B-45 Tornado -- Never Made Mach 2 But Mach2 Made It

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi all,

A little more grist for the mill...

As mentioned in my last post, suddenly came a fly into mine ointment. Whilst cutting off the little nose cones for the intakes for the earlier photos, one of the little buggers decided to make a temporal jump to another existence. At least, it no longer exists where I can find it! This means I gotta make one.

However, I had been studying this area of the model, and not liking it some some unspecified reason. This episode forced me to look a little closer, and I think I've discovered all the things I didn't like on a subconscious level, which have now been brought to the forefront of my beady little brain.

I decided to look around for some part from some other kit that would look a little more realistic. First aircraft to come to mind with similar technology and similar intakes were the U.S. B-47 Stratojet and the B-36 Peacemaker. Purely because the Hasegawa B-47 kit was atop the Monogram B-36 kit in my stash, I chose the front of one of the single jet engines from the B-47 kit. It looks like this:

Pluses were that it had a cone of sorts, plus a little hole in the front. Better bonus was the there was also an impeller blde depicted, which looks a lot more like what it supposed to, for our purposes:

However, the cone shape still isn't correct (and of course the B-45 kit part was also the wrong shape), and should look more like this:

In reality, it all looks like this:

We'll cover the impeller later on. First the concerns about the little cone. (What is that called anyway -- a diffuser?).

In any event, one could do like bentwaters81tfw did in his build was to chop off the big circular things on the nacelle fronts. This would move the cones deeper into the intake, and he said it also made the fit of the intakes to the nacelles better.

We could also sort of take a dive, and fashion FOD covers for the engines, and avoid the whole issue, but where's the madness in that?

Or, we could also go nutsoid and rebuild the whole front of the engine area and see what happens. What the heck, I haven't done anything silly in a week or two now, and may even be feeling plastic modeling madness withdrawal symptoms...

I began by sanding a slight taper onto one end of a piece of appropriately-sized sprue, and using liquid cement, glued it into the tapered hole on the back of the B-47 intake (hereinafter to be referred to as the "B47I"). (Oh, and did I mention that I rarely throw away old sprue trees either? -- got them in an old brown paper grocery sack, in case I ever need one... like now).

Quickly, before the glue can dry, I check it for straightness by checking around the shaft with the end of a metal ruler, sort of like shownn. When slightly dry, I chucked into an electric drill to see that the whole business ran true when spun up. This is so I can grind off the outer cowling, down to the edge of the impeller, and also to, hopefully, reshape the cone part to look more like a soft-serve ice cream.

A further study of the intake area shows that it should be a lot more streamlined airflow-wise that the kit part, like this:

I started sanding away on the left intake, using a small rat-tail file and some 1500 grit paper wrapped around a paintbrush handle, and arrived at this, stock part on left, streamlines part on right:

Note that the red arrow points to the general area I sanded away on the stock part. When I was almost through sanding, I thought of something I had bought a while back and never used. I tried them and the particular grits I used 400 and 800, worked great.

Oops, sorry. Forgot to shrink the pic. my mistake.

These worked well, as they were nearly the same size as the intake holes, and were less bothersome than the sandpaper around the paintbrush bit.

Anyway, I'm now down to the point of deciding what to do next. I can smooth the other intake, chop off the front of the left one, and vacuform a landing light. Or I can use another product that I have never used, some clear casting material. I could just cast two new intakes from clear material, and if it works, just mask off the light lens part on the left nacelle, and drill out a bulb from the back side.

Decisions, decisions, what to do. Well, while I ponder this next step, I suggest we take a break. Smoke 'em if you got 'em, bum 'em if you ain't....

Later,

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi all,

Back again for another brief interlude. I'll begin by showing the current status of the "B47I" part, after some sanding. As you might recall, I was going to mount it up in a chuck:

I sanded away the outer part of the intake, leaving the center hub and impeller. I also mildly reshaped the intake cone to a better shape (may do a little more later):

A little more work here, and figuring out how to mount the thing into the nacelle and intake, and we'll be all set!

Speaking of the intake. I made a mold of the original "B47I", as well as a new silicone mold for the now smoothly contoured intake. The old part was copied both to have a part to return to the B-47 kit from whence it came, as well as to provide me with a backup source, in case my first effort failed, reshaping the part. I much prefer to work on a styrene master than a resin one. Mostly because it's a lot easier to see!

I made a five-minute silicone putty imprint of the front of the intake, to clear cast a light lens part, in case I needed it later on. I also cast a new complete entire intake out of clear resin as an alternative.

