Russ added the right side ram air intake that was missing on the model. The ram air intakes are located forward of the front main landing gear on both sides of the fuselage. Here's how to do it:
The added right inlet is shown below:
These vents are located just behind the ram air intakes and are about 50% correct in the model; Russ felt like correcting them. The pictures below show the vents as rendered in the model, and the way they are on real the aircraft:
Russ added the missing louvers in front of the left group of louvers on the model. Then he filled in the first four louvers in the right group to use as a base for the domed cover. He carved the cover out of a piece of sprue, then glued it on. Finally, Russ added the missing right group of louvers, as shown in the photo below.
NOTE: The model has only 3 louvers occupying the same space as what should have been 4, so rather than filling in the whole lot and carving out the correct amount of louvers ("I'm not that picky..." said Russ), he followed the model's structure with the new louvers. There are two other exhaust vents in the left side fuselage just above the forward wheel well that could use some attention. The picture below shows their location on the model. The larger vent should be circular and is in the wrong place. The smaller vent is close enough in size and location that it only needs drilling out:
The actual aircraft vents are shown below:
On top, the escape hatch for the EWO was outlined by two panel lines that looked more like the lines provided to indicate the walkway areas. Russ removed the inner line since the outer line is about the same size as the other hatches.
After the fuselage was closed up, Russ added the outline of the Doppler height-finder radar antenna cover. The antenna cover was located on the bottom of the aircraft between the front of the bomb bay and the forward wheel wells, as shown below.
Here are the tools Russ used for re- scribing the raised panel lines: a scribing tool and a double-ended dental pick - both tools are available from Micro-Mark (NOTE: both tips of the dental pick were filed flat to produce a sharp triangular shape). An example of re-scribing is shown in the photo below.
Russ used the panel scriber right over the top of the raised panel lines, then he used the dental pick to widen the lines and remove the debris created by the panel scriber.
Russ experimented with several tools but a triangular 3-corner jeweler's file turned out to be the ideal tool for the job. He used the sharp V-edged tip to gouge out the wrinkles. File the end flush so the edges are clean and sharp. NOTE: Using a small file this way can be really tough on your hand so Russ suggests using a file handle or wrap the tang with tape to improve your grip and protect your hand.
Practice on an old model or piece of plastic first until you get familiar with using the tool. Lightly gouge the wrinkles in a 2-3 inch area and observe their overall effect. You can always go back and make them deeper if necessary. Once you have a feel for the tool and its effect on the plastic, you'll be able to complete the cuts with one pass. Once you're satisfied with the gouges, use a round file or a piece of folded sandpaper to round out the bottoms and sides of the wrinkles.
Wrinkle patterns were not uniform like a piece of corrugated roofing. They varied in shape and size and were sometimes broken up by vertical wrinkles or panel seams. I varied my cuts from 2-3 mm apart but I also varied the width of the troughs by using a round file or sandpaper.
Wrinkles in the nose area tend to slant toward the back while wrinkles in the midsection are mostly vertical. Wrinkles in the tail tend to be mostly vertical, but some are slanted toward the front.
NOTE: Avoid extending wrinkles into the following areas:
Effect of wrinkling after painting the surface:
The longitudinal stiffeners were thick metal strips added to both sides of the fuselage to strengthen the frame and reduce the side-to-side motion of the tail during flight. These stiffeners are not rendered in the kit but they are a noticeable feature of the real B-52D.
Each stiffener begins at the front edge of the bomb bay and goes all the way back to just under the leading edge of the horizontal stabilizer, as shown in the three photos below. It looks like a single piece but was actually made up of three strips which Russ has named named: Midsection strip, 47-Section strip and Tail strip.
The stiffiners are made from 1 mm sheet styrene or equivalent stock. Cut 6 strips as follows:
Add the Left Side Tail Strip First:
Next, Add the 47-Section Strip:
Now Add the Midsection Strip:
Adding the ECM Chaff Ports to the 47-Section
Follow the procedure below to locate and create the chaff ports:
The hatches have an outer plate that is called a "hatch lifter" and is used as part of the ejection sequence to help pull the hatch up and out. Apparently, the hatch lifter catches the wind stream and helps pull the hatch cover off to clear the way for the ejection seat:
As Russ was researching he decided that the representation of the EWO hatch as a scribed outline is incorrect and should be rectified. In actuality, the EWO hatch had the same cover as the other hatches (see the first 2 pictures below). Russ filled in the scribing and modelled the hatch and also added the guide marks above the cockpit ahead of the refueling probe, as shown in the third photo.
The completed and installed gunner's hatch is shown in the pictures below. The gunner's compartment hatch cover is outlined on the right rear fuselage, as indicated in the first photo below. The second photo shows the hatch on the actual aircraft:
If you would like to show the hatch open - as it frequently was - follow the procedure below to cut out and detail the hatch.
The steps on the kit main hatch are only represented by slightly raised lines while the actual hatch steps were substantially deeper.
Also missing from the kit hatch cover is the hatch lifter detail. The hatch lifters were part of the seat ejection system. When the ejection sequence was initiated, the front end of the hatch lifter was forced up into the air stream, creating a heavy drag that helped pull the top hatch clear before the ejection seat fired.
