Convair B-58 Hustler 1/72

[Retired Bob]

13 hours ago, billn53 said:

A lot of grinding and sanding was involved, but at last I was done. I'm not sure using a styrene tube is the best approach (the walls are thick, requiring lots of work to thin them to the point they'll fit in the engine pod). Maybe better would be to "roll my own" from thin styrene sheet?

 

Good idea Bill, I think the rolled styrene sheet would have it's own problems like a seam and possible distortion.

 

On 01/05/2019 at 19:58, Vladan Dugaric said:

Pay attention to the engine nozzle exhaust petals. The resin set has 16 petals per nozzle (which is late, long nozzle J79). B-58 had early J79 with short nozzle with 24 petals per nozzle.

 

Would J79 short nozzle exhausts for a Phantom F4B work? I'm not sure if the number of petals is correct at 24 as I do not have a 1/72 set to check.

[billn53]

12 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

Good idea Bill, I think the rolled styrene sheet would have it's own problems like a seam and possible distortion.

 

Would J79 short nozzle exhausts for a Phantom F4B work? I'm not sure if the number of petals is correct at 24 as I do not have a 1/72 set to check.

I have the same concern as you re. a home-rolled tube. Only one way to find out....

 

I looked at a bunch of possible options for nozzles. The F-4B nozzles are too short & wrong shape. I’ve given up on “petal counting” for this build, and chose the Aires resin over the kit because it “looks better” even though it has too few petals. 

[Retired Bob]

18 minutes ago, billn53 said:

I looked at a bunch of possible options for nozzles. The F-4B nozzles are too short & wrong shape. I’ve given up on “petal counting” for this build, and chose the Aires resin over the kit because it “looks better” even though it has too few petals. 

You could have started a new trend, instead of rivet counters  there could be exhaust nozzle petal counters.  It's just not like Aires to get things like that wrong. 

[billn53]

24 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

You could have started a new trend, instead of rivet counters  there could be exhaust nozzle petal counters. 

I'm blaming Vladan 

[Vladan Dugaric]

Aires just repackaged their existing late J79 set for F-4J/E/EJ/F/G/S.

 

The nozzles for F-4B/C/D are shorter and their petals are not quite the same as on B-58.

 

B-58 had longer nozzles with 24 petals.

 

I am sure someone (Tailspin Turtle?) knows a lot more about this than I do.

 

Vladan

Edited May 3, 2019 by Vladan Dugaric

[billn53]

See? ☝️

 

(All in good fun, Vladen!)

[Vladan Dugaric]

Guilty as charged!

[Retired Bob]

So, fuselage short in length, compressor blades too far forward and wrong number of exhaust nozzle petals.  Are the wheels the right size? 

[billn53]

2 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

So, fuselage short in length, compressor blades too far forward and wrong number of exhaust nozzle petals.  Are the wheels the right size? 

Too late to turn back now! I'm already committed. Let's make the best with what I have. 

[Retired Bob]

13 minutes ago, billn53 said:

Too late to turn back now! I'm already committed. Let's make the best with what I have. 

Did not expect anything less, it will be interesting to see the new etched sets that Eduard are bringing out next month.  There is an exterior, an interior and a zoom set. plus a masking sheet.  Who knows if any other AM is going to be shaken out of the modelling tree? 

[billn53]

I ordered both the interior & exterior set. I doubt I’ll find much in the interior set I can use at this point, maybe some detailing for the canopy, hatches, and access sills. I’m hoping the exterior set will detail-out the landing gear and bays. Who knows, it might even have some exhaust nozzles!

I also have the 1/48 Hustler and have ordered interior and engine resin sets from Lone Star Models. Fisher Models also produced some excellent resin detailing ses for the 1/48 kit, but recently had a major fire and is no longer producing AM items. 

[Retired Bob]

21 hours ago, billn53 said:

I ordered both the interior & exterior set. I doubt I’ll find much in the interior set I can use at this point, maybe some detailing for the canopy, hatches, and access sills. I’m hoping the exterior set will detail-out the landing gear and bays. Who knows, it might even have some exhaust nozzles!

 

There is no information on the Eduard site as to what is in the sets, but I doubt there will be engine nozzles, they would be in the Brassin sets, here's hoping.