In the following picture, note that the "light lens only" press-on casting has minute bubbles on the outer surface, but the entire piece, on the right, has no bubbles. I can only account for this as being due to the fact that the 5-minute molding silicone was not de-gassed (read vacuum sucked!) while the liquid-cast entire silicone mold was de-gassed. Both pieces were both cast under pressure at the resin-casting stage.

One thing that this experiment showed me for certain; that I can use this casting material and process to manufacture a new canopy and bomb nose glazing, should the kit parts not clean up properly. Definitely good to know, for this and other projects.

 

We'll see how the nacelles work out a little later on. Meanwhile, I have been chugging away at the needed cockpit mods. I began by sawing off the left side console of the pilots seating area, right alongside the left side of where the seats will be. I also sawed away from the shown bulkhead, the opening where the passage from the entry door to the pilot's platform will begin:

I then began a trial-fitting of some of the internal parts, using slight application of very hot liquid glue (Weld-On #3), just enough to hold the parts, but also to allow me to dab on more glue later, to soften the joint, so that I can get the pieces apart for later painting before final real assembly. Te toughest part of this area is that the kit directions give virtually no help as to where parts go, other than generally. Then, of course, we must also determine from interpreting existing photos as to what the darn thing should look like in the first place!

I also added an additional piece of plastic to allow the front fuse floor to extend past the cockpit. This is a temporary trial fit part only, as will be explained later.

Next, I glued on the pilot's instrument panel, taking care that is was both level, and even side-to-side:

Pay attention to which "bump" it glues to, because if you happen to check photos of the pilot sitting in one of the prototypes (with the clear canopy), he will be sitting further forward.

Next, after marking onto the left fuse half exactly where the pilots instrument panel sets, and where the rear of the cabin ends, I took the old sawn-off left console, cut it down, thinned it, and glued it into place under the canopy sill of the left side, to give a little visual interest.

Next, I temporarily glued in the cockpit part. In order to get the true width of the front deck floor extension I added earlier, I temporarily glued on two little pieces of excess plastic, which I could then move around before the glue dried. I then temporarily held the fuse halves together, and slid these pieces up against the left fuse wall. They will then tell me how much wider the real floor needs to be later on.

I then cut a new floorboard to replace the temporary on installed earlier (shown here being held UNDER the old floor, which will be replaced by the new one.

This results in a perfect wall-to-floor join of the left fuse side. I stall have to trial fit and figure out the vertical wall between this walkway and the pilot's seating "deck", as well as figure of where the co-pilot's instrument panel actually goes.

If anyone has a view of the co-pilot's instrument panel, looking forward and showing the tunnel, I would LOVE to see it. I just order a copy of the B-45A flight manual on-line, so maybe it will show me what I need to know.

That's it for now, stay tuned. What do you think so far -- can it be done?

Ed

Edited November 8, 2016 by TheRealMrEd
typos

[TheBaron]

This is superb stuff Ed. just the kind of rigorous building I enjoy.

Tony

[Hamden]

" What do you think so far -- can it be done?"

With your determination of course it can be done!

Great work on the cockpit and nacelle's - looking forward to more of the same

Roger

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks, Tony.

Roger, I'm actually hoping that there won;t be too much more trickery needed on this one. I'm anticipating enough woe priming and sanding, etc. for the NMF finish!

Ed

[Smudge]

I enjoyed the Neptune build, so very much looking forward to this.

Nice work.

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi all!

Just found out that I have some pressing business to take care of which will keep me away from the modeling bench for the next several days, possibly two weeks. So, this will be the last update until perhaps mid September. I hate that, as I was just getting into a roll!

Any way, for now, back to the nacelles.

The next order of business is to take some plastic strip (in my case 3mm by approx 1.5mm), and round off the front of the thinner edge. I cut a small angle onto the end of the piece (to match the intake cone), and glued a longer than needed piece to the modified "B47I", as shown here:

As you can see, I added three more. These support bars for the front of the engine will appear, when viewed from the front to be "X" mounted, rather than cruciform, when finally installed into the nacelles. The bars will be trimmed to size in a moment, to fit the circumference of the impeller.

Next, I needed to devise a way to mount these gizmos to the nacelles. I started with a strip of 10 thou plastic card, 6mm in width as shown below:

I then formed the strip into several double-layer rings, formed around a 25/64" drill bit (0.390"), one ring at a time, using liquid glue, like so:

I had first used a section of plastic straw, but it proved too flimsy to hold the needed near circular shape, and I was also afraid that it wouldn't be rugged enough to hold the parts into the nacelles.