The hatch lifter "scoop" shape was created with a piece of 1 mm thick styrene 11 mm x 13 mm, sanded to shape.The reinforcing ribs were made from 1.5 mm strip sanded to shape per the photos below.
My main hatch lifter "scoop" (shown in the first photo below) is not quite the correct shape, as I discovered later. The front part should be more squarish at the corners, as shown in the second and third photos of the EWO hatch.
Finally, if you've gone this far, you will probably want to add the hatch lifting cables, as shown below. I made mine from 0.3 mm round stock (Plastruct #90709) painted black.
The B-52's massive wings were so far forward and had so much lift that the plane could not reduce landing speed by flaring like most aircraft. A drag chute was needed to slow it down enough so the brakes could be used without burning them up. The drag chute on the D-model was stored in a compartment in the bottom of the tail section, just forward of the gun turret, as show below. The drag chute tray was almost always extended while the aircraft was being turned around for it's next mission.
Determine how you are going to install the tray in the fuselage as this will determine the total height of the side and end panels. The simplest way is to glue one or more strips cross-wise up inside the fuselage and attach the tray to them.
Below are photos of the canopy under construction and finished. Russ used the front part of the original canopy as a template and taped the pieces of the frame to it, then glued them at the joints.
"It's actually obvious, that the blast curtains would be best worked on before the canopy framing is in place, but when building models sometimes weird things happen..." says Russ. The curtains are made of aluminum foil sprayed white on one side. Russ used a pair of straight tweezers to make the folds in the side curtains. He used small round styrene stock to make the rods for the front curtains. Glue the rods to the un-painted top edge and roll them gently until you get the shape you want.
The front curtains apparently had a spring-loaded roller system that took up the slack down below the window sill. Since there's no slot at the bottom on the model, Russ had to place the curtains against the outside of the frames and run his fingernail along the bottom edge to get the curve of the window, then cut along the resulting line before gluing the curtains in behind the frames.
First, the antenna pedestals for the ECM (Electronic CounterMeasures) antennae and the transmitter exhaust vents, and also the top and bottom flashing navigation beacons were added. The actual antennae would be added later to avoid damaging them while handling the model:
Russ also finished the ECM antenna farm (see below). He wasn't able to find any closeup photos of the antennae on an operational aircraft, which is not surprising since the systems were classified and photography would not be allowed - the length and shape of an antenna would give a clue to the frequencies and purposes of the system.
Russ recalls: "It's been many years and my memory is not the best, but I don't ever remember replacing an antenna that was painted black (that doesn't mean there weren't any - I just dont remember seeing one). They were always an olive drab color or gray. Except for the scimitar antennas - we started getting some that were not painted but rather had an anodized coating that prevented corosion. These were a bronze or almost copper color (as depicted on the model). SEA aircraft had priority, and if an antenna was needed desperately, they would often be cannibalized from other aircraft, so it wasn't unusual to see antennas that were different colors or shades, or even white."
Some pictures of museum aircraft show the antennas painted the same as the aircraft, but this is purely for show, and for convenience. The actual antennae had a special paint that was designed not to interfere with radio signals (no lead or other metals), so antennae would never be painted to match the aircraft unless it was done by the manufacturer. The different colored "panels" on some antennas were made of a honeycomb material similiar to fiberglass and were designed to protect the actual antenna elements. They were transparent to radio waves, much like glass is transparent to light waves. They were softer than the metal so they wore more easily, like the paint that was scoured off the aircraft wings and engine intakes. They became a lighter, almost honey color or gray compared to the metal on the antenna.
The landing gear doors need thickening, since they are too thin as supplied by the Monogram kit. If you're upgrading your model, this is an important fix.
Kit supplied main landing gear doors are about half as thick as they should be and the inner edges are rounded off, probably due to the worn out molds. The picture below shows how they should look.
Russ wanted to add the landing lights but there wasn't enough material on the kit supplied doors, so he added a layer of 0.030 (about 0,8 mm) styrene to each door. Then he filled in the gaps with putty. He also ground out depressions for the inside tire and for the door actuator arm. Russ didn't have any measurements so he did it by eye - thankfully, you can't see much of the detail anyway.
Then the main gear doors got installed. Russ did away with the pins that were molded into the doors as they made the doors sit too high above the wheel wells. Three slots werw cut in the bottom of the fuselage openings and pins made from staples were added to the gear doors . This makes the doors look a lot better. By the way, if you decide to do this, you will need to shorten the door actuators.
Once Russ got the main gear doors installed, he realized the landing lights he added just weren't making it. They consisted of a circular piece of styrene painted silver, but they lacked the depth and "life" of a real lens. Rhinestones were used instead, embedded in shallow holes drilled in the door edges. That adds some sparkle and depth instead of just a flat color.
Russ decided to try making his own decals for this project - something that was new to him. He started with the refueling guide marks located on the top of the crew cabin, as shown in the picture below:
Below the cabin is the abbreviation of the serial number of this aircraft: 56-612
The kit supplied "stars and bars" turned out to be too large - correct size, like on the photo below would be about 6.5mm x 8mm:
The red line on the vertical stabilizer in the photo above indicates where someone can walk safely without damaging the panels. It's only on one side because the vertical stabilizer could only be laid over on the right side to allow the bomber to be moved into a hangar, the photo below shows the process: