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Legendary Blackbird - Part 1: A-12 Oxcart (Italeri Conversion)


Serkan Sen

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The nose upper and lower halves were brought together and the nose cone and chine shapes were improved:

1149.jpg

1150.jpg

 

Also the V shaped hull was rounded:

1151.jpg

154a32f6-6c6c-4fa5-83a9-04e6e0ffa7a4.JPG

 

Next step is to separate the nose cone as well as fuselage lower and upper parts through marked lines:

1152.jpg

 

Note that the chine edge will stay on upper half to have sharp edge.

 

Serkan

 

Edited by Serkan Sen
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31 minutes ago, Nikolay Polyakov said:

Looks great, Serkan! :yes: Excellent work on the forward fuselage shape.

Thanks Nikolay,

I have separated the surfaces. Now I will apply primer coat to check the parts if there are any imperfections to be corrected.

Serkan

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Here is the separation line and separated halves of upper and lower surfaces:

1153.jpg

 

As you can easily see from above image the NLG bay moved back to its original position. The shift should have been done only by adding the insert (white plastic card part).

 

The parts were coated with primer to check the surface quality and curvatures:

1154.jpg

1155.jpg

 

In overall the result seems not bad. There are some areas to be improved before separating nose.

 

Serkan

 

Edited by Serkan Sen
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21 hours ago, Serkan Sen said:

Here is the separation line and separated halves of upper and lower surfaces:

1153.jpg

 

As you can easily see from above image the NLG bay moved back to its original position. The shift should have been done only by adding the insert (white plastic card part).

 

The parts were coated with primer to check the surface quality and curvatures:

1154.jpg

1155.jpg

 

In overall the result seems not bad. There are some areas to be improved before separating nose.

 

Serkan

 

This is so cool!

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Some more progress...

I have started working on tail area. Before making any butchery it is better to decide how to separate the parts. 🤔

Here are the upper halves of YF-12 and SR-71A Italeri kits;

1158.jpg

 

And the lower halves;

1159.jpg

 

I have started the surgery first by removing elevons:

1161.jpg

1162.jpg

 

Now the rear end to be removed:

1163.jpg

 

Unlike the mold separation line which goes through the wing panel grooves parallel to center line, I have decided to follow most inboard edge of the grooved area:

1165.jpg

.

1166.jpg

 

And here are the tail cone parts to be duplicated:

1164.jpg

 

The YF-12 ventral fin details were not removed from lower half. Because I need these to build my YF-12 airplane. The casted parts will be reworked and after then used as master pieces to prepare final molds.

 

Serkan

 

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1 minute ago, Andwil said:

That’s a handy looking little saw you are using.

 

AW

Yes Andy,

This is one of the etched Hasegawa fine saw blade used for making fine cuts as well as rescribing panel lines. In set there are several fine saws with various shapes/curvatures that fits any curved surface.

But they are very thin and can be bended/deformed easily.

 

Serkan

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10 hours ago, Andwil said:

Thanks Serkan, I might have to look into getting a set, not that I ever cut up kits to the level you do!

 

AW

This is the saw blade set with very fine teeth I used to separate the parts:

1aaf20284d228913dd795827aa3158de.image.3

 

I also have these razor saw blades with longer teeth and a little bit thicker but I  have not used them yet:

UA-0014.jpg

 

Serkan

 

Edited by Serkan Sen
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1 hour ago, Space Ranger said:

Would you consider selling copies of your corrected parts for those of us who wish to build more accurate models?

Let us see how the model will look like when completed. After then we can talk about the availability of the parts. I will in any case duplicate the parts for my other planned Blackbirds. Why not to make few more copies for other Blackbird fans? 😁

Serkan

 

Edited by Serkan Sen
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Some little work on tail cone upper part contour... The shape was not seemed to me very correct. Therefore I have decided to slightly modify it:

1168.jpg

 

First starboard side:

1169.jpg

 

And now both sides were modified:

1170.jpg

 

Also I have worked a bit on fuel dump port:

1171.jpg

 

The photo is a bit blurry as I take pictures with my cellular phone and it is not so easy to focus at very tiny area...