Eventually, after being painted black with Alclad II primer, they would look like the following:

I didn't glue them in yet, however, as I first had to paint the actual part I molded from resin:

Here let me state that as I was patting myself on the back for such a clever idea, I stumbled across a build/review of the Collectaire B-45A by Fotios Rouch, here:

http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/builds/coll/build_coll_b-45a.shtml

Which is a very good build of a tough kit, but after all, is Not In God's ONE TRUE SCALE. However, I did notice that the intake parts for the Collectaire kit were engineered much like mine, which made me feel a little more confident, but I also noted that Collectaire had had access in some way to the Castle AFB B-45A, and so might be useful in trying to figure out what some of the interior parts looked like, especially the co-pilots instrument panel.

But, I also noticed that the "impeller" or "stator" or whatever parts the had made for the rear fans of the engine would not be where they were suggested by Collectaire, according to the drawings of the engine on the sheets I posted at the top of this build. I guess now, I'm back to not knowing what I don't know, and am on my own again.

My kingdom for a view from the co-pilot's seat, looking down at the walkway floor!

Anyway, eventually, this will start looking like this:

For the next part, I'll use a couple of tools. First a tapered grinding bit, and second the smallest sanding drum, both from Dremel:

I'll use these to hog out holes in the front of the engine nacelle main body (and eventually the rear of these same bodies as well), like so:

Actually the painted parts look much better than the photo shows here. I began by spraying all for of the newly-cast "B47I" parts using the Alclad II Black Primer (lacquer). Even though I next used the Alclad II Stainless Steel, in this case I wanted to kill a little of the awesome shine I would have gotten had I used the recommended black gloss enamel here.. Then I added differing colors of metal (magnesium and aluminum) for the impeller and mounting bars, respectively. Last, I added a little dark brown wash added to give some depth to the impeller blades

In the next installment , I'll glue in the other assembly, and add the painted intake fronts to the nacelle body, etc.

Well, thank all of you who have commented (and all of you who have not) for sticking with me so far. We'll eventually get this little cutie all fetched up right, but not soon!

See you all in around two weeks.

Ed

Edited September 2, 2016 by TheRealMrEd

[Hamden]

Those engines/nacelles are coming together nicely

Roger

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi Roger,

I was kind of worried as to whether the "tubes" would be too large to fit into the holes in the nacelles, but careful thinning and sanding let it work out okay. One thing I did have to do was to make certain that the tips of the "cones" aligned properly with the intake openings, before the glue had set up. Will show more later.

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Howdy Hi, sports fans.

Just got back from my ravels (and travails!). Here is the next small installment on my effort to rehash the venerable Mach2 B-45 Tornado.

When last we met, I was stuffing my new engine fronts into the nacelles. In the photo below, I have primed the inlets with Alclad II  grey primer, and then added a coat of ALC II Duraluminum.

This was solely to pre-finish the inner sides of the intakes, so that I can protect them from later insult, as you will see.

 

 

I also opened up the rear end of both nacelle assemblies, so that later, tailpipes could be added. Also shown is the added exhaust fairing, and a couple types of filler.

Short lengths of plastic straw were added to protect the inside of the intakes and engine fronts. Bit of craft foam will be added later, to seal the straws.

 

 

Pieces of a smaller diameter straw will be added into the rear of the exhausts, to represent longer jet tubes.

Next, careful sanding and fitting and judicious use of liquid cement has left these very good joints at the wing-to-fuse as well as the wing-to-nacelles. (note that the wing is not yet actually glued to the fuse; that will happen much later.

 

The next two views will show the gaps remaining at the bottom of the wing, where the nacelle meets the wing on either side:

 

 

 

There are lots of ways to handle these gaps, but since I'm lazy and really HATE sanding, I'm going to show you my easy way out.

It begins with one of the oldest plastic modeler techniques, stretched sprue. Old timers can skip this section, but for any newbies, here goes.

First, equipment needed is very simply. Names, plastic kit sprue, and a heat source (but not too much heat):

 

Here, a candle stub is mounted into an old spray bomb can lid, and a cheapie cigarette lighter supplies the hot part. There are only a couple of major variables when stretching sprue; the thickness of the plastic sprue itself, the area of the sprue that you heat, and the speed that you actually stretch the sprue after it is heated.

1) A thin piece of sprue, heated at only one spot, and pulled quickly, yields a rather short piece of very thin sprue.

2) A thin piece of sprue, heated along an area maybe 13mm long, and then pulled slowly, will yield a thicker diameter of sprue.

3) A thick piece of sprue, say 4 or 5mm, heated along the longer area and pulled slowly, will yield much thicker pieces of sprue.

