Building Italeri's Ancient Hustler

[warreni]

Hello everyone.

 

While waiting for items for my latest ship build I have started building some of my older kits that have been in the stash for 20+ years and some others from manufacturers I have not built kits from before.

I started the Italeri 1/72 SM-82 Canguro, Roden 1/48 PC-6 Turboporter and the Valom 1/72 Albemarle last weekend. All are now up to paint stage and I am now waiting for masks for them all, especially the intricate Albemarle. Yep, three kits in one week, mainly because I had it off as I got a virus and didn't want to go to work and spread it around.

 

I went to the shed this stash facility this afternoon and picked three more kits, Tamiya's 1/48 Shinden, Trumpeter's 1/72 Tu-16 and the Italeri 1/72 B-58 Hustler, the subject of this blog. I have had this kit since just after it was released and it has followed me all over Australia moving either with the RAAF or my work post-RAAF. I thought it would be interesting to see how bad the fit was etc like many people seem to think on some other sites I inhabit. Let me state categorically they are wrong. The fit of this ancient kit is excellent and will need very little filler, if any , to finish.

I started at about 2pm and all the wings, engines etc are all built and the fuselage buttoned up by 4.30pm! Woohoo! A quick build is a good build.

The box top..

 

Contents.

 

 

I found one moulding fault in one of the instrument pedestals in one of the drew areas..

 

 

Not too worried as there are only four tiny windows which you wont even be able to see through for this area. Another problem I found was with the original decals..

 

 

Oh well. And some weird patterns on other parts of the sheet, . Think they came off the instructions at some time..

 

 

Here are all the subassemblies waiting for their time to shine when they get attached to the fuselage..

 

 

And I took a photo after I buttoned up the fuselage..

 

 

Just one or two clamps. But again fit is marvellous.

 

That;s it for now. Might even finish it this week.. 

Cheers
Warren

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

That;s it for now. Might even finish it this week..  

 

Famous last words Warren! Good luck!

[Retired Bob]

Hi Warren

Same for me, loved the look of this aircraft and bought four, yes 4 when it came out in the 80s (Microscale decal sheet with 4 x options)  They and several hundred other kits followed me around the UK and Germany during my RAF career, anyway enough about that.  Eduard have just bought out several etched sets for this model and @billn53 did a superb build of this kit not long ago, if I was not up to my eyeballs in half built kits I would be dusting off one of mine to start.  Good modelling, hope it goes well.

[billn53]

2 hours ago, warreni said:

I started at about 2pm and all the wings, engines etc are all built and the fuselage buttoned up by 4.30pm! ...Might even finish it this week

Ha ha! Took me three months to finish mine. But, I’m a slow builder 🤓

[warreni]

Cleaned up all the join seams last night and glued on the wings. There are the usual gaps and I am not sure what I will use to fill these gaps. I have all the usual stuff and I will be applying it this afternoon and leaving it to dry overnight.

 

I think Tamiya white putty will be my first filler.. but smaller gaps will be filled with CA or Mr Surfacer 500.

[warreni]

The wings, crew covers, rear gun and radome are on and the big bomb carrier/drop-tank in assembled.

 

 

 

 

 

The gap between the wing and the fuselage took a few applications of filler etc but I am happy that it has disappeared enough. 

Cheers
Warren

[warreni]

Another day another few hours of modelling joy!

The Hustler got its canopy attached this morning ..

 

 

.. and after letting it dry and applying some Maskol over the clear bits I found I had some Mr Hobby 218 Laquer left over from a previous project. 218 is Aluminium and looks the part on the Hustler..

 

 

Will wait for at least 24 hours before I mask up for the darker metallic colour on the engine pods etc.

Cheers
Warren

[warreni]

Let's see now.. three disasters and three recoveries sort of describes my Father's Day weekend..

First I sprayed the PC-6 I am also building and it came out really crappy with the first coat. Then I dropped it from a small height and it broke off part of the undercarriage and two aerials. I reglued the undercarriage but am leaving the aerials off until I have finished painting the foliage green, which I just did and it looks great now I have the paint mixture ratio good.

Then, and a bit worse, you know that nice NMF I got on the Hustler, well it has been removed. 

I had not used that paint for a long time and after I masked it up and painted the darker silver on the engines etc. this is what happened..

 

 

 

Yes, the top layers of the paint seemed to lift off. Great eh! So I removed all the NMF and have to start over. It was buffing paint but I forgot that it lifted off when you removed the masking tape.

 

 |:(   |:(

[billn53]

Sorry to hear about your paint problem, but that is part of the territory in this hobby. I had to completely strip my Hustler two times when I was building it. 

[warreni]

Hi All.

Well the Hustler is finally finished. Not the best kit I have ever built but at least I now have a B-58 in my collection. Got the silver on then sprayed Gloss clear with self=leveling thinner but it came out very crappy. Oh well, will know for next NMF bird..

 

 

Now its back to the Rodney..

 

Cheers..

Warren

Edited October 7, 2019 by warreni