TheRealMrEd

Still moving... Some Alclad2 White Aluminum, on the two panels of the sides of the fuselage, near the cockpit: Some Magnesium on the side panels near the wing, and the lower rear fuselage, ahead of the tailpipe: These panels are pretty subtle, but that's the way they look on the real aircraft, where they also appear to change, depending upon sun angle, etc. This is simply my best interpretation of photos. Getting ready to paint the nacelles a couple of colors, following same procedure as used on fuselage: In my case, it suddenly dawned on me that using rolled up bits of paper towels, crammed in with a paintbrush handle into my usual rolled up paper tubes used for masking the openings, would help them stay in place much better! The front landing gear doors, consist of two parts each. The parts are handed, an fit into each others' curves when oriented correctly: The rear land gear doors are also two parts for each side, but the smaller doors glue to the larger doors at an angle of just greater than 45 degrees. Sides marked "x" are slanted for this purpose. The rear landing gear consists of a lot of pieces: Which, above right, have to align properly in all dimensions. This part is up to the builder, as the instructions are not very illuminating! Also of importance is that the flat faces of parts "A" and both parts "B", align along the same plane: Above right, the front landing gear is much the same with careful fitting and alignment needed, above right. That's all for now, more next time. Ed

A brief update. Now in the paint shop. I started by masking off the fluorescent red areas with tape and Parafilm "M". I then airbrushed just those areas with Alclad2 white primer. After that had dried, I airbrushed some Model Master FS28915 Fluorescent Red, which seems to match the few color photos of this scheme perfectly: Then, the masking was removed, and these areas were re-masked with Parafilm "M" overall, after which the panels were trimmed around along the panel lines with a sharp #11 X-Acto blade. Then the whole aircraft was painted with Alclad2 grey primer. Next, the darker panels on the upper wings and horizontal stabilizer were likewise masked off, along with, this time, the light gray areas above the #2 engine intake trunk, and the very tip nose cap of the airplane. These later areas will be painted FS# 36495, Light Gray: The darker panels were painted Alclad2 #103 Dark Aluminum. After these areas had dried, the masking was removed: And the same process was done for the underside dark panels of the wings and horizontal stab: Then, all the hereto-before painted areas were re-masked, and the whole aircraft was painted Alclad2 Aluminum #101: After the overall aluminum had dried, the anti-glare panel was masked and painted Alclad2 Black Primer. Then all the masking was removed, except for the bit on the far side of the nose, where a small portion of the fluorescent red needs touching up. At least two more shades of Aclad2 metallic paint will be used eventually, involving a lot of masking, painting, unmasking, and re-masking again, so stay tuned! Ed Ed

Thanks Jason! When you build it, please post a thread, at least some RFI, so I can see someone else's efforts on this kit... Ed

Hello again. Been busy lately, and the modeling has suffered for it. Here is the latest update. More refinement to the tail bullet fairing, and it's coming along: Above right, with the near engine nacelle and the wings just stuck on without glue, she's beginning to look like an XB-51! Sadly, the work required to relocate the top of each wing inward, to allow for the anhedral, results in the two nice wing-tip light [provided in the kit being now too small. One shown below is stuck onto a tacky pic: Above right, this leaves one with two choices -- shim out the openings to fit the kit transparencies, or, the route I chose, to fall back on the old modeler's resort, simply make new, larger ones, and fair them into the wings. They will be masked down to the appropriate size when painted. Here again, I fervently wish all kit makers would make these kinds of parts larger than real life, with the real outlines embossed, so we could all just sand and fill the seams, without affecting the clear parts, particularly on kits like this, that were not designed for the novice modeler... rant...rant...rant... Next, the kit flap hinges (thankfully plastic) were glued to the bottom of each wing, into little pockets molded to show their correct positions. Still, each hinge needed de-burring and sanding: Finally, the kit-supplied (vinyl?) masks were applied to the transparencies, some of which were made larger by repairs. No worries, the masks are the correct size, so no one but us will be the wiser: Above left, the masking for the canopy is a surround frame only, with the middle to be filled by the modeler's choice of liquid mask or tape. My choice was Microscale Micro Mask, as you can see from the blue color above, were the mask puddled thicker as it dried, upside down. Above right, even though the bomb-aimer's panel was oversize, the oval mask does it's job. Hopefully, I've got it centered on the fuselage! Well that's it for now. It's off to the paint shop, which will probably be an extended stay, as the various panels and colors will require a lot of repeat masking. I'll try to do a few updates along the way, as well as working ion the landing gear and their doors, etc. TTFN, Ed