[billn53]

I'm still working on the engine pods (something I said for weeks in my recent Ford Tri-motor build)

 

So far, I've ground out three of the four pods to accept the afterburner cans / nozzles, and air intake tubes. This is really tedious work (not to mention, dirty):

 

 

 

My initial approach to the intake tubes was to grind/sand down 1/2-inch tubing to an outside diameter of 15/32" (to fit inside the engine pod), while also sanding the inner surface to match the Hustler's intake diameter.  

 

 

 

A lot of grind & sand, inspect dimensions, etc. etc. was involved in creating the above tube. And, I need three more before I'm done. An potential alternative, hopefully faster and easier, is to roll my own intake tube out of thin styrene sheet. So, tossing on my lab coat, I proceeded to perform some experiments.

 

My first attempt was to roll a strip of 0.005" plastic stock around a 7/16" brass tube, secure it in place with a rubber band, and glue the overlapping plastic with Testors "green cap". That was an absolute failure because the plastic securely adhered itself to the brass, and could only be removed via destructive means.

 

For trial #2, I polished the brass tube and gave it a liberal coat of dry lubricant:

 

    

 

I was successfully able to remove the homemade tube, but the cross-section has a definite tear-drop shape to it where the ends of the sheet overlap:

 

 

Surprisingly, in spite of the deviation from roundness, when inserted into the engine pod it looks pretty good. Because it's made from very thin sheet, it is somewhat flexible and conforms to the inside of the engine pod.

 

I thought thicker plastic sheet (0.010-inch) might work better. I feared the thicker plastic would cause problems if I simply overlapped the ends when wrapping it around the brass tube, so I employed a slightly more complex joint:

 

 

 

The resulting tube is definitely more round. But, it (and the tube made from the thinner stock) doesn't hold its shape well. Note the slight bulge at the 2-o'clock position:

 

 

 

Nonetheless, the thicker tube is also a viable candidate. Like the tube made from 0.005-sheet, it conforms to the inside of the engine pod. I also suspect the tube will hold its shape better when I close off the end with a round disk.

 

My progress may be slow, but at least it's progress (knock on wood).

 

[Space Ranger]

Why not just use the brass tube? it already seems to be the correct size.

[billn53]

2 hours ago, Space Ranger said:

Why not just use the brass tube? it already seems to be the correct size.

The 7/16" tube I'm using is a hair too small. 1/2" wouldn't fit. If I had a 15/32" brass tube, that might work. It's a "mommy bear" situation. 

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Bill--this is a 1st rate build & I am sorry that I did not track from the get go!  That said, the cockpit work and research is spectacular--I greatly appreciate the pics of the derelict B-58 to validate the ejection rails.  I also enjoy the great work you are doing on the compressor... this is awesome... I will be following!  Best, Erwin 

[billn53]

Thanks, Erwin! I always try to document in these forums not only what I'm doing, but also why and how. I know how much I've learned from others here, and want to return however I can. And the comments and feedback I receive here help keep me motivated to press on when I'm discouraged.

[billn53]

More work on the semi-scratch engine inlets, I really hope I can pull this off...

 

Per my plan, I intend to separate the misplaced compressor face from the kit inlet cones, and re-use the cone after extending the intake trunk and building a new compressor face further back.

 

As insurance in case I screw up one or more inlet cones, I decided to replicate the kit parts in resin:

 

 

 

Here are the resin cones after removing the compressor blades:

 

 

 

I will try to retain the three struts if I can. They are slightly shorter than needed to reach the wall of my intake tubes, so I may end up adding some thin shims. But more of a problem, notice the dimple in the tips of the cones. The original kit parts don't have this, so I may need to make a new mold, using slow-set latex, instead of the fast-setting epoxy clay that I used today. But, before I do that, I thought I'd try an idea that would not only fix the dimple problem, but perhaps even end up with inlet cones that look better than the kit originals. Here's the gist of my fix:

 

 

 

After letting the CA I used to glue the extension onto the tip of the resin cones, I took a fine file and sanding sticks to one of my cones, with the objective of creating a sharp point on the end. The pic below compares my trial result with the original kit part. Notice how my cone comes to a sharp point, unlike the kit's:

 

 

 

This looks promising!

 

Now, returning to the to the intakes and compressor faces...

 

I punched some plastic disks to fit one of my home-rolled tubes, just to see if that would help keep the tubes round. They do!