4) The same thick piece of sprue, heated at one spot and pulled more quickly, will stretch a lot further, yielding longer, very thin sections, mainly used for rigging, etc.

5) If the sprue catches fire or melts, you've used too much heat for too long.

6) If the sprue breaks, you have pulled too fast or too far.

Go forth, and have fun!

Meanwhile, in the photo below, I have stretched some sprue to the diameter I needed, and on the left end of the gap, have glued some sprue into place with a little liquid cement. The bottle say "Ambroid Pro Weld", but that was used up long ago, and I can no longer find any. I now use Weldon #3, which is almost as good, and which is what is actually in the old Ambroid bottle.

You will note the other, as yet un-inserted piece of sprue, which will push into place with the tip of a #11 blade, then glue, then push into final place with the blade again.

 

 

After final gluing, the joint looks like this: (Note: the shiny stuff is the glue residue. I will light dress the joint with the shown tiny needle file, when all has dried).

 

 

This is actually a much better fit than appears in the photo, as almost no sanding or filing was needed. There is one small gap, which I will later fill with a tiny bead of Perfect Plastic Putty, and then smooth with a wet q-tip. Should require zero sanding.

 

Well, that's all for now. See you soon for the next installment!

 

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Hello again -- a little more progress.

 

Last time,  the seams on one nacelle-to-wing join had been filled with stretched plastic sprue. Shown below are the seams on both sides of that nacelle, each having been filled by a small bead of Perfect Plastic Putty, smoothed with a wet Q-tip. The seams were squeezed thru an extra glue tip purchased through Micro Mart, because it was smaller and wasted less putty than the supplied tip.

 

Also shown is a piece of around  2.5mm hobby foam sheet, purchased at the craft store. This stuff is great, when cut just oversize, to fill in as a paint mask on shallow wheel wells, etc., as well as shown here rolled up to close the end of the straws to keep out paint and dust.

 

 

As expected, no further sanding (resulting in damaged panel lines) was needed.  Next, it's time to begin serious work on the fuselage.

 

I began by using a needle mounted in a tiny drill vise to repeatedly scribe the front fuse entry door outline, over and over. Usually, about three time round with the needle is enough to guide the jeweler's saw (shown later), but I failed to notice that the plastic on the fuse was very thick, and I should have scribed several more times! Oh well.

 

In any even I used a little saw I found on the Micro Mart website to start the cuts on the vertical lines on the doorway.. It uses little, thin, razor-blade-type metal blades with tiny saw teeth on both edges.  Normally, I would have used a drill bit to start, but the diameter of the bit would have been much larger than the depth of the blade of the jeweler's saw, so I tried this.

 

 

After sawing an entry point for the jeweler's saw blade, I detached one end of the jeweler's saw blade, ran it through the sawn point, and then reattached the blade to the saw. I then cut out the doorway.

HAD I scribed deep enough, this would have been a simply and usually, very accurate process. In my case, due to the thicker than expected plastic (which you can see in the photo at the top of the door), the jeweler's saw blade wandered all over the place, resulting in a rather misshaped doorway and door!

 

 

 

No problem. Real modelers routinely deal with self-inflicted wounds!

In this case, I just added small strips of plastic around the edge of the door and doorway, and will eventually sand them into submission.

 

 

Below, you can see the recalcitrant creatures are already yielding to my indomitable will:

 

 

The window has wandered off-center. I will fix this by enlarging the hole with a small square file, and liquid-cementing a piece of oversize clear plastic into the hole:

 

 

This will eventually be sanded down and polished flush with the door, and later masked to the correct size before painting.

 

Below, the corrected door had had some hinges added out of plastic card, with the tiny square file used to file out receiving slots where needed. The clear plastic has been sanded  and polished smooth.

 

 

Meanwhile, some painting begins on the interior of the fuse.

 

 

 

 

The nose gear well and cockpit floor were first painted with White Ensign chromate yellow. Then, most of the crew areas were painted a color which is much-debated and argued over. Since I couldn't find any of the suggested colors here in the U.S. in enamels, I looked at several possibilities. One, the White Ensign Bronze Green was way too dark, and not blue enough to match photos of the interior, which actually features several different colors in different places. This blue-green (very similar to a color referred to as North American Green, seemed to be the majority color. In the end, I ended up mixing my own, using about 80% Model Master FS #34092 European I Dark Green, and 20% Model Master FS #15050 Blue Angel Blue. The color seems pretty close to the photos, in my opinion. Many people suggested Humbrol #75, but I couldn't find any.

 

The nose area that appears under the bomb-aimer's glass was done in a generic light and dark grey to match photos, as best I could.

