B-17 Flying Fortress/44-83735 ~ the Duxford resto thread

[JohnCFord]

Ha! Good one. Merry Christmas!

~J~

[cooper9411]

Thanks for the update!

[the330thbg]

Happy Boxing Day!!!

[bomberflight]

First of all ~ Thanks for the seasonal good wishes !

And an extra thank you for this rather splendid Xmas gift from "vikingboss"



Now some of you are wondering why the image is in black n white ......... that's because I've not started painting it yet !

Shall we look at a some professional paint work on a slightly larger canvas ......





Tiny sized paint brush not included .....



There will now be a brief pause while :- ( A ) the paint has time to dry ( B ) I have yet another go at taking an "art" shot



As a reward for you're patience ~ here's a couple of pix of how it looks after the masking tape has been removed





Can we squeeze one more post in before the end of the year ?

Stay tuned

[StangStung]

Squeeze! Squeeze, I say!

Thanks as always for taking the time to post these pics. They're great!

[bomberflight]

My last post on this thread for 2011 and just one picture to share with you .....

And before anyone asks ...... yes we really have managed to support the B-17 on empty cardboard boxes and brown paper !



Thank you everyone for following the restoration story and posting comments along the way ~ we've had quite a journey since work started back in April !

Last but not least ~ the biggest thanks must go to the Hangar 5 Conservation Staff and volunteers at the Imperial War Museum Duxford.

They've not only shown me the finer points of conserving this aircraft for future generations ~ they've done it with good humor and patience.

And I've lost count of the number of times someone has come and found me and said the magic phrase ..... "Have you got your camera ?"

Stay tuned folks for the conclusion of this restoration project in 2012

[Warhawk]

I'm going to go a bit off topic and ask if thats supposed to be a green door in the background or has The Doctor repainted the TARDIS?

I look forward to your continuing updates and the completion of this wonderful project. Happy New Year.

[Bill Tromblay]

Hi,

I love your thread. I have been following it for some time now and it is great to see it with in-progress photos. I missed going to the American hanger when I was at Duxford due to the building being closed due to a air quality problem. I'm glad to see the quality of work being done and the correct shade and sheen of paint being used. I have a question, because of the angle that the picture was taken of the star and bar on the fuselage, it looks like the insignia is off. It looks like the bar is too wide and the width of the star points, at their bases, are not the same. Do you have a straight on photo of this?

Sorry to be a bit of a rivet counter,

And please keep the updates coming, Happy New Years

Bill

[bomberflight]

Welcome to WIX Bill !

I've done my best to take a "straight" picture ..... although the fuselage is obviously curved



And here's and image from the freshly finished other side ~ there's not enough room to move far enough back to get this on the level .....



Another update soon

[Ken]

It's always nice to see the correct shade of blue.

The insignia probably looked off simply due to the photo angles, but I'll let the tape measure crowd do the verifying. I just did a little reading on the dimensions of the insignia and something finally dawned on me. The tips of the star always reached the edge of the field of blue before the bars were added in 1943. The first iteration of bars used a red outline of the entire insignia and the tips of the star still reached the edge of the blue ... but after the red outline was covered in blue, the inner ends of the bars always appear to reach too far in and the stars don't reach the outside of the blue circle. All correct, of course, but a tad of an illusion that didn't come full circle (no pun) for me until I saw the early 1943 version with the red border.

Even though the red border was short-lived, it impacted every US star and bar insignia since.

[Bill Tromblay]

HI,

Thanks for posting the pictures. The distortion on the insignia must be from the curve in the fuse.

Thanks again,

Cheers,

Bill

[cooper9411]

All these pictures are satisfying the monkey on my back!!!!!

[bomberflight]

I've got just one image to add in the brief update .....



I may have missed a vocation working for Santa as a present wrapper ~ it's very therapeutic !

A more detailed update next time

[cooper9411]

I've got just one image to add in the brief update .....



I may have missed a vocation working for Santa as a present wrapper ~ it's very therapeutic !
Yeah but a heck of a present to unwrap!
A more detailed update next time

[bomberflight]

We start this post with a couple of startling images of the B-17 nose section in what appears to be RAF Coastal Command white .....





OK ~ now I have your attention

I want to show two similar images ......

The first shot has just been resized and converted from a RAW file to a JPEG



Although I rather like the soft ~ warm colors in this image ~ the view looks very different if I use the auto color correction filter
on the RAW image in Photoshop .....



On the assumption that this color treatment is more faithful and accurate ~ all the following images today have been processed this way

The pale cold winter daylight would only give me a shutter sped of 1/40th of a second at F2.8 using ISO 400 ~ so while these look ok at
just 800 pixels wide ~ the originals are not that brilliant because our resident expert with a spray gun moves so swiftly that he's a bit blurred
in many of the images. Enough of my problems ~ on with the show !

Let's start with the first coat of gray primer being applied ......







The observant amongst you will have already noted that just the nose section is being painted today



And now let's skip around to the other side of the nose .....









With the undercoat paint dry ~ the final coat of gray is applied to the underside of the fuselage











And let's not forget the wing tip .....



To be continued .....