Convair B-58 Hustler 1/72

[billn53]

I just got my Mojo replenished with a quick-and-easy OOB build (Tamiya's 1/72 Ki-61 "Tony") and I'm roaring to start a new "big" project. Looking through my stash, I heard Italeri's B-58 Hustler singing to me.

 

The B-58 was one of those designs (along with the Century series of fighters) that formed the core of my love for aircraft modeling. As a pre-teen in the early 1960s I remember building the Lindberg kit in 1/128 scale, and later their 1/64 scale version. Of course, my modeling skills then were limited to slapping everything together with tube glue, adding whatever decals came with the kit to unpainted plastic, and making "zoom" sounds as I flew the result around the living room. Fast-forward fifty-plus years... now I'm ready to do it all over again, but bigger & (hopefully) better!

 

This is the kit I'm using:

 

 

 

Plus a variety of aftermarket that I've accumulated for it:

 

 

 

A couple of good on-line resources for the B-58 include:

 

The B-58 Hustler Page - http://randolphbrewercom.fatcow.com/b58/index.php

 

US Air Force Museum - https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196439/convair-b-58a-hustler/

Be sure to check out the 360-degree VR imagery of the cockpit interior:

 

    Pilot station - http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/CW_tour/CW-13.html

    Navigator station - http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/CW_tour/CW-14.html

    DSO station - http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/CW_tour/CW-15.html

 

There's also an excellent WIP here by Mark Inman, mostly covering his painting of the Hustler's multi-tone metallic finish. I'll be referring to this when the time comes:

 

 

Mark built his kit in-flight, whereas mine will be on the ground. That means I have to contend with modeling the crew positions and landing gear.

 

Let's get going!

 

I am beginning with detailing the crew positions, starting with the Pilot Station. Here's what's provided in the kit - cockpit floor & rear bulkhead (the floor doubles as the top of the nose landing gear bay), an ejection seat/capsule, a couple of consoles either side of the pilot, and the pilot's control stick (not pictured):

 

 

 

The instrument panel mounts to the top-interior of the fuselage:

 

 

 

None of the above items are especially well-detailed. For example, this is the Hustler's actual instrument panel:

 

 

 

and there are many other panels missing in the kit:

 

U    

 

 

 

Fortunately, Airwaves has done a photoetch set for detailing the crew positions:

 

 

 

and I will be using this to help flesh out my interiors.

 

The Airwaves set would have you make multiple folds of the PE and attach the pieces together with butt-joins. I thought it would be easier to scratch-build the basic shape of the interior consoles, etc. and then add the Airwaves PE as a veneer of detail. Following this plan, I cut the Airwaves instrument panel into sections:

 

    

 

and laminated the center section onto a styrene backing:

 

 

I added a rectangular base that will mount to the pilot's floorboard:

 

 

 

and checked to ensure everything will fit when the fuselage is buttoned up:

 

 

Side-consoles were also built up using styrene. In this pic you can also see that I've added the right side section to the instrument panel:

 

 

While checking reference photos, I realized that the combing over the pilot's panels is not symmetric on the actual aircraft -- notice in the photos below how the combing on the right side of the cockpit appears to be higher than on the left side:

 

 

 

This is especially noticeable when viewing the VR imagery on the USAF Museum website.

 

The asymmetry can also be seen in this view from above. The combing wraps higher and farther to the rear on the right side than on the left:

 

 

 

Here is my attempt to model the above. Not perfect, but better than the stock kit's offering:

 

 

 

That's about as far as I've gotten since I began a few days ago. There's still much to be done before the pilot's station is finished, and after that there are the Navigator and Defensive Systems Operator positions to work on. So, if you're thinking of following this build, be sure to bring an extra-jumbo size bag of popcorn.

 

Before I sign-off, a foreshadowing of problems yet to be encountered:

 

 

See that huge gap? It's gonna have to be filled, and remember that I'll be putting a natural metallic finish on this bird... any flaws stand out like a sore thumb. I've read that the joins for the engine pylons and center pod are also bad. I'm sure we'll come back to this issue later in my build.

