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Thar She Blows... The Great Blue Whale XA3D-1


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Time to start the New Year off with a fresh project, although helping my youngest daughter remodel her house is taking it's toll on the ol' modeling time...

 

This is the first Blue Whale:

 

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Anyway, this will be a build of the 1/72 Hasegawa A-3B Skywarrior kit into a model of the very first Blue Whale, the XA3D-1.  The Hasegawa kit:

 

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will be paired with the Obscureco Skywarrior cockpit set (the A-3A being as close as I could get for the cockpit of the XA3D-1), shown above right. There are some pieces in this kit that are excess to requirement as they are for other "Version" of the A-3, and they are not shown in the above photo.

 

Also used will be the Muroc Model XA3D-1 conversion set:

 

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This conversion set has the correct "slanted" intakes, which only appear on the #1 ship, BN 125412.  The #2 ship, BN 125413, as well as all subsequent variants, have "vertical" intakes.  This kit also gives you a resin "master" for the cockpit, which allows you to vacuform another, should the need arise, as this canopy is different from later variants.  There is also a rear gun turret, although the guns and it's controls were not installed on the first prototype.  The is also a new nose and pod for the top of the vertical stabilizer.

 

Sadly, I just found out the the Hasegawa kit does not have the correct wheels for the prototype or bomber versions, but instead has the wheels for the other "Versions" that followed later on.  I have order a Reskit conversion for the wheels, and a comparison will be shown for the edification of fellow modelers, in due time.

 

I'll begin with a seemingly simple task, installation of the front wheel well that is included with the Obscureco kit.  In the second picture of this article, I failed to notice that the wheel well was stuck to the cockpit floor, but I can assure you, it does not go there!

 

Below, it is shown glued to the right fuselage half with just a couple of drops of CA:

 

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Picture two, just above shows the fuselage halves being pressed together, to assure that the wheel well sits straight up and down, before properly gluing into place with more CA on the right side.  The third picture above, shows the addition of other glue,  a thicker, sticky glue, in case the CA ever fails.  You may ask me HOW I KNOW THIS.  Let me just say, that once a wheel well (or even a cockpit) comes loose after the fuselage is closed up, it will make you feel greatly discomfited!  Before anyone posts that they've never had this failure ... yada, yada  -- give yourself another 40 or 50 years of modeling without taking this precaution, THEN we'll discuss it!

 

Please note that this mostly only occurs when bonding resin to resin, or resin to plastic  NOT plastic-to-plastic, but, you never know with CA.  For plastics, I like to melt the dickens out of it with Weldon #3, and rarely use CA to assemble plastic.

 

Next order of business is to install the various components of the Obscureco cockpit, show in the following two pictures:

 

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There are a few things to note here.  Because of my inability to find even a single photo of the major areas of the XA3D-1's cockpit, I am a little unsure of the pieces glued on, and marked with the two arrows.  The upper arrow points to an equipment support bracket that Obscureco tells you where to put, but not how to orient.  The lower arrow is sort of an equipment shelf (selected for the A-3A version  -- again, as close as I can get to the XA3D-1).  Lastly, the "G" marking shows the area where gun controls would normally be installed on a version with the tail turret, were the guns and controls mounted.

 

Next, a view of the cockpit from the rear:

 

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In the above photo, the arrow points to the A-3A Bombardier/Navigator station selection from the Obscureco kit.  Again, stations for other variants are provided in the kit.

 

Anyway, because of my lack of photos, if anyone out there can chip in with knowledgeable placement on these pieces, or on correct cockpit colors for this version, I'd be grateful.  In the absence of further guidance, I'll probably choose the usual black-over-Interior Green selection, although it could be black over black as well.  While the later variants come in a variety of colors, the fact that this prototype was built more or less around 1950, before the gray interiors became mandated, give one pause to think.  If you KNOW, please help!

 

Well, at least it's a beginning.  More soon, I hope!

 

Ed

 

 

 

Edited by TheRealMrEd
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Hello again!

 

While the cockpit is deciding how it's going to be painted, I moved on to other aspects of the build.  First off, preparing the fuselage for it's resin appendages:

 

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In the above photo, arrows point to the cut lines that have to be done.  My technique is to first scribe the lines several times, using a scriber tool (or needle) and either (or both) a steel ruler or some Dymo tape (the red strip).  The lines are then sawn with the smallest kerf razor saw in the box, as the scribed line helps guide the saw.  I've found that most times, using this approach, the parts all fit better.  The bottom fuselage half is shown with all the surgery having been performed.