Hi Bill, What's an RSR? Ed

Moving right along, Some plastic sprue has been added, along the wingtips. I like to use plastic on edges, as most types of putty used there seem very prone to breaking off: Above right, tiny ailerons (A) have been added, and they will require some work. These were only provided on the real aircraft for pilot feedback, as the real roll control was spoilers on the wing. More kudos to Mir, for offering the tiny wingtip light lenses (B) above, so that we won't (theoretically) have to sand them down ourselves. We'll see. "C" above shows a tiny gap I was going to try to use to model the rear wing-tip air outlets for the leading edge de-icing system, as shown below: The gap doesn't look too good. I may try tiny strips or black decal later on. However, since the outlets are not very noticeable on photos of the real aircraft from a scale-like viewing distance, I may forgo them altogether. I'll figure that out later as well. Meanwhile, I've decided to attempt the bullet fairing on the tail, as that's the look I'd prefer. I had actually thought about how I'd go about this, some time back, when actually contemplating how to build an XP-89, so here;s my best try. If it doesn't work, I can always, melt it off with glue and leave it off the model... I scrounged around in the old spares box and found what appears too be an old, 3-finned and probably under-sized fuel drop tank from some old model or other, It's white plastic, so I'm thinking very old Hasegawa or MPC/Airfix something or other, that just happened to be about the right length and diameter, after comparing different drawings and photos: The very tip of one half was cut off to the overall length I would need (the nose will be sanded down to a new point, later on): Above center, the tip was again cut off to more-or-less match the top of the horizontal stabilizer, and then, above right, that part was glued onto the horizontal stabilizer, trying to align it as close as possible, side-to-side, along it's rotational plane, as well as fore-and-aft with the fuselage: Above center, the other half of the old drop tank was also cut off, trying to match the horizontal stab, but a little shorter this time. Then, above right, the back of this tank half is sawed in half again, vertically, and then one half of that was partially shaped to fit both the horizontal and vertical stabs, by scraping along the edges ( x's ) with a #11 X-Acto blade to contour it a bit, before being glued into place, but only near the front edge (arrow). When dry, the rear end of the added part will be pushed up a bit into alignment, and then the rest of that half will be glued. It was about here that the new glue loosened the front piece, and it fell off. So, I took the opportunity to glue the two front ends together, and insert a piece of melted sprue through the through the back end, which will be later trimmed. This will give me a filler for later, when this nose piece is sanded to shape. Not that the picture below is upside down, to show the variance in length of the "Vee" cutouts: Above center, the "nose piece" is glued back on, followed by the other re-worked fuel tank remaining side, using the same process as before, glued up in two stages. Above right, the remaining rear tip end from the original fuel tank half is now glued to the back end of the stabilizer, after the fins were cut off crudely, just trying to keep it more-or-less lined up. Not looking for perfection here, as the rear end will have to be re-shaped anyway, as the bottom of this whole pod is not a true taper, but more abrupt, which I will try and show later on. Finally, the whole mess is slathered up good with Bondo Primer/Spot filler putty, and allowed to dry: What made all this tricky is that the added "pod" does not run along atop the vertical stabilizer, only underneath (and in front and behind!). One other point is that the whole pod appears to slant slightly down in the rear, as opposed to being perfectly aligned with the fuselage datum line, if that makes any sense. I'll try and find a picture... Later, Ed

Really Neil, I don't know how you could say that the Anigrand nacelles are oversize...😁 Above, top to bottom, Mir, Anigrand and Execuform! However, the good news, is that when laid atop the same photo used earlier, the Mir nacelle seems to match up as to both size and location with the real aircraft (even though the engine and bottom of the nearside nacelle seem to have been removed in the picture). So, I think we are good to go there also. As an aside, and only for those beyond redemption kit manglers as myself, on a hunch, I laid these Mir engine nacelle atop the scale drawing of the XP-89 Scorpion prototype, and they are a dead match -- length, diameter, engine front opening diameter, and even more bizarre, if you were to glue the Mir engine pylons together at the top, along the slanted fuselage mounting surfaces, they would be exactly the same distance apart as the XP-89 nacelles are, despite the fact that they house different engines. I dunno about other kit-bashers, but if someone binned one of these Mir kits in future, or some enterprising lad were to run off some resin copies of these nacelles and mountings stubs, I'd be a buyer at about $25.00 US -- just sayin'... Ed

