Opening

The photo is the completed rebuild of a model I built sometime in the early 1960's. The kit is an Atlantis B-29 and at the time of the writing is still available from Atlantis. It is about 99% complete only because I haven't decided what nose art to use. I used Gimp, a free alternative to Adobe Photoshop, to place a photo of the model on the sky background.

The following photos take you through the rebuild using 54-photos with descriptions.

I want to also say that I had been away from the hobby for almost 50-years. In 50-years, there is so much great new stuff and great new techniques, that I decided to use this rebuild to practice a couple of these techniques because I didn't care if I destroyed this model. As you can see, I don't think I destroyed it. I have a long way to go, but I feel that I'm higher up on the curve by completing this build.

1 of 54

This is an Atlantis kit, 1/120th scale, B-29 Bomber manufactured, most likely, in the early 1960's. It was cast in silver gray plastic so that painting was optional. When I initially built it, I was probably about 12-years old and didn't paint it, naturally making the rebuild easier because I didn't have to use the purple pond.

I disassembled all parts from the original build. I left the engines assembled because they were heavly glued and I'm sure would have broken If I tried to pry them apart. While prying the pilot, co-pilot and bombardier out of the cockpit, I lost the bombardier in the Bermuda Triangle under my bench. Serves him right for not wearing his parachute. 👨

2 of 54

The part count in this kit is quite small. These are the small parts. There is one propeller missing and one of the observation windows would not come off the fuselage. Also missing are two gun turrets and the tail gun or cannon. These items will need to be scratch built. I'm not sure what to do with the missing propeller? I'm thinking of making a mold and casting another one, or maybe trying to 3D print one? I haven't decided.

3 of 54

I started thinking about how to make the missing gun turrets. I started by taking some 5/8" (15.875mm) styrene tube and cut a piece that is 1/4" (6.35mm) high. I than over filled it with body putty with the thought that I could than file and sand the shape I wanted. Spoiler alert: it didn't work very well. 😟

4 of 54

While the putty was hardening, I was thinking of other ways to make the turrets. When I looked up at my peg board I noticed several packs of wooden buttons that are used to cover countersunk screw heads in furniture. I said out loud, hey, they look just like a gun turret. So...I pulled one out of the package and found that the diameter was a bit larger then I needed. I chucked the button into my Dremel tool, which acted like a lathe, and filed and sanded the wooden button to the correct size and shape.

I then researched the barrel diameter of a 20mm machine gun barrel (3.00" to 3.25", 76.2mm to 82.55mm). I calculated 1/120th scale of the actual gun barrel diameter. The scaled size worked out to be the same size as 22AWG (American Wire Gauge) wire (0.026" or 0.6604mm). I used some soft drawn solid 22AWG bus wire for the barrels.

It looks like the wooden buttons and 22AWG bus wire might work, especially after returning to the turrets made with the putty. After filing and sanding the putty turrets there where a lot of pockets and divots, which I expected, because I didn't have a vacuum chamber to pull the air out of the putty. I tried filling the voids and reshaping, but they looked horrible. Therefore, the styrene rings and putty was not going to be the method. The wooden buttons seem to be the best option; however, they were currently too dome shaped, but that can be easily fixed.

5 of 54

After gluing the fuselage halfs together the seams were pretty bad. I think they were bad from the disassembly process, even though I had sanded the edges before reassembly. They will definitely need some filler.

6 of 54

I only had a tube of very old Testors body filler, but I used it anyway. That was a mistake. The putty seemed to be drying while it was exiting the tube. This project was started during the peak of Covid-19 and materials were hard to get, at least in my state. I did order some new Tamiya putty, but it would be several weeks before I would receive it. I did some research on how to thin the putty and found a few methods. I was able to use some water and windshield washer fluid to at least slow the drying of the old putty, but I had to glob it on because it did not spread well. The next several photo's will show how much globbing there was. It was Ok, and simply required a lot of filing and sanding. Some area's did not have to be filled because they won't been seen.

7 of 54

While the filler on the fuselage was drying I decided to glue the wings in place. I had not disassembled the wing halves because there was no doubt in my mind they would have broken. I know I used Testors tube glue that bonds the plastic. The wings were slightly warped and did not sit well against the fuselage. To fix this, I put a coating of Tamiya liquid glue on all services and than used clamps to hold them in place. I left the clamps on for over 24-hours (maybe an over-kill). You can see that I initially tried using a rubber band to hold them in place; however, that did not work.

