw]

Stick with the tricycle landing gear Kit ..that always look cool and if anything more imposing. 😎 😁

[PR19_Kit]

I'm not sure I can.

With the engines on pylons under the wing, which was the defining feature of the B-55 design, it's difficult to imagine how the landing stresses would be handled. And I dislike the bloated look of the Bear's inner engine nacelles that would be need to be retained to have somewhere for the gear to retract.