Hi Bill, Sorry that I've overlooked this great build. I'm usually only interested in US aircraft, so I don't often stray into those waters. In this case, it was a big miss for me, as your build thread and photos are outstanding -- exactly the kind of threads that I like to see, showing others not only how YOU built something, but how THEY could build it also, if they wished! Ed

I agree Adam. There is one glaring omission from the kit, the bullet fairing for the T-tail that was eventually added to correct flutter in the rear end of the aircraft. That will have to be scratch-built for those who want one. The other parts that I would much rather have seen would have been drop-able slats and flaps, or even a crew entry door. Oh well, better what they did than no kit at all, as at least the basic bones are good. Ed

Thanks Bill! Just plodding along... Ed

Some more still... After sort of sorting the rudder, the Horizontal stabilizer, with it's newly-enlarged "pocket" was glued to the vertical stab. I got a fairly good joint here, which will only require minimum clean-up: Above right, an odd piece of I suppose duct-work is assembled along a very fine 45-degree line to form a right angle (arrow). This piece will now be installed in the front wheel bay, as it's opposite side was installed before gluing the fuselage halves together: Above left, the duct parts are marked "X", while the two arrows point out the only thing that will really hold the front landing gear onto the model, the two small indentations the the gear will be glued onto. Have to scrape a little paint off this join! While there are a couple of other retract arms, etc. that will be attached to the main gear, they offer only lightly more support. If I were doing another of these, I'd probably drill the bulkhead first, and checking with the fit of the front main gear, I'd add some wire support to this area. No wonder the main gear broke off the actual aircraft! Above right, the wind screen and canopy have been glued to the model, using G-S watch cement, which will later be smoothed down with alcohol. This is useful, because there are a couple of small gaps that would otherwise be hard to fill without damaging the clear parts. Next up, a little work on the wings. Normally, one would assume that this part would be simple, such as gluing on the top wing half to the bottom wing half. Not so fast there, pardner! On this aircraft, the wing was not only variable incidence, but has anhedral, rather than dihedral. I checked the fit, and sure enough, there were a couple of issues. I began by test-fitting the tab on the inner edge of the bottom wing half into the slot on the fuselage -- wouldn't fit. So, I carefully began removing material from the forward end of the tab, and thinned the tab with sandpaper (very slightly) to get a "snap" fit between the wing tag and the fuselage slot. So far, so good: Above right, if I had simply glued the upper and lower wing halves together, aligning the edges and the tips, I would have ended up with the large gap shown. While the wing had a tiny gap, allowing it to pivot up and down to vary the incidence, it wasn't a scale 3 inches or so! Therefore, I ended up slowly and carefully sanding the edge of the upper wing where it meets the fuselage ( a VERY slight concave shape), gradually sliding the upper wing half toward the fuselage as I test fitted. When a good fit was achieved, I smeared some Testor's tube glue around the joining parts of the wing, about 2mm back from the outer edge. The tip of my pinkie finger was then used the smear the tube glue toward the outer edges, resulting in a glue surface that was tacky, yet not thick enough to squeeze out and mar the wing's outer surface. By using the pinky finger, I assured that I would not accidentally grab the model with a finger that had glue smeared all over it. Ask me why I do this... Above left, this process resulted in having a very tiny bit of clearance where the upper wing meets the fuselage, very real-life looking. Above right, this process also then results in the top wing tip having migrated toward the fuselage, rather than being perfectly aligned -- the price to be paid for getting a good join at the fuselage. The same process was repeated for the right side wing assembly, with one further problem! For whatever reason the upper right wing half edge nearest the fuselage was molded with a dihedral angle, vs. the needed anhedral angle, which meant even more material to sand off the top inner end of that wing top half: This also resulted in a good fit at the fuselage join line, but even more of an "under-lapped" wing edge. Modeler's choice here, whether to sand down to the shortest edge, or build up to the longer. I don't know which I'll do yet, as I am not concerned about dead accuracy as far as wingspan goes, I'm more interested in the proper "look". I should state here that my game plan, after re-scribing needed areas and masking needed areas, is to prime and paint the fuselage, engine pods, ailerons, and wings all separately, decal them, and then assemble everything at the end. We'll see how it all works out at the end. Meanwhile... Ed