8 of 54

With the wings attached to the fuselage I still needed a large amount of filler, and because I still hadn't recieved the new putty, I used the very old Testors which will just make more filing and sanding.

9 of 54

I then attached the tail wings and filled the seam between the wings and the fuselage.

10 of 54

Now it's time to start filing and sanding all that putty.

11 of 54

After filing and sanding that old putty, some of it came out of the seams and more putty had to be applied. Still did not get the fresh putty, so I made due with the old Testors.

12 of 54

Even more thick putty.

13 of 54

The top of the B-29 has been sanded.

14 of 54

The bottom of the B-29 has been sanded.

15 of 54

More sanding.

16 of 54

More sanding.

17 of 54

Making the gun turrets. I decided to make the four 20mm machine gun turrents so that they all matched. I used my Dremel tool, held in a PC board vice, and had it function like a small lathe. I know Dremel makes a lathe for their Dremel tools; however, all I needed to do was hold the wood furnature buttons and use a file and sand paper to shape them. I then spotted and drilled holes to insert the 22 AWG solid bus wire for the guns. The guns have not been trimmed to length in this picture.

18 of 54

It was time to get some primer on the plane. Since I had to paint and mount the cockpit figures before the fuselage halves were glued together, I masked the cockpit area and then primed the plane.

19 of 54

The entire plane in one coat of Testors Model Master gray primer. I'm still not sure what the final surface will be. The B-29's were either gray aluminum, silver aluminum or olive. Some also had a flat black underside. The olive version was rare. I'm leaning toward gray aluminum.

20 of 54

After the primer had been applied, like always, more areas that need work stand out.

21 of 54

After the primer had been applied, like always, more areas that need work stand out.

22 of 54

Mounting the wooden gun turets. After trimming the length of the guns, the turents were glued in place using Loctite Super Glue and clamped in place until dry. I'm still not sold on using super glue on models; however, with two dissimilar materials, wood and styrene, I thought it would be the best choice.

23 of 54

The tail guns and/or cannon was missing. I made a tail cannon from a piece of wooden dow, shaping it with my Dremel held in a PC board vice and a file. I then drilled a hole in the center of the new wooden tail piece to mount a tail cannon. After researching the diameter of the tail cannon, I found a piece of sprew that was the perfect diameter. I cut a piece of the sprew and glued it into the tail piece to form the cannon barrel.

24 of 54

Another view of the scratch built tail cannon.

25 of 54

When the glue on the turrets was fully set I used filler putty to create the interface between the turret and the fuselage. Still using the old Testors putty.

26 of 54

More putty on the turrets.

27 of 54

More putty on the turrets.

28 of 54

I decided that since a propellor was missing, I'd make it look like that engine was hit. I pried off the front of the engine on the port side and found just a flat surface under the engine cowling. Would that be seen when I purposly damage the cowling?

29 of 54

I used my Dremel with a cutting wheel and made random cuts and grooves to give the engine and the wing surface the look of being hit, mostly by shrapnel. Later in the rebuild, I added more damage.

30 of 54

Using the Dremel cutting wheel I then randomly cut a piece out of the front of the engine cowling. When the damaged engine cover was held onto the engine it was obvious that I had to do something with the inside of the engine. I couldn't have that size hole showing a flat surface in the engine.

31 of 54

I roughed out what is to be the cylinders of the engine. I cut a piece of thin styrene in somewhat of a circlular flat disk. The sloppier the better, after all, it's been hit. I then did some research on the B-29 engine to find the size of the cylinders. Using some Evergreen solid round rod of the correct diameter to match the c ylinders, I mounted twelve of them to the styrene disk. Again, I purposely did not want to make them too perfect. I then painted it a variety of colors and clear colors to make it look hot and full of oil and coolant.

32 of 54

I started filing and sanding the putty around the gun turrets.

33 of 54

I started filing and sanding the putty around the gun turrets.

34 of 54

I started filing and sanding the putty around the gun turrets.

35 of 54

Gluing and clamping the damaged engine front.

