jrlx Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 Dear Fellow Modellers, This is a late entry but after being very inactive in BM for most of this year, due to work and my German course, and having passed my German B2-level certification exam, I thought I should restart my modelling activities with a really simple OOB build. So, I chose the Hobby Craft 1/72 Bell X-1, which I bought second hand in eBay. The idea was to build the "Glamorous Glennis" aircraft used by "Chuck" Yeager to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947. I've been building it since July 1st, but the troubles with PB delayed my posting of the work already done. Here's the kit: IMAG4638 It's really simple and well detailed. Here are some references I've been using for this build: https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/bell-x-1 https://ninetalis.com/walkarounds/aircraft/bell-x-1-glamorous-glennis/ http://www.skytamer.com/1.2/2002/2136.jpg Since the kit's instructions are a bit basic, I also used Eduard's 1/48 kit instructions to clarify details and colours. I started by removing the canopy from the sprue, using a micro-saw: IMAG4639 IMAG4640 In the process of removing the remaining stubs, I damaged the transparent areas near the edges: IMAG4641 The transparency was recovered using a sequence of micro-mesh pads and polishing fluid in the end: IMAG4642 Finally, the canopy took a bath in Alclad's Aqua Gloss, to improve transparency and brilliance and was put aside to dry: IMAG4643 Next, I removed the fuselage halves and cockpit parts from the sprues: IMAG4644 The cockpit parts were glued together: IMAG4645 IMAG4646 The fuselage and cockpit were dry fit and the fit of parts was good: IMAG4647 Unfortunately, the cockpit base cannot be made to align with the access opening, so I'll have to glue the door in place: IMAG4648 That's all for now. I've already painted the metallic parts but I'll post the work done till then later. Thanks for looking. Jaime 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 Jaime! Welcome back and congratulations on passing the German certification - it must be a relief. A great start on an interesting kit - I'll follow along if I may. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 13, 2017 Author Share Posted July 13, 2017 Hi Ced! Thank you for your kind words and interest! You're very welcome on-board, as always! Yes, passing the German exam was a great relief. In fact, one month before the exam I wasn't sure I could do it successfully, but fortunately I managed to get a good grade Regarding this kit, it will be a strictly OOB build just to get my modelling motivation back. I'm not correcting anything or adding additional detail. Since the cockpit will be closed it would be a waste of time, anyway. With some luck, I'll have this one finished in the time frame of the GB. I intend to start a Mirage 2000C and a Mig-29A in the respective GBs in the next few days. Cheers Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 13, 2017 Author Share Posted July 13, 2017 Hi again, Here's another post to bring this thread up to date with the work already done on this build. Having checked the fit of the fuselage and cockpit parts and glued the later together, I started removing all other parts off the sprues and cleaning the moulding marks in order to get the parts ready for painting. The exhausts are open. So, I decided to glue a piece of plasticard on the back of the part, so that the inside of the fuselage is not visible. Here we see the part and the sheet of 0.5 mm-thick plasticard: IMAG4650 The plasticard was glued to the back of the exhaust part: IMAG4651 The excess plasticard was removed and this is the end result: IMAG4655 Next, the instrument panel and what seems to be the oxygen mask were removed and cleaned: IMAG4652 The mask was glued in place. I left a stub of sprue to make it easier to paint the assembly: IMAG4653 All other parts were removed from the sprues, cleaned and glued to toothpicks and are ready for painting. Here are the landing gear legs, exhaust and pitot tubes: IMAG4655 These are the cockpit parts, in front: IMAG4656 and the wheel well doors and some landing gear parts that are not metallic: IMAG4658 Finally, these are the wheels: IMAG4657 Inside the starboard part of the fuselage, near the hatch opening, there's an ejector mark that could be visible through the canopy: IMAG4659 I used Perfect Plastic Putty to fill it: IMAG4660 After drying for one day, I sanded the excess with 500-grit wet and dry. The result looked good: IMAG4661 To finish with this part, I glued the hatch door in place: IMAG4662 IMAG4663 Yesterday, I started the painting of the interior and small parts. First I applied Alclad's White Primer & Microfiller. Since the aircraft is orange, I decided to use white primer in the exterior. To simplify the work I also decided to use it for the interior and small parts. Here are the small parts primed: IMAG4664 The inside of the fuselage primed. The ejector mark on the starboard side (top part in the picture) is still visible... IMAG4665 The wheel wells were also primed: IMAG4666 After letting the primer dry for a few hours, I painted the metallic parts. Here we see the landing gear parts painted Alclad White Aluminium, the exhaust painted Alclad Steel and the pitot tubes painted Alclad Aluminium: IMAG4667 The wheel hubs were also painted Alclad White Aluminium: IMAG4668 Now the thread is up to date with the work on the build. Next I'll do some