Yet more... Finally glued the fuselage halves together, clamping and gluing as I went along. At first, I was trying to be really careful to get the join line just right, until I realized that when aligning the halves at the front and rear, and all the major openings just right, then some of the engraved kit panel lines no longer lined up. So, realizing that I was going to have to fill and sand the top and bottom anyway, I just forged ahead more quickly. The join lines weren't terrible, just needed a little filler, here and there: Somewhere I didn't get one of the bulkheads sanded done completely, or whatever, and I had to insert some card shims and filler behind the cockpit, which meant that the kit Navigator's window was now too narrow, so a new one will be added. Also, there was some kind of short shot or occlusion in the left fuselage half bomb periscope window at the front, so there was not adequate gluing surface on one side. After enlarging the hole, a new piece of flat plastic was fabricated and glued into place: Some items of note on the upper rear fuselage: Above, the intake area ("A")has to be sanded smooth. The line "B-B" should not be glued together before the vertical stabilizer "C" is installed , because the stab sits in sort of a "pocket, which has to be chiseled out just a bit, and the stab sanded a bit, after which it will pop right in and the seam at B-B closes up okay. Fiddle - fiddle! Eventually, it gives up and I get the win: Next the nose window gets sanded into place, but still needs to be fine sanded and polished out: Above right, the new Navigator's window is installed, using the interference-fit method, gets sanded down and also awaits final polishing. It should be noted that while both of these two clear plastic pieces are wider than needed, but that won't matter, as when I apply the kit-supplied masks, I will just center them up, and only the correctly-size windows will show after painting. More items of interest; the top of the vertical stabilizer (A) is wider than the "pocket" (B) on the underside of the horizontal stabilizer: I used a tiny modeler's chisel to reshape this pocket, as I did for the pocket for the vertical stab. The rest of the tail-feathers are the upper and lower halves of the horizontal stabilizer (here already glued together), two elevators, and two halves of the rudder, which is curious, because there's nothing to "trap" to make the part moveable in the end. Here again, strange excess pieces, since the rudder is never shown off-center on the ground: Remember, each of these pieces has to be cleaned up and sanded, and above right, after several minutes of fitting and sanding, the rudder STILL doesn't fit the vertical stab just right, and will have to be sanded down/filled as needed, after the glue dries... More to come, someday! Ed

It was about this time that it really hit me that the lack of any alignment pins and holes in the kit meant that I was going to have to check the fit on everything that lies ahead -- nothing can be taken for granted, including the needed assembly, not to mention that great difficulty that would be needed to assemble the model and then paint it, after the fact. For example, the front engine nacelle pylons simply butt to each fuselage side. However, they are marked on the fuse sides. The problem comes when trying to paint this area if the model is already painted, or messing up the paint when the parts are all pre-painted, and you are trying glue the pylons later. I am going to try and use some "trickeration" to help out a bit. This needs to be done before the fuselage halves are assembled. First, the engines and pylons themselves consist of 10 parts each: Above left, the jet exhaust tube is already glued together, and the "bullets" are already glued to the "rotors". In the picture above left, parts "A" and "B" should be in each other's places -- sorry about that! The areas marked A,B, and C must all be painted before final assembly. Above right, the engine pod or nacelle mounting pylon has been glued to one nacelle half, and wires installed into the pylon, which placement is the marked and drilled into each fuselage half, making certain that the spacing of same is different from side to side. Below the assembled engine pods/nacelles, not yet painted on the outsides: Above right, another area of interest. The bombs consist of two halves, a "crown" looking PE part, and the 4 PE fins which must be glued to that, before the PE parts are installed on the bombs. The wires are to attach the bombs to the bomb bay, for reasons shown next. There are some PE ends and sides of the rotary bomb bay (shown below), that are totally flat and featureless, and exactly the same size as the plastic sidewalls and end pieces of the bomb bay itself. I can't imagine why they are provided, but they are. I elected to leave them off entirely, as they seem to add nothing at all to the model. The directions would also have you install the bomb bay assembly into the model toward the end, which due to the "iffy" bulkhead locators on the model, would be a crap shoot at best. I elected to carefully glue the rotary bomb bay "tray" into place as I went, making sure to check the accumulated length of the front and rear gear well doors, as well as the bomb bay itself. There are some location marks for this tray on each needed bulkhead, which helps, leaving the modeler to only contend with the fit of the tray's protrusion of the sides, where they stick out of the fuselage -- in other words, making sure that everything fits equally all round when the other fuselage half is fitted... Above, the kit directions would have you install 8 TINY bomb shackles ("X" 's) to the bay (in this case "roof"), with locations for only four being marked on the part. The bad part is, they are so tiny that I had to work under magnification, which didn't help, because as soon as I hit them with some liquid glue, they would dissolve, fall over, or stick to the tweezers, resulting in loss or damage of some. This is when I decided to go with the wire attachments for the bombs, as shown earlier. After chucking the kit bombs in favor of 3-D printed aftermarket parts of the same size, I found that both bombs would not fit in the bay at the same time, unless I relocated the mounting holes, accounting for all the spares that you see above. If you build on of these good luck just gluing the bombs to the tiny kit shackles, and the attachment point are all smaller than the head of a straight pin, by around 30 percent!. Of course you could instead, go with all the rockets provided in the kit... Fortunately, plain bomb doors are also given, so that all the above can be overlooked. Don't forget to check the fit, however... Anyway, I got some more stuffed into the fuselage half, checking many, many times for proper fit with the other fuselage half: If I had it do do all over again, I wouldn't even consider installing the funny, slanted parts of the rear bomb bay bulkhead, as I had to soak them loose with liquid glue, and re-position them, yet again. But, I think I'm pretty close to being able to finally glue the fuselage halves together! I know it sounds like a lot of whining about this kit, but I actually like it very much. One thing that I am beginning to suspect is that the kit manufacturer was intent upon adding many needless little bits of both plastic and PE, merely to drive up the total parts count, so that they could justify a higher price for the kit. To my mind, all this was NOT needed, as I would have gladly paid the price for a kit that seems this clean and accurate! I wish instead, that other parts has been added, which I will mention as I go along. See you next time. Meanwhile, let us pray, Ed