36 of 54

Painted the propellers using:
Tamiya Flat Black XF-1
Tamiya Chrome Silver XF-11
Testor Model Master Yellow

37 of 54

After all the filing and sanding was complete I air brushed another coat of Model Master gray primer over the entire plane.

38 of 54

After all the filing and sanding was complete I air brushed another coat of Model Master gray primer over the entire plane.

39 of 54

I let the primer set for almost two days, only because I had other things to do. I decided to do the plane in natural aluminum, making it look like "Doc" , one of the only two B-29's that are still flight worthy; (FIFI and DOC). I used Tamiya Chrome Silver XF-11 because I didn't have any gloss aluminum, but the flat aluminum looked to fake.

40 of 54

I let the primer set for almost two days, only because I had other things to do. I decided to do the plane in natural aluminum, making it look like "Doc" ,, one of the only two B-29's that are still flight worthy; (FIFI and DOC). I used Tamiya Chrome Silver XF-11 because I didn't have any gloss aluminum and the flat aluminum looked to fake.

I REALLY DO NOT LIKE THE COLOR!!!

41 of 54

As I mentioned in the beginning, this rebuild wasn't just a rebuild for sake of rebuilding, but to also practice some techniques that I had never tried before.

Since I hate the Chrome Silver color, I thought maybe I would try to make the finish coat show different panel affects by using different under coats, so...I taped off some panels and air brushed some panels with Tamiya Flat Black XF-1 as an undercoat.

42 of 54

As I mentioned in the beginning, this rebuild wasn't just a rebuild for sake of rebuilding, but to also practice some techniques that I had never tried before.

Since I hate the Chrome Silver color, I thought maybe I would try to make the finish coat show different panel affects by using different under coats, so...I taped off some panels and air brushed some panels with Tamiya Flat Black XF-1 as an undercoat.

43 of 54

I let the duo colored patch work dry of 24-hours and then air brushed a light coat of Tamiya Light Gray XF-66 over the entire plane. The Tamiya Gray XF-66 looks very close to the color of FIFI and other B-29's that flew in the Pacific Theatre. However; I could not see any difference in color between the areas with Chrome Silver as a base and the Flat Black base, so...I gave the entire plane two coats of the Tamiya Light Gray XF-66.

44 of 54

After about a 24-hour drying time I started weathering and showing wear using Tamiya Black panel line accent and a Q-Tip. I also thought I'd try dry brushing for the very first time to show oil and coolant from the hit engine. Using Tamiya:
Black X-6
Smoke X-19
Clear Yellow X-24
Orange X-6
Red X-7

I'm not really happy with the look, I think it's too much but I did learn how to dry brush.

45 of 54

After about a 24-hour drying time I started weathering and showing wear using Tamiya Black panel line accent and a Q-Tip. I also thought I'd try dry brushing for the very first time to show oil and coolant from the hit engine. Using Tamiya:
Black X-6
Smoke X-19
Clear Yellow X-24
Orange X-6
Red X-7

I'm not really happy with the look, I think it's too much but I did learn how to dry brush.

46 of 54

When all the paint was dry, I glued the cockpit canopy and port windows in place. I also painted the gun barrels flat black.

47 of 54

When all the paint was dry, I glued the cockpit canopy and port windows in place. I also painted the gun barrels flat black.

48 of 54

Here is a close up of the hit engine, top gun turret and cockpit canopy.

49 of 54

Here is a close up of hit engine with the cylinders in place.

50 of 54

This is the decal sheet that comes with the Atlantis B-29, 1/120th scale kit. I did not want to use this sheet, so I scanned the sheet and printed it on a sheet of water slide laser jet paper.

51 of 54

When I used the scanned decals I didn't think about the background being that light blue, which I'm sure is the color of the backing paper on the original decals. Therefore, using Gimp , I removed the blue background and reprinted them. That did the trick.

52 of 54

I installed the propellers and placed some of the decals on the plane.

53 of 54

I installed the propellers and placed some of the decals on the plane. I decided not to display any nose art because I'm not too keen about putting "FIFI" on it nor do I want it to be the Auntless Dotty that came on the decal sheet. I'm still looking for nose art that I'm happy with.

54 of 54

Here is the Bomber at about 99% complete. I still want to include some nose art and I want to find a desktop stand that I like. I don't like the one that comes with the kit. The image you see was done using Gimp . Gimp is an open source free photo editor similar to Adobe Photoshop.