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SR-71 Moldy Oldy


yardbird78

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I finally decided to get my overgrown posterior anatomy downstairs to my work bench and start sniffing some glue and paint. - This project will be an SR-71 using the original 1/72 Revell kit that they first made in 1969. The basic model is fairly decent, but it has several issues that are not feasible to correct including the cockpit area being too tall and skinny. The biggest problem is lack of detail and I think that I can help in that area. I am planning to do this one as airframe # 17950, the very first SR-71.

To start off the project:

The box art

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The pieces

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Close up of afterburners and exhaust nozzles

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The cockpit glass

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The decal sheet, rather crude and basic

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I got a little bit of work done on the moldy oldy SR-71. I opened up the four chine bay camera ports as well as the c-bay camera port in front of the nose gear bay. I did the panel line scribing around the chine bay cameras, the rudders as well as the top and bottom of the nose cone with the Side Looking Radar. I did my normal sloppy job and slipped a couple of times with the scribing tool. That is why I usually avoid scribing as much as possible.

Darwin

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Edited by yardbird78
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- Every SR-71 kit that I have examined has the aft nacelle wrong. They have the flame holders at the back end of the engines right at the edge of the tertiary doors, (that ring of rectangular doors just in front of the exhaust flaps), while they should be about 6 scale feet in front of that point. The space in between is the afterburner itself. Cutting Edge has an excellent after market resin set to correct this in 48th scale, but in 72, you have to do it yourself.
- My solution was to cut the flame holder center from the tertiary door ring, cut out the end of spray bottle cap, glue the flame holder into the upstream end of the bottle cap and then glue the open end of the bottle cap to the inside of the tertiary ring.
- The three stages of this process are shown in the photo, L-R, stock ring and cap, flame holder cut from ring and end out of cap, the assembled unit. The assembled unit still needs to be painted and then glued into the exhaust flap section.

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A little progress has been made, but not documented on film.
- More scribing done. All of the fuselage top and bottom done, repairs made to "goofs"
- Chine bay camera windows enlarged and made closer to the correct shape
- Main landing gear bays cut out and plans made to add some detail to this area.

Darwin

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Here are some more pictures of my latest progress on the old Blackbird kit.

Top fuselage scribing with the inboard section of radar attenuating "pies" on the inboard portion of the starboard wing. The port wing has not been done as yet.

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The outer portion of the #1 engine nacelle and wing with the "pies" on the leading and trailing edges. Notice the 3 different sizes and shapes for the LE, TE and outer corner. That was a LOT of measuring and marking. I probably should have made some kind of jig to make it quicker and easier.

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This is a plastic case from a package of disposable razor blades. I plan to cut the camera windows from this material and maybe make a "pie" making jig from it.

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My eyes have rolled around to the back with all the panel line scribing on the SR-71, so I took a little break. I picked up this little jewel on evil-bay awhile back and decided to attempt putting it together. This is the work stand that is placed next to the SR-71 cockpit for crew boarding/deboarding or any maintenance work in the cockpit area. This is my first effort at using photo etch.

The instruction sheet.

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All of the pieces removed from the fret and folded as necessary. I still need to assemble and paint the thing. All powered and non-powered ground equipment was painted yellow through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Somewhere in the 80s, some genius figured out that the key to success was low visibility, so all AGE was painted olive drab. I am not sure yet which color I will use.

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Another status update on the Blackbird.

The scribing on top wings and aft fuselage completed and most of the "goofs" filled in. The scribing on the bottom wings will have to wait until after I join the top and bottom fuselage pieces. That step is waiting for the landing gear bays to be finished.

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Main landing gear bays cut out

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Chine bay and C-bay camera port windows built and installed. The TROC camera in the C-bay had a round window. The OOC cameras in the aft chine bays had rectangular windows while the TEOC cameras in the forward chine bays had square windows.

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I prefer raised panel lines in most cases, so I would leave them as they are. Panel lines on full scale aircraft are very small in most cases and in 48th scale and especially 72nd, they would be all but invisible. Scribing leaves a canyon, that if expanded up to full scale would be big enough to lay your arm into. The old Revell kit that I am working on did not have any panel lines at all, either recessed or raised, so I decided to go the scribing route. I use the side of a graphite pencil point or Prisma pencil to lightly rub over the raised lines and that gives just a hint of the panel line, which to me, is much more realistic. Here is one example.

Darwin

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I finished the work stand or boarding platform for the Blackbirds and decided to paint it yellow. I haven't put the wheels on it yet as it is already a little too high. It lines up differently with different brands of Blackbirds.

Mrs Yardbird's SR-71A from the Monogram kit

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My SR-71C from the Testors kit

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My SR-71A from the Monogram kit

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YF-12A from the original Revell kit from 1968 (I built this in 1968 or 1969)

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All four Blackbirds of our fleet

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Darwin

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