Probably not a whole lot of it Jason, parts it consists of what appears to be around 20,472 or so rockets fins, not to mention four, plus bomb PE, etc... Ed

Check it when you can, Mike, and let us know your thoughts. However, if I am correct, as I THINK the photo proves, then the Execuform and the Anigrand versions were not that far off either, at least in the length department... Ed

Thanks for chipping in, Mike. I've run across this point of interest before, including one build where the modeler hacked up I think an Anigrand kit, to make it longer, and deeper in fuselage depth. The three sets of drawings I have, all look to be about the same as each other, so I decided to fall back on photos, to see whether I could finally resolve this issue, at least for myself. The follow picture is the absolute best I could find, showing the XB-51 from what appears to be a dead-on side view, taken in 1952 when the XB-51 was returned to the Martin plant, after the landing gear collapsed, with the wings and tail feathers removed: The picture is totally unedited, save for cropping out some excess sky and tarmac, to make it a bit smaller, and of course, my added red markings, which I added AFTER the fact of the next photo. I loaded a copy of the photo into Photoshop, scaled it down to fit the model overall (cropped as above, the overall picture is 1190 pixels wide on my screen), and roughly taped the model fuselage half into place, using masking tape. I could have printed it all out, etc., and laid the model atop the picture, but I was too lazy, and didn't need to, for my purposes. The picture on the screen above is a little dark on the lower fuselage side, to see here the fact that the fuselage depths match exactly with the model, as near as I can see. Also, be advise that the tiny nose cone, as well as the kit's final tailpipe section (maybe a quarter inch in real life, are not yet added to the model's fuse. Using the two arrows shown in the first picture, I aligned the engine inlet ramp area, and the the nose, not trying to be super precise, but just to see how they compared, more or less. To my old, Mk I eyeballs, they appear virtually exactly correct not only in overall length, but also depth AND proportions. Feel free to download the pic and make your own determination, or I will send anyone the original photo via e-mail, if you PM me. I personally can only conclude, once again, that the book is wrong... It's up to each modeler to decide what to believe, the book, own their own lyin' eyes... 😜 Ed

I agree Adrian, it's a nice little kit, just requires a little experienced love and care. It's certainly head and shoulders above what we've had before! I certainly thank the manufacturer for taking the chance and making an unusual kit, and I hope that modeler's support them in this effort, so that perhaps one day, we'll get some more goodies! Ed