 

Next, more interior painting. I usually use MM Interior black for these bits, but since the bottle labels were worn thin, I grabbed the gloss black instead. I'll have to flatten it later.

 

 

The wings are in the paint shop, with all the resultant fill, prime, sand, spray, repeat, etc., etc. that that entails. This section of the build is the hardest, and the details have to be compared to the photos, a section at a time, and then painted, modified, details added, etc. Bear in mind, I'm not going to add a whole lot that can't be seen, but the only reason to open the door on the fuse was to show a little more.

The work in these areas, on the nacelle intakes, and perhaps a few other small things, are the only things that will distinguish this B-45 build from all the other fine builds which have gone before. We should all strive to march a little farther along the path than our predecessors, wherever we are able.

 

If we never try anything new, we never learn (as witness the crew door -- didn't work out to plan, but I just kept on keepin' on).

 

So, while progress here will be slow, please keep checking back, and I'll get it done, eventually.

 

Ed

 

Edited November 24, 2016 by TheRealMrEd
typos

[71chally]

Serious attention to detail Ed, really impressive work.

Serious attention to detail Ed, really impressive work.

[TheBaron]

+2 on James' comments. Meticulous craftsmanship Ed.

Tony

[It's a disease]

Im watching this. Purely because you're taking time to teach.

Well done, well written, well I'm off....

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks, Tony and James.

 

One of the main reasons I'm doing this particular build is just that I've always wanted one in the collection. Back in the early 80's, when I was competing on the circuit, I got so fanatical (not necessarily good!) that I finally burned myself out, and was out of modeling for decades. Part of the reason for doing this is also to show others one way of doing something, or perhaps to get them thinking about other techniques or solutions to a problem. I only ope that each model I build encourages someone to build theirs even better. As we used to teach in the Boy Scouts, if you're on a path and see a stone in the middle, move it out of the way so that the next person down the trail won't have to mess with it...

 

As for me, as stated in the P2V-3 build thread, that these days, I just want it to look good in the display case, and as accurate as I'm willing to pay for.

 

It's A Disease -- I like your website. It reminded me of my earlier years as a 25mm Napoleonic wargamer, where one day I was watching some of the group over on a corner table playing some silly game where they were hacking and slashing. Turns out they were playing the Chainmail game, using the Melee rules, the precursor to the Dungeons and Dragons phenom. I still have the old fantasy figures, as well as my 25mm Prussians, but haven't played in 35 years or so.

 

I have only painted a few figure larger than 25mm, chiefly the old Aurora Knights, and the old 50's U.S. pilot figure (I'd love to have that one back!), and a few Marvel characters. Oh, and wait -- my favorite, Big Daddy Roth's Rat Fink of hotrod fame.

 

Anyway all, thanks for looking in.

 

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi all, sorry for he long delay, but I've been pressed by the wife to create the furnishing for the new sewing room that we built in the spring and early summer. As I need to get a lot of items built and painted before cold weather sets in, I haven't had much time to model. I have however, made some progress on the wings.

 

Let me begin by saying that I hope to create a used, but not beaten-to-death NMF on this B-45. Much like my P2V-3 Neptune build, the challenge is to show some use, but not super beat-up, nor too pristine. I hope to better my all-time best (to this date) NMF finish, shown on this Anigrand resin 1/72 XF-90 fighter, which as you might imagine, was somewhat of a bear...

 

 

For the same reasons as on the P2V-3 build, I elected to build the complete wing(s) assembly first. Of course, I first glued and smoothed the wings, and test-fitted them to the fuse on either side, sanding and correcting for fit as well as possible. This is so that later, when wings are joined to the fuse, minimal finish problem will occur (hopefully).

 

The wings in Alclad II grey primer. Note soda straw sections filled with hobby foam to mask engine impellers...

 

 

Next a little pre-shading with Alclad II black primer. Unlike the usual, normal person's precisely-applied lines, mine are old, shaky senior-citizen lines, which however, do have the benefit of a sort of finish mottling, and are --at least for me-- faster and easier than black basing and the like.

 

 

Next we see the first color masked off with Tamiya tape and sprayed. Note the mottled effect here and there.

 

 

Normally, for an NMF finish, I apply one solid layer of say, Airframe Aluminum over everything, and then mask and add the other colors. In this case, I didn't want several repetitive layers of paint covering the pre-shade, nor did I want the very delicate kit scribed lines to be filled in. I have done this before, and had noting left to put a panel wash into,

 

After the masking for the first color is removed:

 

 

The masking, painting and unmasking were repeated for the next two colors, which are all I could surmise from black and white photos. Shown here is one of my old, disreputable white cotton gloves. They get stained, but wash up fine every now and then, and the staining doesn't hurt them, or the models, at all. From this point on in the NMF process, the model will NOT be handled bare-handed!