 

I know, I am a bit lazy making a proper setup to take nicer pictures... 😁

 

Serkan

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11 hours ago, billn53 said:

Looking great, Serkan!

Here are a couple “virtual tour” links to SR-71 front & rear cockpits:

http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/CW_tour/CW-30.html

http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/CW_tour/CW-31.html

Thanks for these precious links Bill!.. It will definitely help a lot when I work on cockpit area...

Serkan

Edited by Serkan Sen
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Better late than never...

 

It's a bright sunny day today so I took a couple of hours to visit our resident A-12 Oxcart and take some pics.

 

48899803547_c2980f008f_b.jpg 

 

48899071453_1ea094f076_b.jpg 

 

I've collected them into a Flickr album, which can be accessed here:

 

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmHGyMif

 

I had hoped to get some details on the camera bays, but unfortunately they seem to have been covered over with sheet metal on this museum exhibit. There are some hints to their location, these pics suggests a bay just aft of the nose gear bay doors:

 

48899069438_561ea21cf0_b.jpg 

 

48899801492_52c172098a_b.jpg 

 

There is also a circular, clear port in the nose section, which can be seen here:

 

48899067333_ec40fc2bb9_b.jpg 

 

48899015748_f5dd39d087_c.jpg 

 

I did notice a couple of other items, which I'll point out now.

 

The fuselage profile is slightly bulged on either side of the cockpit:

 

48899802727_a2177ef940_c.jpg 

 

48899799167_a0999f0c21_c.jpg 

 

 

There are a couple of vents on the underside, just forward of the elevons (?), that I was previously unaware of:

 

48899064483_3e77f0f628_c.jpg 

 

I finally got some good pics of the fuel dump. Unfortunately, this one has been plated over and appears to have a dent, but the general shape is there.

 

48899068008_94142953f9_c.jpg 

 

48899794807_f033d626cf_c.jpg 

 

Hope this helps!

 

- Bill

 

48899803577_7311f7780f_b.jpg 

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Hi Bill,

I am really appreciated to you spending your time to provide all these beautiful photos.

 

28 minutes ago, billn53 said:

I had hoped to get some details on the camera bays, but unfortunately they seem to have been covered over with sheet metal on this museum exhibit.

I think this has been done to all aircrafts that are in display.

 

30 minutes ago, billn53 said:

The fuselage profile is slightly bulged on either side of the cockpit:

Thanks for this detail. I will check if I have already such bulged profile in my modified part, if not it will be added.

 

31 minutes ago, billn53 said:

There are a couple of vents on the underside, just forward of the elevons (?), that I was previously unaware of

I have seen these vents on M-21 and A-12B photos as well which does not exist YF-12 kit.

 

33 minutes ago, billn53 said:

There is also a circular, clear port in the nose section,

I think another clear port exist on upper nose section too. But I am not sure whether they are inline.

 

35 minutes ago, billn53 said:

I finally got some good pics of the fuel dump. Unfortunately, this one has been plated over and appears to have a dent, but the general shape is there.

This is not so bad. I have found many photos on web with open fuel dump.

 

What is not yet clear to me that for the first prototype whether the inboard and outboard elevon trailing edges were inline or not.

 

Serkan

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13 minutes ago, Serkan Sen said:

I think another clear port exist on upper nose section too. But I am not sure whether they are inline.

 

This is not so bad. I have found many photos on web with open fuel dump.

 

On this A-12 there appears to be a clear port immediately forward of the canopy, which puts it pretty much in line with the lower port (see pics in my Flickr album)

 

I’d like to see the open fuel dump. Can you point me to some photos?

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This is moving along very quickly, the engineering involved is very precise indeed

A big shout out to @billn53 for those great photos, not something that the rest of us can get access to easily, I have only ever been up close and personal with SR-71's

 

Interesting in reading the data display with that aircraft saying it is painted, in a deep near black shade of blue.

first time I got up close was at Greenham Common IAT in '83 I think, looked very closely at it and discussed with others who were probably modellers as well the feasibility of there being any blue in it, and we could see no sign of then commonly referred blue, I still fail to see it, must just be me, mind you it was paired with a TR-2 that was very matt black, at that airshow, and I could see the difference between the two, but that was very matt and SR-71 was more of a metallic satin.

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