Yet more... The sanded and polished Navigator's side window turned out well, here shown after inside and outside masking removed. The interior green showing through won't matter, because the actual window mask is smaller than the circle shown, and once the fuselage halves are joined, to one will see the difference from inside: Above right, one of the more subtle things not made really clear in the instructions, are the fit of the two bars, above right, which go into the front main gear wheel well. "A" has a tapered end, and "B" has a 90-degree end. The "B" ends fit into the tiny slots shown, also "B". Eventually, the whole thing looks like so: Above right, the part numbered 26 (next to the red "X") should actually be numbered part 101, shown to the right. By the way, the bullet shapes and turbo vanes inside the long engine intake and the tailpipe do not have to be painted, because unless you insert a lighted bore scope, they will never be seen! As I went along, I discovered that pretty much EVERYTHING that installs into the first-used fuselage side (in my case, the right side), that protrudes over into the left fuselage side, has to be sanded or fitted to allow the fuselage seam to close properly: Above, the tiny "X" 's shown all the areas found so far, and the arrows show things that I've had to relocate slightly when actually installing some parts, one of the reasons that I strongly recommend use of a strong or "hot" liquid cement like Weld-On #3 or the equivalent, is that when things go south after initial assembly, you can run some more glue along the seams, and after a few seconds usually pry things apart without major damage. Also, note that the rear engine inlet ("A" below) is one of those things that has to be fitted into the first fuselage half (arrow, below), and when installed, the long engine intake ramp ("B") must be installed so that the duct aligns with the ramp, as best you can. Do NOT glue the area marked "X": Above center, another example of minor fit problems are shown here, with gap at "X" being caused by too much plastic (arrow). After some judicious sanding, a better fit can be obtained, above right. An example of assembling the right and left fuselage halves fit problems in the rear engine inlet ramp which, as it was for the first side, is longer than the fuselage opening: Above right, not much can be seen in the cockpit when the fuselage halves are brought together, so how much you choose to detail/paint is up to the modeler. The Navigator's top window is installed, and fitted. If need be, any slop will be filled with G-S watch cement, then sanded or smoothed with alcohol, after which, it will be sanded and polished. Below, the fit is coming along: Still plenty of sub-assembly work and painting to be done before the fuselage halves are finally glued together, so stay tuned! Ed

Well CC, she's coming along nicely, and a very informative build as well. Now, if you could just come over and build that F3F-3 for me that I've always wanted, but steered clear of.... Ed

And more... At this time, I decided to deviate from the kit's instruction sequence, as some instrument "boxes" would need to be installed on the cockpit sidewalls, and these would be in the way of installing the Navigator's side window. Referring to the little plastic bags with the clear parts, one can see that the window needed, is the one with the circular port engraved: It was then that I noticed, for the first time, the little white piece of paper in the bag. Upon examining it, I determined that the kit contained it's own masks. Kudos! However, I don't know it it's just me, but the plastic film that is becoming more in use for masks nowadays is very hard for me to make out the outlines of the masks, even under a strong light. I much prefer the Kabuki tape kind. So, my solution to this problem is to use a tiny amount of pencil lead scraping, which after being spread around on the film with a finger, at least yield something I can almost see... (above right). Here, let me give the model company another shout out for the design of the window, as they provided a clear piece larger than the actual size needed, which lets the modeler glue it into place, and then, after any needed filling, polish as sand the clear piece down to blend perfectly with the fuselage side, and we can the simply mask off where we want the actual glazing to be. I wish all manufacturers would for this with ALL inset windows on all kits. Sadly, the UPPER Navigator's window is NOT done that way, it will have to be glued to one fuselage side, and the fitted/glued to the other fuselage side, when those are mated. Phooey! Anyway, the side window opening was largely full of flash, and undersized anyway, so using a sharp #11 X-Acto blade, I cleaned out the flash, then began gradually scraping out the window opening a little at a time, with frequent test-fittings of the window. Eventually, I achieved the fit I was looking for,m perhaps a ten of a millimeter or so proud of the fuselage side, which can then be sanded down smooth with the fuselage: The fit being so close, I could not use my usual watch cement here, so I tried to protect the clear part from liquid glue damage by using a modeler's punch set (bought decades ago, when they were still affordable!), to punch out some discs of masking tape that were first stuck onto a very thin piece of plastic card. There were a bit oversize, and I centered then up on the window, inside and out. Here I used regular masking tape vs Kabuki tape, as I wanted something extra sticky so that hopefully, the glue would not run under it and craze the window. The piece on the inside of the windows was just to mask when painting the interior, later on. Square pieces of tape might work as well, and there is also a mask provided on the kit's masking sheet, for the actual size of the finished "porthole" window. I shall apply this real one just before painting the outside of the model. Then liquid glue was applied VERY carefully, using a Glue Looper to run a very thin bead of glue around the entire window. When unmasked, later, we shall see how my scheme worked out. Next, a picture of the right fuselage half, showing the tape disc on the inside of the window, as well as the installed instrument boxes: Above left, also is shown a part "A" which needs to be glued horizontally along the red line shown, butted up against where the red line "B" is marked. Above right, the fuselage bulkhead that will eventually be glued in here, along the penciled line. There is also one of these on the other fuselage side. There is a stop molded in for the rear crew compartment bulkhead, again "A": Above right, the crew compartment held in place, and showing the instrument boxes glued onto that side. At this point, let me digress and show more detail on the rather annoying sprue attachment bumps found throughout the kit. Not only are some protruding the the outside, many also protrude on the inside of a part, requiring sand on two surfaces of the same edge, like the vertical stabilizer half shown here: Above right, even worse are the ones in the "well" where the vertical stabilizer will eventually sit, which will have to be chiseled out in two planes instead of just one... Now these are not impossible things, just irritants. But, they do go to show, that while this kit is a bit on the expensive side, you will get every dollar back in time spent modeling. You will not build this kit in one night! Again later, Ed

