1/72 Academy B-29 'Enola Gay'

by David Chong

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This is my second submission and this model is a rush job done just in time for the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. (Took me about 1 month plus and in between a few other models). I got this kit with 50% from a local hobby shop (Thanks Hobby HQ!). Its totally out of the box. Interior details are quite good but I wasted my time doing it because they can't be seen anyways. Fit is bad in certain areas around the cockpit as you may be able to notice from the greenhouse canopy which hardly fits. The real aircraft looks highly polished but I figured better tone down the shine for 'war time' condition. (Its difficult to make the model shine anyway!). The shinier silver is painted using the Gunze's H8 Silver and the greyish silver along the wing is a 80%-20%  silver-white mix to simulate oxidized aluminium (thanks to Mr. Paul Boyer of FSM for his advice-before that it took me many days of pondering to figure out the right colour).

Decals from the kit were almost a nightmare. They were very brittle and when testing the first decal I could even hear the decal crack. Piece of advice when using academy's decal-soak in water for at least 20 minutes before attempting to slide it. Most of my decals cracked nevertheless so what you see is what I could do best to reassemble the pieces of decal. Final model is sealed with Testor's Metalizer Sealer. Sources from the internet suggests that the tailcode 'R' was only applied for the actual bombing mission so to make it the as other B-29s. Otherwise it will be an 'arrow in circle' on the tail. Both tail codes are provided in the kit. 

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The above pictures are other views of the model and with a same scale Hurricane for size comparison.

I like the shiny tail. Not much else to say about that. Below is the bomb bay view without the bomb and I like the crew walkway which I brush painted it silver-drab. Slight weathering is done around the engine nacelles and moving surfaces using very thinned down acrylic flat black.  

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A paint bottle is put underneath the elevator to prevent tail sitting. Caution: this is a very very tail heavy plane. It is still tail sitting despite the fact that I have jammed packed the whole cockpit floor with lead. If there's a next time I will have to sacrifice the interior detail and put lead in its place. Another view of the tail with Little Boy loaded in the bay (temporarily for the photo shoot). And I dedicate this model to the men and women that helped to bring the last Great War to its conclusion. 

Enjoy.

David

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Photos and text © by David Chong