I've been out of the modeling scene pretty much for about 4 years now. Had to give up the hobby room and such ( won't give up the models, and I do have a stack ). Done a little here and there. My biggest pride was my father's 2006 Christmas gift last year. Also, this past spring, I refurbished an old A-10 that I built in 92 done in the experimental desert camoflage that was never used for Storm as well as the little Pegasus kit of the Lockheed XST "Have Blue".

But over the past few months, I've again, like last year for Christmas had to do a project that challenged me and got my modelling joints flexing again. A friend of mine at work has a brother-in-law who was stationed at Mildenhall England with the MC-130 Combat Talon Squadrons. My friend and his father bought a 1/48th scale C-130H to build for him 4 years ago...and never got around to it..He asked if I would after seeing what I had done for my father. I did, and converted it into an MC-130..although with as many antenna variations and color schemes, who knows how close I got it to his brother-in-laws.........But it came out decent. They loved it.

NOW...my problem. In my garage, I have an old Monogram B-36 hanging. It was given to my father while I was in Desert Shield and Storm by mistake. My first boss, who I had worked at a local hobby store 86-89, gave it to him when he closed the store, thinking it was one of the models I had built for display. It was not. It belonged to a local, well known hobbyist...When I returned from my service, I looked her up, wasn't hard because she was working at the only other hobbystore in town and tried returning it to her. She didn't want it back because she had about 4 others. She passed away some 10 years ago now.
The model is in good shape build wise...But after 20 plus years....It's showing serious decal degredation and some small parts have broken off...tail gun for example. And let's face it...if you find one of these kits on the shelf today, they are not cheap.

Questions;
1.)Should I restore this monster?
2.)Leave it alone as a tribute to the original builder?
3.)IF I restore it, does anyone make after market decals for a 1/72 B-36?

Thanks for any opinions, sorry for the long winded back ground. If you have myspace access, you can view some of my work at http://www.myspace.com/prattwhitneyj58

HAT1701D

Well, a quick search of my usual sources doesn't find any aftermarket decals :(.

But personally, if you have a mind to, I'd try to restore that big puppy.

Any tribute to the original modeler seems like it would be for you alone, since she herself expressed no interest in the kit. Does that make sense?