Moving along. The PE ejection seat sides attach to the seats, taking care to align the back and bottom edges. (arrows), shown here askew, and not yet attached: Above right, the seat sides have tabs which attach to the tubular structure. I could not determine whether the tubular part was supposed to fit against the seat back, or should there be a little space between? I glued the tube parts to the seat back, and CA'd the tabs also. None of this will be seen anyway, so I don't think it matters a great deal! ON the left is the Navigator/Shoran Operator's seat, with the pilot's seat, with it's long mount, on the right. One mistake that I made earlier, was that the piece I attached to the back end of the pilot's cockpit, flush with the backs of the side consoles, should actually been attached pointing downward, as it forms the front of the Navigator's compartment. You can see it better in the next picture: Above left, not yet glued in, nor the cement fully set, this pic shows the locating marks for the crew compartments "A", while there is another ahead of the rear bulkhead at "B". Also note that the rear bulkhead butts up flush against the gear well opening at "C". Of note is the fact that the forward-most cockpit bulkhead (nearest the left-hand "A" is numbered in the kit as "110", as is one of the "electronic boxes" that will mount on the wall. Both parts are on the same plastic fret, and can be seen in the parts map on the instructions. A bit odd, that... Above right, another PE part is attached to the I.P. coaming. Here is what the cockpit parts look like, with seats not yet cemented into place: There are several sub=assemblies to get through -- the cockpit, two gear wells and the bomb bay, at least, all of which, along with parts of the fuselage sides, will require Interior Green painting. I have decided to build out of sequence with the kit instructions, so that I only have to (hopefully) airbrush this color once, after which I will ad other detail, such as seat belts, etc. Well, that's it for this time around. Later, Ed

Well, here we go. The first step in the instructions called for gluing a PE part to each of the cockpit side consoles. Only problem here is that one PE part is flat on one end, and then needs to be bent to a slight curve on the other, to cover the throttle quadrant. Even with my pretty fair selection of PE tools, this was a bit of a challenge, but I more or less got it done. These will be seen in later photos. Next step was to begin assembling the cockpit area: Above left. The instructions would have you first glue the two side consoles to the cockpit base plate "D", above. I started to do this, and quickly realized that I would not have enough room for my fumble-fingers to handle the next step, which was to glue the rudder pedals "A", to the rear side of the floor hump "B", and then cover those with the "foot console"(?), "C" above. Problem here was that the areas marked "X" on part "C" (above left) were not open, which would have made the whole step impossible! The "foot console" is supposed to go atop the bump, and cover the rudder pedals connecting bar. So, above right, I glued the rudder pedals as needed, and then removed the sides of the "foot console" openings. Next up, I glued the I.P. PE part to the needed plastic part: Above center, all the parts up to this point have been assembled, including the steering yoke. Just to the left of the steering yoke can be seen the bent "throttle quadrant" area of the PE mentioned above. Care must be taken when assembling the pieces that the rudder pedals clear the side consoles, which must be wide enough apart to drop in the I.P. , and that the consoles are flush with the back of the floor, so that they butt up against the rear panel. I used Weld-On #3 liquid glue to give me time to get everything to mesh together. Oh, and this time, I did use Metal Prep 4K primer on the PE parts, before starting! Above right, the pilot's and Shoran operator's seats are started, with each seat consisting of 4 plastic parts, plus 3 PE parts that I will show next time, plus 4 PE seat belt parts on each seat! Up to now, I'm about 3 HOURS into the build, between trimming and sanding the edge of each plastic part, fiddling with the PE, and trying to make sense of the illustrated drawings. It was a lot tougher than you might think! At this point, let me tell all of you, that hpoed for -- finally -- a simple to build model of this aircraft -- this ain't the one and that this will NOT be a quickie kit! There are a LOT of parts, many small and fiddly, plus the fact that the kit is molded with the rather soft plastic that is in favor with eastern European kits, and there you go... All that being said, while it's no bed of roses, I'd MUCH rather have this kit than not. I only hope that with all the fiddly bits, sub- assemblies and then the BMF finish, that I can actually build this kit, as well as do it justice. I guess we'll all find out, together. Gotta go have a snort of my new favorite, peanut butter whiskey, and heal for a while, before the NEXT round. Later, Ed