 

 

 

And, to simulate the compressor face, I found a photo online of the J79 engine front-end. I cropped out the background, did some brightness/contrast adjustments, and re-sized the image to match what I will need. My first thought was to print some decals, paint my compressor face disks aluminum, and apply the decals over that. I may still go that route. But because I'm lazy and impatient, I simply glued one of the paper prints onto a disk to see how it looks:

 

 

 

The pic below gives a better idea of how everything might appear after I get the engine pods assembled:

 

 

 

Nice. And, as I said at the start of this post, I really hope I can pull this off!

[billn53]

12 hours ago, billn53 said:

The 7/16" tube I'm using is a hair too small. 1/2" wouldn't fit. If I had a 15/32" brass tube, that might work. It's a "mommy bear" situation. 

I found some 15/32 brass tube, it shows arrive by the end of this week. If it fits ok, that will be my preferred choice for the intake trunks. 

[Space Ranger]

4 hours ago, billn53 said:

I found some 15/32 brass tube, it shows arrive by the end of this week. If it fits ok, that will be my preferred choice for the intake trunks. 

Another option is to use a plastic tube with a slightly larger diameter than required, then take a lengthwise slice out of it and close it back up by gluing the cut edges together. Modelers of the Apollo Saturn V have used this approach to build correctly sized stages, especially for the 1/96 Revell kit, and it seems to work without causing any misshaped cross sections. Some simple math will be required to figure out how much to remove (C=πd, where C=circumference, d=diameter, and π=3.14...).

 

The photographic solution for the compressor faces is sheer genius! I'm gonna have to file that away for future reference.

Edited May 6, 2019 by Space Ranger

[billn53]

Thanks for the tips. Goes to show there is often more than one way to skin a cat. 

[Nikolay Polyakov]

14 hours ago, billn53 said:

Nice. And, as I said at the start of this post, I really hope I can pull this off!

Very nice, I must say! Great work. 👍

[billn53]

I'm off to Boston in a couple of hours for a business trip, and haven't had much time to work on my Hustler. I'm holding off on doing anything with the intake trunks until the brass tubing I ordered gets here (it should be here when I return, end of this week) so in the meantime I finished putting pointy ends on the inlet cones. I also reworked their profile to be more of an onion shape (instead of Italeri's 'cone atop a cylinder'). I then gave everything a good coat of Mr Surfacer 1500. The pic below isn't the best, but it's hard taking photos of black objects:

 

 

 

Expect no updates until after I'm back from Boston.

 

 

[Space Ranger]

7 hours ago, billn53 said:

I'm off to Boston in a couple of hours for a business trip, and haven't had much time to work on my Hustler.

 

When in Boston, be sure to get scrod.

[billn53]

I got back from my Boston trip yesterday evening and found that my 15/32 brass tubing had been delivered. So off I went to my modeling room to see if it would do the job for my intakes. I was very pleased to find that it fits nearly perfectly, with little work needed beyond what I already have done on the engine pods. Here are my intake tube assemblies ready to go:

 

 

As can be seen, I added plastic disks to the rear end of the intakes. After finding the centers of these disks, I drilled out a hole and added a short flange from styrene tubing. Recall my plan of attack:

 

 

 

During final assembly, the inlet cone, with spacer rod attached, will be slid down the intake tube and through the hole in the backing plate. The flange on the backside is not a tight fit... that way I'll be able to adjust the inlet cone to ensure it is centered and at the proper depth in the inlet. I'll be using slow set epoxy to give plenty of time for adjustments.

 

First step will be to mark the location of the engine centerline on the inside of the engine pods. Note that I've added a thin shim where the rear of the intake tube will sit. This will help center the intake tube in the engine pod:

 

 

 

Next, I'll epoxy the brass intake tube to the engine pod. I will probably add something like epoxy clay to add support and strengthen the tube in the pod

 

 

 

With the intake tubes in place, I'll glue the engine pod halves together and fill in any seams or gaps, both on the pod's exterior, and inside the intake:

 

 

 

I'll then paint the intake interior white, and glue my photo-based compressor face to the intake tube's back wall:

 

  

 

Next step will be to carefully insert the inlet cone/spacer tube assembly to the correct depth, ensuring the cone is centered and properly aligned. This will probably be the trickiest part of the process. (I will probably do a dry run before the engine pods are painted and attached to the wings, but wait until near the end of the build before final assembly.)

 

    

 

That's the plan for this weekend!