 

These gloves can be gotten from druggists, medical supply, or surplus stores. Or, if you happen to know a larger child in a school marching band, well Bob (or Ed, in this case) is suddenly not only your Uncle, but he has a ready supply of cheap white cotton gloves!

 

 

The three-color NMF wings before any washes, weathering, etc. are performed. Also shown before the addition of the black anti-glare panels on the upper nacelles.

 

 

Next, the wings after all panting is done, panel lines washed with a blue/black water-based panel wash, and some light fore-and-aft sanding with 12,000, 8000, and some 4,000 grit paper (lightly). The decals have also been applied. .

 

 

I have the general feeling that the USAF and wing stars are a little to large, but I didn't have the positive photo evidence. They seem to have been large like this on the prototypes, and smaller on the operational later versions, but I can't prove it. So, I went with the kit decals (which by the way, in my kit, were well preserved, and applied easily, albeit that they were a little thick.They sort of sneered at the Solvaset, so no panel lines under THESE markings.

 

Another view:

 

 

Next the bottom view, where a little panel wash smearing, etc have weathered the bottom edge a little more.

 

These was initially a little decal film left showing, but two light coats of the fairly nw Alclad II #ALC 310 Gloss Klear Coat soon fixed that. However, when I later applied an artist's oil-based panel wash to the dried surface, and tried to remove the excess with some mineral spirits, the mineral spirits really chewed up the finish. Doh!  Guess that mineral spirits and turps are NOT the same critter...?

 

In any event, I repainted the damaged area, reapplied the Klear Coat and used the Secret Weapon Washes Blue/Black wash, which is acrylic. It cleaned up very well with a damp paper towel.

 

One last bit of grief -- while I was masking for the re-shoot of the damaged paint, I used some Tamiya tape over the bottom roundel. Usually, with te wide tape, I stick it to my forehead first, to let the skin oil slightly "de-stick" the tape. I didn't this time, and when pulling the tape up later, it peeled the roundel with it!  So, that tells me that the Klear Coat is not bulletproof. Fortunately, I have a bottomless  spares box, and soon found a replacement, even though it was an oddball size. Oh, BUT, it didn't kill the metallic shine, so that was a win.

 

Next the finished jet intakes. Seems I just can't take a picture that shows these guys really well, but in real life, they look much better than the kit parts.

 

 

And last, the wing bottoms, showing the new jet exhausts, cut from soda straw and painted, and just barely protruding from the aft of the nacelles. A couple of places will need to be touched up as the un-primered straw has let the paint chip.

 

 

Well, that's all for this update. From here on in, it's back to the fuselage (or is that Future?) for the next bit. This segment will be the longest and most interesting part, I think. Hope it's also not the most troublesome.

 

TTFN,

 

Ed

 

 

 

[TheBaron]

That's some heavy metal you've laid down here Ed. I'm very taken by the excellent finish you've achieved on those metal surfaces.

Tony

[Hamden]

 

Totally agree with the Baron - those wings look the dog's do-dahs!

 

  Roger

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks, guys!

 

I only hope that the fuse ends up looking good in the end.  I'm running out of hair to pull...

 

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Hello all. Sorry for the extreme delay. Been making furniture, cabinets, etc. for wife's new sewing room, trying to get finished before cold weather. Guess what? We may not HAVE any cold weather this year!

I could manage temps in the 70's all winter -- but come to think of it, Christmas at 86 degrees every year was why I left Florida. Oh well.

 

Since I am a modeler who was a very hard time modeling unless I can totally immerse myself into it, it has been very hard, trying to walk by and do a bit here and another bit there, instead of having a healthy few-hour session. Nevertheless, I have managed some random bits on the aircraft interior, which will be occupying my efforts for a while.

 

But, for the first bit, I attempt to recreate a slender bulkhead just in front of the main entrance hatch. This bulkhead is chiefly noted as the place where the bombardier's static line for his parachute is attached, should he desire to leave the aircraft suddenly.  (His other choice is through the bomb bay, but that's another can of worms altogether).