Welcome aboard, Beard I also loved the XB-51, as well as the Lockheed XF-90. I thought they were the coolest planes ever! Ed

Well, I had a sort of schedule in mind for what I was going to build next, but something has occurred that blew all that out of the water! A couple of weeks ago, I saw a preview or review of this kit, and sat down immediately to order one from Ukraine, as I could hardly wait. It was scheduled to arrive around July 4th, but showed up unexpectedly yesterday. Wow! Talk about fast shipment, from a war-torn country -- words can not express how amazed I was. Sometimes, it takes longer for me to get a package from Canada to Atlanta, Georgia USA. (NOT THE FAULT OF CANADA POST!). The US postal system seems to like sending parcels back and forth between New Jersey and New York, before banishing them to south Georgia, before they can figure it all out. I say this as a US postal service retiree, so i feel justified in saying that "the old grey mare ain't what she used to be"... but then, what is? Anyway, here's what they sent me in a nice sturdy mailing box. The kit box was un-assembled and included: The kit includes 16 pages of illustrated instructions, plus a paint/decal guide for the two aircraft built: and a BUNCH of parts, including a PE fret, and actual nose glazing: For references, I shall be using one book, one magazine article, some photos grabbed decades ago from a great old movie, I think called "Towards The Unknown", as well as some pictures grabbed here and there on-line: By the way, and sadly for those desiring such, the decal sheet in the kit does NOT include the markings for the fictional Gilbert XF-120, which would have been a heck of a huge fighter -- image the Thundbirds markings for these! Now, it's not like I haven't tried building a model of the XB-51 before. Decades ago, (before being burned out on modeling), I began an old Execuform "Nostalgia On Wings" 1/72 scale scale vacuform offering, and then a while later, the Anigrand version, both of which ended up on the Shelf of Doom. While they both had their problems, the major problem was me.,.. Below, a comparison of the fuselages from each kit. Top to bottom, the Execuform kit, with a few embellishments, the the Anigrand, followed by both halves of the Mir kit: As you can see, they are all pretty close. A while back there was a build claiming that the Anigrand kit was way to short, and had to be lengthened and fattened to shape up. I decided to measure this kit, to the best of my capability, and I think that I have found out what the problem was. Below is is a picture of this process: When determining the length of an aircraft, it is important to know whether it will fit, whether it be into a hangar, onto a hangar deck or elevator, or what have you. Sometimes, you have to contend with a nose boom or the like. In this case it will be from the tip of the nose cap or glazing, to the rear tips of the horizontal stabilizer, NOT the rear of the fuselage! In my process above, the parts are just taped together, and the Horizontal tips rest against a box, and the forward position is marked just ahead of the fuselage tip, as I did not attach the nose cap/glazing to the fuselage. The standard length given for the XB-51 is 85 feet and 1 inch (85'-1"). My crude assembly measures out to be 84'-6", or about 7 scale inches short, call it a slightly fat 2mm in real life. There may be that much slack in my tape job or whatever! Anyway, I don't think that I have another 20 years or so to wait for another "more accurate" kit to show up, so by golly, I'm gonna finish this one! Stay tuned, Ed PS: If anyone would like to make an offer on either the Anigrand or Execuform kit, started but complete, PM me, or they'll end up on E-Bay.

Interesting, I hadn't noticed, but I do recall the the rear of the wheel well was the main spar, at least on the "D" models. Just checked, and this photo of the crashed NA-73X would seem to agree with what you are saying! So, now I know. Thanks! Just seems to show that the perfect model has yet to be built! Ed