What does anyone know about this B-17 model?

[ALetner]

I purchased this model in the UK. I saw another one like it while there that was painted silver with some USAAC markings. That one had what looked like sagging on the vertical stab. I also saw a Catalina of very similar construction. The wing edges had separated and I could see the weave of a cloth inside the gap. The blisters on the side were overly large as if the right size blister had been covered over with cloth which made it look too big. Anyway, if someone knows anything about it let us know. As you can tell from the pictures this thing had been painted(?) with some thick blue material that can I can with some effort scrape off. The underside of the nose has slightly raised lettering that says "FORTRESS II". The outer shell feels like plastic and is slicker than a Buckram model.

[Aeronaut]

Very nice Website ALetner!

I acquired a very similar to your 1:72nd scale model of a B-17 in Spain back in 2006. The eBay seller said that it used to belong to an old British gentleman.



It is made of a dark colored lightweight plastic and has been "refinished" on a two-tone green camo on the uppersurfaces, light green undersurfaces and decaled US markings. At sometime somebody had added sheet metal three bladed props nailed to the tips of the governor housings. Now only small prop hubs remain. Under the fuselage, just ahead of the wings, the legend “FORTRESS II” faintly shows up on a patch where the paint has been scraped off.
At the time that I bought it I had no idea of what it really was. It just looked like an old WW II period toy and the price was right.
I posted some pictures at the Aircraft Recognition forum and got into correspondence with Bryan Brown (Mederator of this section), who has the largest collection of WW II ID models in the world. He mentioned that there is a picture of a very similar model at Steve Remington’s CollectAir Museum website http://www.collectair.com/images/b17f.jpg in British markings, with the exception of the transparencies and props.
Bryan says that these models, that are thin-walled, hollow, and extremely light-weight (mine weighs only 8 oz.), are 'vacu-formed'. I agree as some of the tell-tale marks of that process are evident.


The model seems to be made of three main components: two halves, upper and lower, and the vertical tail section.
According to Bryan there were only three models, that he knows of, remaining in existence made by this method. He has an Stirling, the B-17 at Steve Remington’s CollectAir Museum website and mine. Now we can say than there are four! Very rare indeed!

[BWBrown]

Hi Alan -
These are thin-wall models, made of cellulose acetate draped over a simple T-shaped wooden frame. The wood helps to maintain the shape. Because they are cellulose acetate, they are prone to shrinking and distorting, which probably accounts for their scarcity. I've had 3 of the B-17's, and each one of them went bad eventually. The only models of this type of material and construction I have seen include the B-17, Short Stirling, and FW-200, but there are probably others, as well. Hope this helps.
Regards -- Bryan

[Aeronaut]

I was intrigued by Bryan's assertion that my model is "draped over a simple T-shaped wooden frame" so I decided to investigate some more. I had an X-ray (in fact it is a scan from a DEXA scanner that uses X-ray technology) done of my model and this is what I can see:



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Unless wood is totally transparent to X-ray exposure there is no wood inside my model. The nails that hold what is left of the "aftermarket" metal props that the model got sometime during its civilian life as a toy can be seen. There is also this "V" shaped piece of metal, at the wing leading edge station on the fuselage, that cannot be seen from the outside. The large blotch, at the wing trailing edge station on the fuselage, is a patch of some sort of filler putty that was used to fill the hole that these models have just in front of the "ball turret" under the fuselage. I can only suspect that there was some damage around this hole that required a more extensive use of putty. This is the dark yellow patch that you can see on my earlier picture of the undersides.

[BWBrown]

Hi -
The Short Stirling from this same series of acetate models has a wooden stretcher in it. Attached are photos of the latitudinal brace, juxtaposed against the Cruver version of the same plane. I have the longitudinal brace around somewhere, but couldn't find it for this post. Smaller models, like the Spitfire and Anson, are solid, and have no wood inside them. I haven't taken apart the B-17, but I assumed (apparently erroneously) that the B-17, since it was a large model, and also hollow, must have been made in the same fashion as the Stirling. Thanks for clarifying the subject.
-- Bryan

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