 

As shown in the following photo, I sanded a piece of scrap 5 thou cards to more or less fir the curvature of the fuselage:

 

 

I  stamped a couple of holes at about the correct positions, and while holding the bit of card into place, marked the edge of the piece, where the bulkhead would end. Then, I cut off the extra plastic card to that line, and glued the bulkhead into place:

 

 

Next, I glued a tiny strip of card to form the edge of the bulkhead, and painted the thing. I also added (o the left) what will become the walk-around oxygen bottle, which will get painted lime green. The small white rectangle on the bulkhead itself represents the coiled static line, which will be painted off-white. I have also began painting the wall-mounted fire extinguisher:

 

 

Bad news here is that I've managed to knock off and lose the upper cabin window, which I had previously glued to the left side of the fuse, and I will have to make another. Rats!

 

Next I photo of the bombardier's seat, which I will attempt to represent. I forgot where I downloaded the photo, but will credit that source here when I find it again.

 

I  found a closer match for the seat in the spares box, and filed it to near accurate shape and size. I then glued on a tiny bit of card and a bit of wire, which will represent part of the seat adjustment mechanism.

 

Added a little more paint to the cockpit, and add part of the modified co-pilot's instrument panel. There is no left half, merely a part that arcs across the cockpit at sill level, leaving space for the co-pilot to pass underneath. The kit cockpit is way off, but the interior really has some very nice, if spurious detail.

 

The bits above are simply two short lengths of plastic tubing glued to short pieces of card. Since these areas are all painted black, I think I can get these to look like passable throttle levers for cheap, particularly since they are mostly covered by the cockpit sill overhang.

 

To the bombardier's rear panel are added (the white cylinder, on the left) the front gear hydraulic accumulator, and (on the right) a shaped bit of plastic that will become the alarm bell.

 

 

And, last for now, some more paint on the right side.

 

 

I'll keep whittling away and post more as I can.

 

Later,

 

Ed

[Space Ranger]

Nice work on those interior details, but the instrument faces should really be black, not white.

 

Your Anigrand XF-90 is beautiful! That was one of my favorite airplanes when I was a kid, and it still is.

[TheRealMrEd]

Totally correct, Space Ranger, but as I have to effective way (at least for my shaky hands, to replicate the white details on the black faces in this scale, I'll just call them "reflections off the glass faces".

 

Seriously, even my Mike Grant instrument decals are white. Besides, they look more "busy" than black on black would be at this scale.

 

Ed

[Space Ranger]

15 hours ago, TheRealMrEd said:

Totally correct, Space Ranger, but as I have to effective way (at least for my shaky hands, to replicate the white details on the black faces in this scale, I'll just call them "reflections off the glass faces".

 

That'll work!

[TheRealMrEd]

Still plugging away...

 

At this point, I'd like to pass along a technique that I've used for years, when making lap and seat belt on small 1/72 scale projects where such parts are simple, and more to the point are hard to see on the finished model; as in a situation where they won't be a focal point, but would be noticeable if neglected altogether.  In the following pic of my F2F-3 Brewster Buffalo at Midway, please notice the seatbelts:

 

 

These were made from regular garden-variety aluminum foil. I begin by painting the shinier side with the needed color, in this case, my own home brew of off-white. Normally, I just brush some on a piece of foil, and will have material for several models:

 

 

Next, using a sharp razor knife on a piece of glass, tiny strips are cut on a glass cutting surface. These are cut to the needed width and are overlong. Not shown is what I do next. I simple take a "needle-nose" or very fine-tipped tweezers and fold over the "buckle" end about 1.5 mm or thereabouts, leaving the unpainted foil backside showing, which becomes the metal buckle. If needed, small squares can be cut from the end of the strip and added where needed to form "adjustment buckles" on shoulder straps, etc.

 

I prefer to glue the seatbelts into place with a drop of Formula 560 Canopy Glue, used by the R/C guys, as it dries clear like white glue, but is less likely to wash away if you develop a case of "cockpit rash" from sanding and have to wash out debris. (Refer to my P2V-3 Neptune build thread for how THAT disaster affects your day...) One reason I like the foil rather than strips of tape, is the after the glue dries, you can "mold" or position the belt pretty much any way you want it. In the next photo, the "belts" are not yet "molded".

 

 

These belts look rather strange, but the photos of this seat that I could find show the belts on the door side hanging down the the sides of the seat. Since the right side won't be seen, I chose to drape those belts over the seat itself.

 

Next photo shows the cutout for the aft entryway hatch. Despite what the drawing say, the hatch on the right side of the tail gunner's compartment is NOT an entryway . It is for emergency egress only.

The actually normal usage for entry and exit is a hatch under the rear of the aircraft aft of the bomb-bay., which features a couple of steps, along with a fold-down ladder offering another couple of steps.

Lacking enough photos to be certain, I decided to place the leading edge of the entry door about 2mm aft of a line extending straight down from the only vertical panel line on the kit's tail fillet. I also made the hatch (and hole) a scale 3 feet long an 30 inches wide. This appears to be "close enough for government work".

