Warbird Information Exchange

I started this a few days ago.









And the work so far.

Nice work so far but the waist area should natural metal, I usually paint all of the interior natural metal except for the flight deck. It's a very common misconception that they were painted through out the whole interior like the restored warbirds are.

I have a friend who crawled through the Belle in 1979, before any restoration work was done. He confirmed that everything aft of the radio room was bare metal. The radio room, flight deck and nose compartment were also mostly unpainted with dark green padding (most of which was gone by then.) The metal parts that were painted were Dull Dark Green..Model Master "Euro 1 Dark Green" is a decent match. The bomb bay was neutral gray. Here are some pics he took, with comprehensive notes:

http://www.arcair.com/awa01/101-200/awa164-B-17/00b.shtm

The Revell kits are the best detailed B-17s in any scale. I haven't picked up the new F yet..I got the G when it first came out, but it has a few "issues" that kind of turned me off.

One notable omission on the Revell F are a couple of windows in the top of the nose compartment. They included the centerline windows, but you'll have to add the off-center ones yourself. Here are a couple photos of the Belle showing the windows I'm talking about (ignore the "interior green" paint in the nose and cockpit..the entire interior was blasted with it during an earlier restoration.)





Good luck on your project!

SN

Hi Steve.

Great pics so everything back from the flight deck was natural metal including the radio room? So the Navigator's area was interior green too?

Are you modeling the real Memphis Belle or the "movie" Memphis Belle?

No chin turret, so NOT the movie belle MINICRAFT/HASAGAWA have a much more accurate 'F' model. The REVELLOGRAM is fun to build because it's so simple and if you make a mistake, who cares? Steve's right on the color approximation, it's identified as 'bronze/green'.
Check out IPMS stockholm.org for color references and the DUXFORD B-17 renovation thread in the Maintenance Hanger, lots of very good detail stuff spread out over about 30 pages.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Yeah well I can't justify the price of Hasegawa kits. And the this will be as close as a representation of the "Memphis Belle" as I can get it. And won't be the movie version (which I dislike) Hollywood hokum at its best the same as "Red Tails".

Anyway I won't be changing the interior green, as its too late now, as I'm modelling on a budget (JSA allowing). So using what colours I have in front of me.

At the end of the day, model building is all about whatever brings you enjoyment. Don't let us rivet-counters get you down. Heck, I built the ancient 1962 Revell "Memphis Belle" a couple of years ago just for fun..the kit is laughably inaccurate and toy-like by today's standards, but I build several as a kid and it was a nice trip down memory lane. In keeping with the spirit of the project I brush-painted the whole thing and even used the original 40-year-old decals.

SN

For an old kit, that's brushed up very well. If mine turns out as good I'll be pleased. And am I right in thinking the floor on the flight deck was wood or aluminium?

Hit a local IPMS show, always lots of vendors who usually have multiples of particular kits and most are willing to dicker or bargain on prices.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

The floor is aluminum but it would more than likely have black anti slip matting/grip tape. As would the interior in the nose section.

Not rivet counting ya and surely not asking you to change what you painted already, just giving you a heads up for next time.

No indeed, but you can never have too much reference material, in addition to the Stockholm IPMS site, look at www.ww2aircraft.net you'll have to do some seroious shovel work but you'll learn more than you thought you could about color schemes, interior colors, markings, etc. etc. Both excellent paint references for modellers or restorers

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-