Chuck's original BUFF, converting B-52D into XB-52 *Finished

[Chuck Finley]

I was very fortunate last summer to pick up a few kits off one of the local modellers, who was getting out of model building and letting go his collection at $1.00 per aircraft kit. Let's just say, his house looked like it came out of the TV Show "American Pickers" and around 3000 models found new homes. I was fortunate to pick up two Monogram B-52Ds that dated back to when the company was owned by Mattel and the box had a copy-write year 1977. Since, I already have a B-52D hanging in my model room, I wanted to do something different and saw Lonestar Models had a conversion set available for $45.00 which was ordered and only arrived yesterday. Thus, explaining my tardiness to this esteemed group of model builders. It is my attention to use the conversion to back-date the monogram kit into the XB-52 prototype with tandem seating for the pilots like the previous B-47.

[Chuck Finley]

[Martin R]

Great to have you with us, Chuck, and good luck with the granddaddy Buff.

Regards

Martin

[AndrewR]

This should be interesting. That resin nose must be pretty heavy. No noseweight problems, unless the undercarriage can't take it.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Looks like an interesting project. Andrew makes a good point about weight, at least on the nose gear and perhaps a set of metal gear from SAC might be useful ?

[Chuck Finley]

This should be interesting. That resin nose must be pretty heavy. No noseweight problems, unless the undercarriage can't take it.

It's a hollow casting and really doesn't weigh that much. The kit landing gear should handle it just fine. On to the pre-painting and cleaning up the resin before priming.

[AndrewR]

That's a relief. I thought it was a solid piece of resin

[Chuck Finley]

That's a relief. I thought it was a solid piece of resin

The real fun part will be trimming and masking the canopy. Can you say no frames?

[Clashcityrocker]

A few watches of Strategic Air Command, and Bombers B-52 in your future?

Nigel

[DH-Drover]

According to the gent from High Plains in Singapore it is a help to warm the canopy to aid cutting.

Dai

[Chuck Finley]

According to the gent from High Plains in Singapore it is a help to warm the canopy to aid cutting.

Dai

Thanks, nut that is not the hard part. The hard part is figuring out where the canopy frames are to mask. There are no frames at all.

[Chuck Finley]

I have a question about the cockpit color for the XB-52. Normally, the color for B-52s are a dark Gull Gray. However, while watching SAC, I noticed that the cockpits in the B-47s are interior green. As the XB-52 came out in 1952, would it also have an interior green cockpit as well?

[Barry]

Green sounds right to me Chuck.

[Chuck Finley]

I run a model club at the middle school where I teach and for yesterday's meeting I showed the students the start of a major conversion by cutting off the front and rear fuselage parts of the B-52D in preparation to fitting the new nose and tail. I plan on finishing the pre-painting tonight and start the actual build tomorrow.









In other news from the club: One of my newer recruits finished building his Monogram P-6E Hawk and the other new student finished building a AMT/Ertl TIE Fighter. They both plan on painting them during this week's meeting. It's a joy introducing 6th graders to the art of model building.

[Purplethistle]

Ambitious project, but looking very good very quickly. Go Chuck!