 

[neil5208]

Another intresting aircraft subject, would love to do one if I could find one. Will follow as usaul.

[TheRealMrEd]

Billn53,

 

I'd highly recommend stretched sprue to fill those gaps, particularly since this will be an NMF.

 

Ed

[busnproplinerfan]

I have the TB-58 so this will be good to watch. Kinda figured there'd be a pile of aftermarket goodies for it. Me to, one of the very first models I built was the small Lindberg kit. Remember painting it with testors 1104 red right over the silver plastic. Wish I still had it.

[billn53]

6 hours ago, neil5208 said:

Another intresting aircraft subject, would love to do one if I could find one. Will follow as usaul.

FYI, Italeri has just reissued this kit, with new decals for multiple marking options. 

[billn53]

6 hours ago, TheRealMrEd said:

Billn53,

 

I'd highly recommend stretched sprue to fill those gaps, particularly since this will be an NMF.

 

Ed

I was thinking Milliput, but you’re probably right, stretched sprue would be better. 

[neil5208]

59 minutes ago, billn53 said:

FYI, Italeri has just reissued this kit, with new decals for multiple marking options. 

Now in my watch list, just need to get it past the wife!

[Nikolay Polyakov]

I’m in! I build this kit in the same boxing about the twenty years ago and feel nostalgic for this wonderful plane now.

 

Great progress with a cockpit, looking forward for your updates. 👍

 

Cheers! 🙂 

[Andre B]

3 hours ago, billn53 said:

FYI, Italeri has just reissued this kit, with new decals for multiple marking options. 

 

The Hustler has always been the aircraft I want to build. Now I have a chanse at least to get one.

 

Has there ever been an build where the Italeri kit has been corrected  in length?

 

Following your build with great interest!

 

Cheers / André

 

[RidgeRunner]

Very nice, Bill. There are lots of dayglo options on that sheet

 

Martin

 

[Space Ranger]

Looking good. How did your separate the Airwaves instrument panel without distorting the individual pieces?

 

Not to rain on your parade, but you should be aware that the kit is too short, apparently based on inaccurate drawings from Aviation News. The artist/draftsman took the officially quoted overall length of the airplane (96 ft 9 in) to include the nose pitot boom, when in fact that official length is from the forward tip of the radome to the aft tip of the vertical fin. That means the kit is compressed longitudinally by about 12%, with the error spread throughout fuselage, wings, and nacelles, making it extremely difficult to correct if one were to attempt it.

 

I hesitate to point this out, but the B-58 is one of my favorites. I lived in Fort Worth at the time the prototype was undergoing engine run-up tests, and the thing could be heard all over town (alas, we moved before it made its first flight). Also, a late cousin of mine was an engineer employed by Convair on the B-58, and was involved in some of the design proposals for advanced versions. So I tend to be picky about B-58 models from the Italeri/Testors kit, but this is by no means a criticism of your work,

[busnproplinerfan]

12 minutes ago, Space Ranger said:

Looking good. How did your separate the Airwaves instrument panel without distorting the individual pieces?

 

Not to rain on your parade, but you should be aware that the kit is too short, apparently based on inaccurate drawings from Aviation News. The artist/draftsman took the officially quoted overall length of the airplane (96 ft 9 in) to include the nose pitot boom, when in fact that official length is from the forward tip of the radome to the aft tip of the vertical fin. That means the kit is compressed longitudinally by about 12%, with the error spread throughout fuselage, wings, and nacelles, making it extremely difficult to correct if one were to attempt it.

 

I hesitate to point this out, but the B-58 is one of my favorites. I lived in Fort Worth at the time the prototype was undergoing engine run-up tests, and the thing could be heard all over town (alas, we moved before it made its first flight). Also, a late cousin of mine was an engineer employed by Convair on the B-58, and was involved in some of the design proposals for advanced versions. So I tend to be picky about B-58 models from the Italeri/Testors kit, but this is by no means a criticism of your work,

To bad for the length, would be a hard one to correct, maybe some caster will make a replacement fuselage. Hopefully there there's a build review in one of the magazine and someone sees the length issue.Still looks like a good model otherwise.