masking on the canopy and landing gear parts and will paint the interior colours. Thanks for looking. Jaime 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyTiger66 Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 Hello Jaime, Welcome to the Group Build ! It's great to have you back here. Congratulations on passing your German exam ! Superb progress on the X-1. I haven't seen the Hobbycraft kit built before. It looks very neat and has some nice detail I like the white aluminium. Like you, I have photo hosting problems; my own build is way ahead of the thread, but I have problems with getting Flickr to show my recent photos too Well done on getting up to date. My model is in the Black primer stage; looking at your white aluminium I wish I had some, but not enough time. Your canopy looks great; I must try the aqua gloss. Looking forward to the rest of this Jaime! Thanks for joining in and sharing Best regards TonyT 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 Great progress Jaime - looking good 11 hours ago, jrlx said: The ejector mark on the starboard side (top part in the picture) is still visible Only just... I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't mentioned it! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 13, 2017 Author Share Posted July 13, 2017 Hi Tony! Thank you very much for the kind words and warm welcome in the GB The PB problems are a real shame. I've just managed to re-link my RFI threads (only 8) and Yearbooks but will be slowly re-linking my WIP threads. Cheers Jaime 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 13, 2017 Author Share Posted July 13, 2017 4 minutes ago, CedB said: Great progress Jaime - looking good Only just... I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't mentioned it! Thanks Ced! I think the ejector mark will be barely visible under the canopy so I won't be bothered by it any more Cheers Jaime 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaStix Posted July 14, 2017 Share Posted July 14, 2017 Hi Jaime. Hope you are well. First - it's good to see you back again. Second - congratulations on passing your exam. Thirdly - nice idea for a build and great start! Looking forward to more. Kind regards, Stix 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 14, 2017 Author Share Posted July 14, 2017 Hi Stix! Thanks for the very kind words! It's great getting your comments, as always! I hope to be able to progress a lot more this coming weekend, now that I'm not fully dedicated to my German learning I chose this kit because it's really simple and should build relatively quickly. I hope I manage to finish it in a few more days, in order to start my Mig-29 and Mirage 2000C builds. Cheers Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted July 14, 2017 Share Posted July 14, 2017 Looks good! Or should I say "sieht gut aus"? There's something about the words "Special Hobby" and "OOB" in the same sentence that looks wrong, somehow, but I your interpretation of OOB seems to be pretty liberal! Regards, Adrian 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 14, 2017 Author Share Posted July 14, 2017 2 hours ago, AdrianMF said: Looks good! Or should I say "sieht gut aus"? There's something about the words "Special Hobby" and "OOB" in the same sentence that looks wrong, somehow, but I your interpretation of OOB seems to be pretty liberal! Regards, Adrian Hi Adrian, Danke schön In fact the kit is from Hobby Craft. It's the first one from this manufacturer that I've seen. This time I promise it'll be strictly OOB. Not even tape seat belts. With some discipline, I think I can manage to do it like that Cheers Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyTiger66 Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 Hello Jaime, Well done on getting the photographs linked. I just thought I'd see if you had made any more progress. Just a few days left now so I'm just visiting everyone to give a bit of support and a friendly 'hello'. Best regards TonyT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VMA131Marine Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 (edited) I'm watching this thread with interest as I am currently just starting the Tamiya 1/72 kit of this aircraft. I remember when the Hobbycraft kit was released and the reviews noted the poor fit of the cockpit even then. I think the fit can be improved by grinding away the underside of the floor to make it thinner. I don't recall if the Hobbycraft kit gives instructions on cockpit colours, but a google search on "Bell X-1 Cockpit" will provide a raft of photos that show the structure to be definitely green, though darker than the standard US interior green, with black panels. For some reason, the Tamiya kit's instructions are trying to convince me that the base colour should be grey. It most definitely is not: Business end of the rocket motor Edited July 19, 2017 by VMA131Marine 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 20, 2017 Author Share Posted July 20, 2017 On 19/07/2017 at 05:34, VMA131Marine said: I'm watching this thread with interest as I am currently just starting the Tamiya 1/72 kit of this aircraft. I remember when the Hobbycraft kit was released and the reviews noted the poor fit of the cockpit even then. I think the fit can be improved by grinding away the underside of the floor to make it thinner. I don't recall if the Hobbycraft kit gives instructions on cockpit colours, but a google search on "Bell X-1 Cockpit" will provide