Nothing done really yet, I've been working mainly on trying to figure out how to get some of the details into the plane that make a B-17 a B-17. trying lots of new things...
Here is a mockup of the motor nacelles with an idea I was trying out.
Props are 9x7's off of a starmax B-17 and the dummy radials I found a place that makes 9 cylinder vacuum formed dummy engines, these are 2 5/8" in diameter, a tiny bit small but the closest I could find
I made a jig to create the gun barrels… its similar to the fretting jigs I've used in the past to make guitar fretboards...
basically the round gun barrel will go inside the square styrene piece. This component will get slide along another flat piece with a pin sticking out of it to catch the notches. What this accomplishes is it makes each drill hole occur in the exact spots I want them too. The two sides are offset for each side of the gun barrel for the holes. We should see how it works tomorrow…I think… This jig will make 4 gun barrels in a row, which can be separated later. The square tubing is just because its easier to drill through a square tubing than a round tube. I found the drill wandered to much on the round tube by itself. I also switched to styrene for the outer tube, with the inner still being brass.
The B-17 landing gear is set at about 70 degrees for scale. I wanted to figure out how to get a set of retracts to work with this plane and I thought I could get electric retracts to stop at 70 degrees fairly easily…Fortunately hobby king sells cheeps' ( $6-7 bucks a piece ) to play with. A little tweaking and tada….
Ignore the bent landing gear.. this was mainly for proof of concept. Turns out they are pretty easy to modify. I think I may keep the actuators and build my own set to go around them.. they seem to work pretty well.
The only other thing was that the plastics were a bit messed up, and quite a few missing pieces, so after a ton of searching I dug up a new canopy set, a new interior kit and a new set of plans… since the plans are gone and its doubtful if we'll be able to find them.