 

I will add tiny fillets into the four corners of the hatch cut-out, and slightly round the corners later, as well as slightly rounding the corners of the hatch itself. While the glue is drying, we'll move along.

 

You'll recall above, that I lamented my idiocy in losing the Bombardier's "sky lite" .  I just happened today to notice that th clear plastic holder for a roll of cello tape, is just the right curvature needed to replicate this item, as shown below:

 

 

This is slightly oversized and will be sanded to the right size to drop in after the fuse is assembled.

 

In the next photo, the two fuse halves are shown with two tiny strips (marked "A") have been added for the newly-created sky lite to set on, as well as the tiny card scrap fillets added to the rear entry hatch corners (marked "B").  Last, the kind of sanded and shaped after hatch (before detailing and marked as "C"). Of course, the strips for the sky lite will be painted before fuse closure.

 

 

Well, that's it for this time. Remember -- "The mills of the gods grind exceedingly slow", and that's how my modeling seems lately.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Ed

 

 

 

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi all,  moving right along -- slowly!

 

The next item I decided to tackle is what appears to be a rather prominent canopy defrosting system, both in the cockpit and in the bombardier's section. I began by painting some.032" soft solder wire a flat black, and the gently bending into the needed shape, as best as I can determine from photos:

 

 

Here, the wire is temporarily held in place with some simple clips, and then Future (or Klear or whatever) is brushed on to help secure the wire to the already Future-coated nose glazing. I would have loved to have used CA or the like, ut I chickened out ( discretion being the better part of valor and all that!). After the Future had dried, the clips were removed, but I found that they had left their mark, so to speak, and I ended up smoothing the area with Windex (ammonia added, of course), the re-dipping the whole shebang back into the Future. So much for the flat black finish. I,m not even certain that much of this will be seen after the glazing frames are painted, but we'll see.

 

 

While this goes back into the paint booth for drying, I began work on the next two needed items for this mark of aircraft, a B-45A-5. First up, the drift meter, that mounts on the floor just to the left front of the bombardier's seat.  It was painted flat black, then installed. The scope for the bomb-aiming radar is next, shown installed before painting.  This is how my approximations look:

 

 

In this scale, pretty much everything disappears when you paint it black, but at least, I know it's there. Also allow me to mention that I am keeping some of the kit's detail, even though a lot of it is fictional, I am NOT shooting for dead accuracy. I want to add some "eye candy" that looks about right, given that much won't be seen anyway, without some artful flashlight and magnifier work. Besides, I hope that at least these parts will be closer to right than any other Mach2 B-45's I've seen so far, and I hope some of you come along after me and do a better job yet.

 

Next, comes the hardest part of the whole build, due to lack of photos with the needed perspective.

 

Here I make a blatant appeal to anyone who lives close to one of the few remaining B-45's, please, PLEASE, when the next "open cockpit" event occurs, try to get someone to take a camera with a wide-angle lens to sit in the co-pilot's seat, and shoot some photos from behinf their left shoulder, aimed down to the walkway, and shoot several shots! Then please post them on-line for everyone to share! Thank you for your efforts -- in advance.

 

Indeed, the hardest part of this whole thing is figuring out where the door at the end of the cockpit walkway, which opens into the bomb bay. What I finally settled on was just in a line ahead of the forward end of the bomb bay doors. Tis sort of looks a little to far forward vs. the cockpit layout, but I can't interpret the photos any better than this. Hence the appeal above.

 

In any event, in the following photo, "A" marks the plastic added to fill out the cockpit deck, and "B" represents a piece of plastic set to line up vertically with the inboard walkway wall, when it's installed -- a gluing surface, if you will.

 

 

The next rather blurry photo shows the two surfaces to be aligned when installing part "B":

 

 

Next is shown the installed vertical inboard walkway wall, and the bomb door bulkhead, with the sort of oval door scribed, and a tiny view-port hole punched out. The hole will get a drop of MicroScale Kleer after the door is painted:

 

 

I managed to misplace my oval scribing template, but made a one-off for this job by punching out two overlapping holes in a scrap piece of plastic and cleaning out the long sides with a #11 Exacto blade.

The the door was scribed with a needle in a pin vise. It now looks like so:

 

 

 

And last for now, a little more "eye candy" added here and there.

 

 

I'll keep plugging away. not certain that I'll get much done over the holiday -- the holiday America celebrates to give thanks to God that a small band of English men and women managed to survive for just a while longer, with the help of some friends.

 

Peace to all ---

 

Ed