a raft of photos that show the structure to be definitely green, though darker than the standard US interior green, with black panels. For some reason, the Tamiya kit's instructions are trying to convince me that the base colour should be grey. It most definitely is not: Thank you for your interest and for the pictures. I had already seen these through the links in my initial post and I've been using them as references for my build. The interior green used in the X-1 is the so called "Bell Green", which was darker than the usual interior green of US aircraft. There's some information on US aircraft colours here (see sections on the P-39 and Medium Green). It can be approximated by FS 34092, which is Gunze H302. I painted the instrument panel matt black. The fit of the cockpit parts could be better. The base doesn't align with the hatch and the instrument panel has no positive location pins on the fuselage sides. I managed to damage the painting of the parts due to this. In the following post you'll be able to see how it turned out. Cheers Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 20, 2017 Author Share Posted July 20, 2017 Hi again, I've been working on the build since last saturday but have been very limited in time to post an update. So, here it is. The next step was to paint the interior green areas. As discussed above, Bell used their own tinge of interior green, which is approximated by FS 34092. As I'm using Gunze acrylics, it's reference H302. First I had to mask the oleos of the landing gear parts: IMAG4669 Next, I painted the inner walls of the cockpit: IMAG4670 The main landing gear wells were also painted interior green after I masked around the edges: IMAG4671 The landing gear parts were painted: IMAG4672 As well as the cockpit parts: IMAG4673 These were left to dry for a few hours. The following post will show more work done till now. Thanks for looking. Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 20, 2017 Author Share Posted July 20, 2017 Continuing with the work done since last Saturday, while the interior green paint dried, I masked the canopy. Here it is, after the Aqua Gloss dried for several days. As can be seen, the transparency and brightness is much improved: IMAG4674 The first step of masking was applying masking tape to fully cover the part: IMAG4675 I used the tip of a toothpick to mark the frame edges: IMAG4676 Then, I used a sharp nº 11 x-acto blade to cut along the edges and the excess tape was carefully removed: IMAG4677 According to the pictures of the real aircraft's cockpit, it seems that the inner colour of the canopy frames and the cockpit edges where the canopy settles was some kind of grey. So, I decided to use Gunze H317, which is a type of medium grey used in aircraft. Before painting the cockpit edges, I also masked the inner walls: IMAG4678 I closed the fuselage just to see the effect of the masking: IMAG4679 Now, I could paint the canopy and cockpit edges with this grey paint: IMAG4680 IMAG4681 The grey paint was left to dry. To be continued in the next post. Thanks for looking. Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 20, 2017 Author Share Posted July 20, 2017 Hi again, While the grey paint dried, I painted a few details on the cockpit parts with matt white. This serves as a bright base for some lighter colours: sand yellow for the seat belts and brown for the wiring of the control column: IMAG4682 A few hours later, I painted the matt black parts. Here's the instrument panel: IMAG4683 The external colour of the canopy frames was also black: IMAG4684 The black areas of these cockpit parts were brush painted black: IMAG4685 The tires were brush painted tire black (Gunze H77): IMAG4686 Next, I painted the seat belts: sand yellow for the belts and silver for the buckles: IMAG4687 I also painted the brown wiring and the metal areas of the control column and dry brushed the orange dials of the instrument panel and side console: IMAG4688 All cockpit parts were left to dry for a few hours and then flat coated with Alclad Flat Kote. The tires were also brush coated with Alclad Flat Kote. To be continued. Thanks for looking Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted July 20, 2017 Share Posted July 20, 2017 Very precise work as always Jaime - the results speak for themselves. Great job 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 20, 2017 Author Share Posted July 20, 2017 14 minutes ago, CedB said: Very precise work as always Jaime - the results speak for themselves. Great job Thank you, Ced You're very kind, as always! Cheers Jaime 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 20, 2017 Author Share Posted July 20, 2017 Just to finish with the post updating, here's the work done already this week. It seemed to me that the model would be a tail seater, so I decided to put some weight just behind the cockpit and in front of the main landing gear. For this I used small lead balls and milliput to fix them. I used milliput because I read posts about the long term problems created by the interaction between lead and super glue, which end up "melting" the plastic and damaging the kit several years after the build is finished. Here is the lead being placed behind the cockpit: IMAG4689 The milliput was folded over the lead to fully cover it: IMAG4690 The same was done on the starboard side of the fuselage: IMAG4691 The total weight inside the fuselage is at least 10g. This is how things looked after glueing the cockpit base, side