Vintage Revell B-17E Memphis Belle 1/72 Model Kit 4402 Unboxing.

[@calvingifford9442]

Thanks very much for this nostalgic trip! Proud member of the Model Builders Club of America, the Revell Modelers Club & Monogram's Young Model Builders Club!! Wish I still had the patches! 😁

[@casualplasticmodeling]

Thanks for coming along with me! Sadly, my patches are gone too....

[@davidstumer3360]

Been building models airplanes from WW 2 since 1971 . My father was a airplane mechanic during the war. I remember mowing yards and collecting soda bottles and selling local newspapers on Saturday's to go buy models. Me and my dad would love building them together. Love this hobby so much ❤.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

That's amazing! I love hearing about people who built kits with their dads. I take care of my dad now that he has health issues and am proud to have a chance to return the attention he gave me back in the day. My grandfather was in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII in the 28th inf. div. Nobody really close to me was in the air at the time, however my dad was in the Air Force in the Vietnam era. He was in the Air Force version of the Sea King (Ch-3B) recovering spy satellites for the Corona program. Someday soon I want to convert a Hasegawa Sh-3D kit to his chopper. Thanks for the comment!

[@chrisresor1893]

I built a couple of these as a kid. The Memphis Belle was a B-17 F tho not an E. Enjoyed the vid.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

Ya, I remembered a LOT of what i was going to say AFTER I did the video. LOL. Different color nose art between the two sides, F not E etc. Thank you for the info!

[@CelebratingVintageModelKits]

I have a soft spot for the good old Revell B-17. My first build of it was the one with the Jack Leynnwood box-art. One of the greatest box-arts ever made! I built one of these versions as well. One of the builds got all shot up with heated needles and Xacto blade holes.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

The box art for that is just iconic! I love seeing these old kits come back to life, and I'm sure yours turned out great. I did the "wounded warbird" diorama with the Monogram 1/48 B-17G many years ago. Man I was proud of that thing!

[@mypl510]

Yup, this model hung from my ceiling back then! Great memories.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

That's awesome! It's hard to beat these old kits for bringing back memories. I had a ceiling stuffed with kits.

[@uberduberdave]

I got that kit sometime around '67 or '68 and also its companion B-24D "The Blue Streak" as Christmas gifts when was 11 or 12. Later I got the same kits when I was in high school, only the B-24 came with markings for a Navy PB4Y-1 Privateer. I was a founding member of IPMS Robert L Scott chapter and one of the older members pointed out that the girl on the phone nose art was supposed to have a red swimsuit on one side and a blue one on the other. It was the first time I realized kit makers could goof and I should have a reference handy when building a kit. Revell, Monogram and later Hasegawa turned out kits of hundreds of different aircraft with ridiculously cool box top artwork that spurred my interest in aviation and the history of the planes and their crews...

[@casualplasticmodeling]

You being a founding member of IPMS is awesome... As you know, back in the day these kits were more "toys" than art. Now Some manufacturers like Eduard even give several "alternate" versions of certain nose art if they only have black and white to go off of. It's insane how far they've come. I noticed the color miss-match for the Belle while I was editing the video, but I knew (and am glad) you guys caught it. Information is king!

[@uberduberdave]

@@casualplasticmodeling It could be a good idea to just go with it as it is, if you get around to it. I just completed one using a Revell P-47 Thunderbolt / Kawasaki Hien Fighting Deuces Series kit No. H-224:130, for an old school Revell online group build. those kits are ridiculously obsolete, but I'm a builder, not a collector, I figure for every collectors kit I might build, only increases the value of collector kits. Anyway, I built the planes as if I was a dad sitting with his son, some old Testors square enamel paint bottles, and liquid cement, brushes, and some nail clippers and tweezers stolen from mom. My brush painting skills have always be awful, so they really did wind up looking like they were built by a ten year old kid in the sixties...

[@banditkfk1463]

I remember this. I built this too back in early eighties. I was 7 or 8 years old. 👍

[@casualplasticmodeling]

Those were the days...

[@twillison8824]

I found a vintage belle kit in 1/48 at a local resale shop still sealed for 10 bucks. I'm building it as hells angels since it was really the first B-17 to complete 25 missions.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

That's a great price for a sealed vintage kit! It's awesome to see a build like that come to life and a good bit of (mostly) forgotten history. Thanks for sharing!