[Space Ranger]

It's more than just the fuselage; the wing and nacelles are also wrong. Its as if the entire airplane had been compressed. The error has been known for some time. There was an article in a Japanese modeling magazine some years ago by a modeler who corrected the kit, but it took many cuts and inserts of sheet styrene. It's not a task for the faint-hearted.

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi Michael--

 

I sent billn53 a copy of that article you sent me. Sadly, it was a PDF and can't be posted here.  However, I was also going to send him a link to that thread on the other forum, but in my old age, now I can't find it.  If you could remember where it was and post a link to it, it might bring everyone up to speed on the topic of length.

 

Ed

[whiskey]

Is it even really worth the trouble to go through that? Especially for a 1/72 kit that it's not just a small portion of the airframe, but it's the whole bloody aircraft? 

Edited April 8, 2019 by whiskey

[Getting Old]

Sounds a massive job to correct on top of all the work you need to do just to get the kit to fit properly out of the box. Going to be interesting watching whichever way you choose. Good luck 

[Space Ranger]

2 hours ago, TheRealMrEd said:

However, I was also going to send him a link to that thread on the other forum, but in my old age, now I can't find it.  If you could remember where it was and post a link to it, it might bring everyone up to speed on the topic of length.

 

This one?

 

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/hyperscale/viewtopic.php?f=149674&t=154686&p=1117798&hilit=58%2C+Testors#p1117798

 

Or this one?

 

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/hyperscale/viewtopic.php?f=149674&t=244402&p=2545777&hilit=58%2C+Testors#p2545777

[Space Ranger]

2 hours ago, whiskey said:

Is it even really worth the trouble to go through that? Especially for a 1/72 kit that it's not just a small portion of the airframe, but it's the whole bloody aircraft? 

Whether it's "worth the trouble" is up to the modeler. If you're satisfied with the kit as it is, fine. But if you want a more accurate model, you've got some work ahead of you. Here's a page from the Japanese article (Model Art, July 1985) I referenced that illustrates the problem. The upper profile view is correctly proportioned; the lower profile is that of the Italeri/Testors kit.

 

 

[billn53]

5 hours ago, Space Ranger said:

Looking good. How did your separate the Airwaves instrument panel without distorting the individual pieces?

The PE cut easily using an X-acto blade and straightedge.

[billn53]

I just got home from work and am catching up on the conversation about Italeri's length error. Mr. Ed alerted it to me (I was previously unaware) and graciously sent me a copy of the Model Art article showing how one modeler corrected this. As others have surmised, it involved lots of slicing & patching. Here are a couple of pics from the article to give an idea of how much effort was involved:

 

 

 

and the end result:

 

 

Although a part of me is tempted to take a shot at this challenge, my goal is to have this build complete for this summer's local show. So I'm putting this option on the "maybe sometime in the future" list for now.

[whiskey]

2 hours ago, Space Ranger said:

Whether it's "worth the trouble" is up to the modeler. If you're satisfied with the kit as it is, fine. But if you want a more accurate model, you've got some work ahead of you. Here's a page from the Japanese article (Model Art, July 1985) I referenced that illustrates the problem. The upper profile view is correctly proportioned; the lower profile is that of the Italeri/Testors kit.

 

 

All in the eye of the beholder....

[Convair]

A 1/80 B-58 instead?

[Andre B]

Is there any alternativ clear parts for the canopy in 1/72 available on the market?

 

/André

[billn53]

Just now, Andre B said:

Is there any alternativ clear parts for the canopy in 1/72 available on the market?

 

/André

None that I know of. 

[busnproplinerfan]

Looking at the work since you want it for the summer, I'd make it the way it is. Hopefully a new kit corrected comes out. It's still recognizable, won't be mistaken for a DC-3. Only a handful know of this problem, it'll only bug you for awhile, just like a cold. Good thing we now have the pictures here if someone wants to do it. I'll likely build mine from the box whenever I get around to it. To bad, it's one of the best looking jets made.