console, instrument panel and rudder pedals in place and just before closing the fuselage: IMAG4692 IMAG4693 It should be said that glueing in place the instrument panel with oxygen tubing attached is very tricky, because there's not enough space available to fit the parts. It becomes more difficult once we try to close the fuselage. Eventually I managed to get an acceptable fit with the fuselage closed but the paint finish got damaged in the process: IMAG4694 IMAG4695 The fuselage halves were fully glued together and left to dry for a day, using clothes pegs to keep it together: IMAG4696 The next step was to sand the excess plastic that oozed off the seams (this is done on purpose, to act as "natural" filler and avoid using putty as much as possible). This took quite a while. Then, I glued the wings and horizontal stabilisers in place. According to pictures of the real thing, they had no dihedral at all. So, I tried to glue them perfectly horizontal and left the model in an upright position to avoid any gravity effects on the wings: IMAG4697 Now the thread is up to date with the work done. With some luck I'll manage to apply white primer today and check for the invisibility of seams. I also have to repair the damages to the paint of the cockpit. Thanks for looking. Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyTiger66 Posted July 20, 2017 Share Posted July 20, 2017 Superb updates Jaime; really clear photographs and description, many thanks . This is really going to help anyone making this kit; the superb fine detailing work will help anyone building any Bell X-1. The cockpit looks great, I like your approach of putting white down first for the seat belts, then another shade on top. I also really like the canopy masking technique! The next time I have a model with decent frames I will try that; what a time saver . Great stuff Jaime, it's looking really good. Best regards TonyT 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted July 20, 2017 Share Posted July 20, 2017 Very nice Jaime, she's looking like a real world beater already 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 21, 2017 Author Share Posted July 21, 2017 17 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said: Superb updates Jaime; really clear photographs and description, many thanks . This is really going to help anyone making this kit; the superb fine detailing work will help anyone building any Bell X-1. The cockpit looks great, I like your approach of putting white down first for the seat belts, then another shade on top. I also really like the canopy masking technique! The next time I have a model with decent frames I will try that; what a time saver . Great stuff Jaime, it's looking really good. Best regards TonyT 14 hours ago, CedB said: Very nice Jaime, she's looking like a real world beater already Tony, Ced, Thanks again for the kind words! The idea of using white as a base for lighter shades and approach to masking canopies with well defined frames are not originally mine. I picked them up in books and here in BM. The provide good results. The masking of canopies in this way is much quicker than applying small pieces of masking tape around the edges but it takes time, nonetheless. And care must be taken in using a really sharp blade, otherwise things get messy. Last night I repaired the damaged paint in the cockpit and applied perfect plastic putty along the seams of the fuselage. Hopefully, tonight I'll manage to sand off the excess putty, apply white primer to the aircraft and paint it orange. Cheers Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 22, 2017 Author Share Posted July 22, 2017 Hi again, An update of work done since two nights ago. I repaired the damaged paint in the cockpit. This is how it turned out: IMAG4698 IMAG4699 Next, I applied Perfect Plastic Putty along the fuselage seams, to make sure they won't be visible under the paint (wishful thinking, of course... it's always a never ending iterative process with no guarantee of success...): IMAG4700 IMAG4701 After letting the putty dry for a day, the excess was removed with a mix of water and wet & dry 500-grit sanding paper: IMAG4702 IMAG4703 Next, I masked the cockpit opening to protect it from the painting stage. This was done using masking tape: IMAG4704 The wheel wells were also protected but using white Blu-Tac: IMAG4705 Then, I applied Alclad's White Primer and Micro-filler: IMAG4706 IMAG4707 The nose pitot tube was masked and the conical end was primed, as it was painted orange, like the rest of the aircraft: IMAG4708 While applying the primer, I used fine grit sanding sticks to make the seams disappear as much as possible. The seams on the wing roots also had to be taken care of using sanding paper. In the end I managed to make the top seam along the fuselage almost invisible and improved the bottom seam and the wing roots. I also scribed some of the panel lines that were almost invisible under the primer. The primer was left to dry for about 3 hours. Next, I painted the exterior of the wheel well doors: IMAG4709 and the exterior of the aircraft: IMAG4710 IMAG4711 IMAG4712 IMAG4713 The paint was left to dry overnight for 12 hours. Today I've already applied a coat of Aqua Gloss to all orange painted surfaces, in preparation for the decaling. I hope the decals work without problems, as they are very old. Thanks for looking. Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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