[@waynegray1263]

I got my first Memphis Bell kit back in the early 1960s after sing the movie 12 o'clock high, then the ABC TV show of 12 o'clock high, and the movie The War Lover. I still have the first box art in a frame in my man cave. I still have two of the 1/72 scale kit and a 1/48 scale all 3 hanging up. And one 1/48 Memphis Bell in a box. .I at times when I look at them I can almost hear the engine in flight . Great times to build.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

That's awesome. I haven't watched the movie or the TV show in years, but I think it's time to change that. I wish I had more of my original stuff, but sadly an ex lost a storage unit with a lot of things that I can't even remember. Nothing beats the sounds of an old muscle car or a warbird. I love the new stuff, but man, the sound and vibrations from a real, all mechanical engine is unbeatable.

[@kingofthebonelesschickens2722]

I love the color on that kit. The detail on the surface is an unexpected bonus. Thanks for sharing!

[@casualplasticmodeling]

Thanks for checking it out! I get the reason all the new kits are molded in light gray, but I can honestly say I get a thrill out of opening an old kit and seeing that green. Heck, I even love the "age" smell from these kits when I pop open the box. Oh the nostalgia...

[@JackFlemingFan1]

Thanks for posting your video and for bringing back fond memories for me as I built the Revell B-17 Flying Fortress of the Memphis Belle too. After I built this kit, I hung the plane from the ceiling of my bedroom using some of my dad's nylon fishing line. The plane looked great hanging from the ceiling too!

[@casualplasticmodeling]

That's literally EXACTLY what I did with this kit. I had a ceiling stuffed with finished models. Thanks for sharing the memories!

[@keithwhisman]

I had a bigger B17G kit if I remember correctly it silver with D-Day stripes but I painted it Olive Drab green/brown color. I also built a B17 model with a clear half that showed off the internals of the bomber. I loved the B17 when I was a kid.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

Same. Those original "visible" B-17 kits are worth a pretty penny now, if you can find them.

[@keithwhisman]

My Grandma set up a monthly subscription for models where I’d get plain boxes with models in them with instructions and decals along with two models. I loved it, it was great I wish there still was a modeler subscription service. It was fairly inexpensive considering it was something like $6 a month or something like that.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

I'm kinda surprised they don't have subscriptions anymore. I used to run to that mailbox pretty much every day. As fast as my little legs could get me there!

[@justtowatch111]

Sounds like your mum was a wonderful woman to buy you both the same model to build. Such an iconic model too!

[@casualplasticmodeling]

She was for sure. I was incredibly lucky!

[@Blowinshiddup]

I had such love for that kit. Long gone now, I'm actually working on a Hasegawa one that sadly doesn't have an open bomb bay.

[@40intrepid]

Built this back in the 70's. Great kit for the scale. The decal sheet gets something wrong though, on the real Memphis Belle, the girls suit was blue on one side of the plane, and red on the other.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

I noticed that when I was editing. I gotta remember to take my time and remember not to rush too much... Great catch!

[@6346n]

It sounds like we are about the same vintage. I believe I built an earlier iteration of this kit. I loved it! Could you get a better microphone? Your audio quality is a little rough. Please keep this up. I like recalling my early modeling days and this is fun for me. Cheers!

[@casualplasticmodeling]

I'll see what I can do about the mic for sure. Glad you like the vids!

[@markfranks1329]

This kit's actually much older than the year this boxing states (1979). It was actually released at the same time as Airfix's B-17G in 1962. Here in the UK, Revell(UK) offered this model as a Boeing Fortress Mk IIA in RAF Coastal Command markings. The Revell(US) USAAF Memphis Belle boxing was also made available, too. As someone here has already pointed out correctly, Memphis Belle was an F variant and not an E.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

She was for sure an "F". Now that I know that this kit was made in RAF configuration I gotta see if I can find it.

[@daviddooley5361]

Actually, this was originally released back in 1962 according to the scale mates web site.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

Thanks for the info! So far every single time I shoot a video I remember Scalemates AFTER it's all done. I'm working on getting better though!

[@keithwhisman]

1979 back when model glue took a while to set nothing like the adhesives that are available now.

[@casualplasticmodeling]

It's crazy how long it took me to find the good glue. You're right, that tube glue took FOREVER to set and got everywhere...