USAF B-36 Peacemaker in 1/72 scale

Jeff Head said:

The Build - Bombay, Access Tunnel, Fuselage assembly, painting the fuselage - December 9, 2015

I started this session by gathering the parts for the bombay, including the access tunnel I created, and then painting them.

I made the access tunnel by simply finding a felt-tip marker with the right diameter housing, cutting it to fit, and then painting it. Hehehe...no need to get too fancy.

I then glued these parts in place and then dry fit the fuselage halves to see how they would fit. I found that with the tunnel, it conflicted with the large support spar that the model has for the huge wings to attach to the model, so I had to trim that spar a bit to make it fit.

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Click to expand...

Just curious Jeff does the access tunnel gets pressurized during flight or does the air man has to wear oxygen mask?

Equation said:

Just curious Jeff does the access tunnel gets pressurized during flight or does the air man has to wear oxygen mask?

Click to expand...

It is fully pressurized...just like the B-29.

This tunnel is long and they have a pull wire where they lie on a little cart and pull themselves down the tunnel.

The Build - Horizontal stabilizers, lower fuselage, canopy, prop engines, main wings - December 14, 2015

I started this session by building the horizontal stabilizers and then adding them to the aircraft. Pretty straight forward, but the span of these are as big or bigger than most 1/72 scale full wing spans on 1/72 scale fighter and attack aircraft models.

I then painted the lower fuselage in the flat white as it was in service. I used Model Master Flat White. It took a full three coats to get it covered adequately. I then touched up the bomb bay, the rear gun turret area, etc.

Looking pretty good.

At this point I decided to paint the canopy and the forward nose section. These come in clear plastic and you have to mask and paint the supporting structure. I masked the larger areas, and then used a fine brush to paint the straight lines freehand. They turned out very well.

I will not permanently attach these until the model is completed...but I wanted to dry fit/tape fit them to see how it was looking. I'm pretty satisfied with the results.

I then assembled and attached the prop mounts for the six large piston engines that the B-36 uses. These are massive engines, but on the B-36 they were "pusher" engines, meaning the propellers were mounted on the back of the wings and the blades orient so that they "pushed" the aircraft forward, rather than being mounted in front of the wing and pulling the aircraft forward like most aircraft.


Once these were mounted and dried, I was then able to glue the large wings together. These wings are massive. In real life they are 7' thick at the root and actually had access tunnels to the engines. The engine could be feathered and stopped for a crewman to perform basic maintenance if necessary while in flight. At least that is what I have been told. I have no idea if that ever happened.

Once they dried, I then did a quick dry fit of them to the aircraft just to show the overall size of the aircraft now. As I say...it is stretching my build area pretty much to the max.


She is coming right along.

In the next session I will paint these massive wings, paint the props, build and paint the jet engines and their nacelles, build the landing gear, and then hopefully attach all of that to each wing preparatory to actually attaching the wings to the aircraft. If time permits, I will attach the wings in the next session.

The Build - Jet engines, landing gear, propellers, paint wings, main assembly - December 17, 2015

Lots to do in this session.

I started off by building the jet engines in their nacelles. There are two out board jet engines underneath each wing, both in their own nacelle on each side.

...and they are way out there under each wing...I mean WAY out there.

I assembled each nacelle and then painted them, with the distinctive red front on each nacelle.

Then it was time to build the landing gear. I did this by first gathering, assembling, and painting the ten tires. These are large tires, the main gear standing around 6' tall each, four of these large tires to each main gear.

Once those were built, I then assembled and painted the landing gear themselves, and the doors (including the bomb bay doors). I then painted and assembled the propellers for each of the six piston engines.

All of these various parts and assemblies were looking good and so then it was time to fully paint both wings. There is a specific portion of the underside that is flat white, with the rest being silver.

So I painted the wings and let them dry, and then added the main landing gear and their doors.

Once this was completed I added the large wings, with their landing gear to the main fuselage.

The model has adequate support for these large wings, nevertheless, because they are so large (and also because of me having to notch the supports in order to make room for the access tunnel through the bomb bay), the fit had to be manually held tightly in place for several minutes on each side to minimize seam issues...which I did.

Once the wings were dried (and I let them dry almost 24 hours), I then went ahead and added the jet engine nacelles with their support to each wing, and the bomb bay doors.

After doing this I had to make up for my forgetfulness.

I had intended to add some lead weight behind the foreword cabin bulkhead (between the main cabin and the bomb bay) to ensure that the model sat properly on its landing gear. Unless you add such weight, the model will want to tip back as its center of gravity would be behind the main gear.

But I forgot.

To make up for this, I added a total of twenty-six pennies, ten in the bomb bay, ten in the nose gear bay, and then another six in the nose cockpit behind the crew stations. I could reach all of these. I used some regular super glue to glue theses together in groups of five, four and three, and then painted them appropriately before setting them in place with more super-glue.

Twenty six pennies is what it took me and the plane sits perfectly.

In the bomb bay, once I get the Thermo nuclear bomb, wou will not be abble to see them. They ca also not be seen in the nose. If you turn the plane upside down, you can notice them in the forward gear bay...but they are not too bad at all.

Once this was all done I added a dull coat and then added the main canopy, the nose canopy, and then the six bubble glass canopies at each observation/gunner's station.