Hazelhorn

Finally, I was able to present it to my grandfather. He was very appreciative, and said it looked "professional." I certainly didn't disabuse him of that notion or show him any of the stunning models I've seen on forums like this one! See him below, on the right side of each photo, 1965 and 2023. Thank you for following along!

I was in a rush to complete the model in order to present it to my grandfather. As a result, I don't have any more progress photos, and all the photos I have of the completed jet are in a hotel room! I also ran out of time to do any weathering effects. Oh well! For markings, I decided to skip a tail code. Due to the secretive nature of the aircraft, they didn't always have identification numbers. Also accurate is the "U.S. AIR FORCE," despite the fact that the A-12 was operated by the CIA.

After I cleaned up the landing gear bay, cleaned up seams and scribed the raised panel lines from the Italeri kit pieces to match those of the 3D printed parts. This took me a while, but I only have one picture of the process: Next, I painted and installed @Serkan Sen's beautiful exhaust. Here are the pieces he sent me:

After mistakenly warping my kit while trying to soften it with a heat gun (see the post from July 17), I used filler and a saw to try to restore the original shape: While it wasn't perfect, I was pretty satisfied with the result. Here are some views of the same area of the finished model:

Yes! I just got back from a 9000+ km road trip on which I visited my grandfather and presented him with the completed model. I was a bit rushed completing it before we left, so I don't have the best pictures, but I'll upload what I have shortly.

Yes, the first picture shows a large gap. In the next picture down, I've sanded down the ring and the gap is much smaller (spike on the left).

Thanks for your concern! I'm actually not too worried about fixing it, stay tuned. I hope to present the model to my grandfather when I see him the first week of August. But this project has really got me thinking about doing another blackbird 1:48 (the scale of all the other kits in my stash). So I may be ordering another kit eventually!

Thanks for the tip! I'll add resin to my list of tools to try out. While the putty isn't perfect, it has an enormous advantage in the fact that I already own it. I'm trying to see what I can do with what I've got.

I've made progress on the inlets. I wasn't able to paint the whole interior, but I'm not sweating it because it won't be visible. I got the inlet spikes assembled and cleaned up the gap where the two halves join. Next I have to remove a lot of material from the kit engine nacelles in order to fit the inlet assemblies inside them.

Fuselage joint cleanup:

Cockpit progress:

I tried using the hair dryer to fix some of the deformation around the landing gear wells. It did not go well: I also attempted to reshape by submerging in hot water, but didn't have success with that method either. I should be able to clean up the warped area with putty, but I'll probably have to live with the angle on the inboard edge of the main landing gear bay.

In the last little while, I've been doing lots of sanding. First, I sanded the inner surface of Italeri's lower fuselage peice near the main landing gear wells so that the reisn wells would fit nicely. I glued in one well, and noticed the shaping of the plastic prevents the well from fitting as nicely as I would like. My current plan is to warm it with a heat gun, apply glue, and then hold in the correct position until cool. My question is: will the heat cause problems with the resin or the paint (tamiya acryillic)? Next, I thinned down Italeri's upper fuselage piece where it joins the printed fuselage so it is the right thickness. Lastly, I've been preparing various cockpit and landing gear pieces for painting. Here you can see @Serkan Sen's cockpit pieces. On the left is the set I'll be using, with the ejection seat launch rail molded separate from the tub. I'm using this one because shortly after taking the picture I snapped off the extended cockpit door jack on the right one, and I don't know where it went! Plus the separately molded one should be easier to paint. I had to sand the base off the ejection seat itself, and in the process I also snapped off a thin vane near the front of the seat, but was able to glue it back (mostly) in place. I really need to work more carefully with this gorgeous resin! One very cool feature of these parts is that the seat actually slides up and down the launch rail! For the main landing gear doors, I will be using doors from Monogram's 1:72 SR-71 kit, as they are much better than the Italeri kit doors. Why didn't I just convert the Monogram kit instead of the Italeri? Well, I thought it would be easier to avoid replacing the elongated tail of the SR-71 with the short tail shared by the A-12 and the YF-12. Since I am replacing all the detailed bits with resin parts and rescribing the panel lines, I think I chose correctly. But that remains to be seen! The underside of the Italeri kit seems to have a few strange curves to it.

Finished painting the landing gear wells. Cockpit is next!

Thanks! I'm a Chicago native myself!

Hi, I'm Tim. I glued together a few models as a child in the late 90s (I remember an SR-71, an F-15, and a Blue Angels F-18). In 2016 my wife brought home a couple models that someone was tossing away at work, and I actually built and painted them (a Mi-24 and an F-14). But a new friend of mine is a serious modeller, and has got me interested in improving my skills. So here I am! My next project is here. In addition to modelling, I enjoy tennis, hockey, soccer, lego, choral singing, reading, 3D printing, woodworking, board games...😄

Fed up with seeing so many incredible blackbird models on this forum? Want to see a real novice attempt to build one instead? Then you've come to the right place! 😄 I'm working on a 1:72 scale model of the Lockheed A-12 "Oxcart." The A-12 is a spy plane built for the CIA. It looks very similar to the more famous SR-71 "Blackbird." The A-12 has a single cockpit where the SR-71 has two, and it is slightly shorter, lighter, faster, and carries a different camera payload. In 1965 the CIA employed my grandfather as the flight surgeon for the A-12 crews flying out of Groom Lake, and he was permitted to observe the A-12 on at least one occasion. I'm excited to build the model because of this personal connection. When I was looking for an A-12 kit to build (spoiler: there isn't one), I found some posts on this forum where Serkan documented his quest to model and print various blackbird aircraft. I got in touch, and Serkan provided me with all the parts I need to convert Italeri's YF-12 kit to an A-12! His parts are magnificent. Very finely detailed. I know for a fact that I won't do them justice! But I'm enjoying myself and I'm sure I'll learn a lot along the way. So far, I've been able to scribe some panel lines, remove my kit's wheel wells and prime the 3D-printed wells. Stay tuned!

Very thoughtful of you! I will message you.

I recently started modelling, and found your project while trying to find out if there are any A-12 kits. My grandfather was the flight surgeon for the CIA crews out of Groom Lake in 1965, and I'm hoping to build him a model. Anyway, I read through all six of your blackbird threads in the last week, and created an account here just to express my admiration! Incredible work! Tim