John Dell's B-17G Bit O Lace in 1/100 scale

[CMDRTED]

I'm loving the 1/100 scale aircraft scale. You can build up 1-2 of these every day. faster if you want to use built in tabs and don't color edges etc.
They don't take up a lot of room and have some decent details available. Do they have as much detail as 1/50-1/33 scale? Of course not, but you are not bogged down modeling each switch, knob or cigarette lighter. I am hooked on Bruno's 1/100 series. That said going thru my stash of e kits I re discovered John Dell's series of bombers. I have the B24D collection from fiddlers green and some of the B-17s. They come in 1/48 scale and are fairly well detailed. I shrunk my favorite B17G kit down to 1/100 scale; Bit O lace. I must've had the Revell kit 3-4 times as a kid and made a great Saturday afternoon building her up making the turrets move, one version had movable aerilons and that crazy retractable ball turret.

[MichaelS]

So glad you posted this. It looks great. I have John's -17C or D on my short list.

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On to John Dell's version of bit o lace. I modified the kit a little. I combined all the wing parts into one and then joined them from the front so both sides and ends were one piece. I did the same with the tail pieces. I made the wheels into stackable parts instead of the drum rendition. also made the props 2 piece instead of folding the front and backs all in one piece. The kit fit perfect. Unfortunately I had to use .5 pieces of plastic for the gun barrels. I could not seem to roll thin paper to scale. I didn't model the open bomb bay on this kit, but will probably on the D or E models later. 4 words about the fit are not enough about JD's kits. They are fantastic in fit, color renditions and subjects. the only criticism I have and it is entirely on me is the subjects are a little too heavily weathered for my taste. That said here are some walk around pics...

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And the last, the last 2 pics have Bruno's Me-109E for scale and a metric ruler to prove I'm not cheating with the full sized 1/48 scale...
Of course I could've shrunk the ruler?????

[MichaelS]

Awesome! I may be wrong but I think "Bit O' Lace" was an Airfix 1:72 kit.

[Texman]

Very nice Ted!

[CMDRTED]

Michael you are probably correct. The only 2 brands of kits in our neighbor hood was revel and airfix. Occasionally our 5c and 10c store would get aurora kits and once we got the renwall Polaris sub kit with the interior and a real firing Polaris missile, but airfix and revel were it.

[Butelczynski]

Excellent work.Every model by Mr.Dell I see pictures of shows great design and you did very well with it.

I think 1/100 is a great scale for multi engine plane models.Any larger scale and models can get too large and far too complicated.One wonderful exception are Mr.Pilsworth 1/72 scale models in download section.

[Gibbo]

Very nice kit and build
I will have to get this, love the big planes
Just got my paws on the plans for a Victor tanker I have been after for ages to go with a Vulcan.
If you don't have a lot of space it's a good way of doing the heavy bombers in this scale. Very good idea and well thought out how you did it.
But have to say I love the big stuff in big scale
Rob

[John Dell]

Wow! Nice work! Thanks for posting the photos. I'm glad you enjoyed the kit. Your modifications worked well. As far as weathering, I understand how some like the cleaner look but I try to replicate how the aircraft actually looked as much as possible. With "A Bit O' Lace" I was fortunate to have several nice color photos from different angles, so the weathering is as accurate as I could make it.

I had the Airfix 1/72 scale kit of "A Bit O' Lace" as well as the one from Hasagawa. The Hasagawa kit was vastly superior to the Airfix kit. Though both had incorrect staggered waist windows. Hasagawa also made a B-17F. I wish they would re-issue them.

Thanks again for posting the photos!