 

Next up, the slats.  The XA3D-1 prototype has no slats inboard of the engines. Therefore, the scribed lines must be filled in, on both the top and bottom front edges of the wings.  I filled the gap with thin CA, and will later sand them flush:

 

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Next, the remaining outboard slat lines must be deepened , for their later removal.  The edge lines ("A" and "B"), from the front of the wing to the back edge of the slat, are completely  are sawn through, while the rear line of the slat is merely scribed quite deeply -- on the top wing only.  On the bottom wing, the entire slat is removed:

 

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Stop scribing the rear slat lines, when the pressure starts to show through on the inside of the upper wing:

 

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The final cut on this line will be made at a later stage.  Next, the cut-off lower slat segment will be glued to the slat segment of the upper wing, on both sides:

 

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I have found it easier to do this, than to glue together and sand the separated parts by themselves.  

 

When dry, the slat assemblies can be separated from the upper wing halves with a sharp razor knife:

 

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Finally, the upper and lower wing halves (sans slats) are glued together.

 

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While the general consensus is that the wings and slats were always dropped together, the first photo in this build shows the aircraft parked with only the slats dropped, but not the flaps.  Since this saves me a ton of work, that's the route I'll take.  Also, this link over at Tailhook Topics  HERE, discusses the slats.  Apparently, on the early model of the A-3, they worked sort of like the F-86, that is gravity and airspeed operated, but could also be blown forward with an air system, but I'm not certain whether this was only on later wings.

 

Speaking of later wings, Lone Star Models makes a set of slats and flaps for the A-3, but only for the later versions' Cambered Leading Edge (CLE) type slats.  For my purposes, the A-3B kit I'm using features the un-cambered kind.  Since this is the only A-3 kit I have, I don't know if the pertains to all the Hasegawa kits or not.


Well, gotta go, so see you later!

 

Ed

 

 

 

 

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Thanks, alt-92, I think I have that lying about somewhere...

 

Hi all, back again for another short update.

 

Next, a short length of sprue is glued to the inside of the wing on either side, to prevent the top and bottom of the wing from squishing together, top-to-bottom:

 

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Above right, two pieces of .005" plastic card (or the thinnest you have) are cut out to match the slat cut-out in the upper wing.  Had I been smart, I would have traced this pattern before gluing the wing top and bottoms together, but I wasn't!

 

Next, these pieces are glued to the front and rear slat edges "B" and "A" with liquid glue:

 

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Above right, I took a lot of care to assure that the new plastic piece was glued about 1/4 of the way down on the wing's cutout (arrow), to create a pocket for the slat to fit into.  I needn't have bothered, because almost as soon as I did this, I found out that the trailing edge of the slat is just very thin, and lays nicely atop the wing surface when retracted, not in a pocket!  So, I had to sand the wing a bit to reduce the step.

 

Eventually, any overhang of the added plastic piece is removed with a sharp knife, to follow the original wing leading edge:

 

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Not shown here, the trailing edges of the slats themselves should be thinned as much as you can manage.  Some build I ran across a while back even suggested making the slats out of thin freezer package aluminum, formed over the plastic slats, to replicate the thin trailing edge...

 

Here, I've glued the slats to the wings in their deployed positions.   The slat rails are barely seen on the real aircraft, showing as only small square right behind the flap trailing edge, and not extending all the way back to the wing proper.  If I can find a good photo of this, I may try adding some bits; otherwise probably not.

 

Well, that's all for this time,

 

Later, Dudes!

 

Ed

 

 

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For what it's worth, I doubt that the XA3D's bombardier position included the hardware associated with the production radar and visual bombing system. I don't know what was there; the most likely involve flight test instrumentation and data recording (think orange bits, the traditional color of flight test stuff)

Edited by Tailspin Turtle
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I have the same parts to do the same thing. Only difference is I have the Wolfpack folded wings. I decided on the folded wings to save some space, unfortunately I don't have a folded vertical fin. I guess that's not to hard to do. The folded wings have the slats outside of the engines separate and dropped, the outer ones are in the up position. I'll follow this one for sure.

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Tailspin,

 

You are most likely correct,  there was probably some test instrumentation here and, but lacking photos, I don't know where.  I used the Obscureco parts for the A-3A variant, figuring that's about as close as I can get....

 

BTW, I have read all your bits on the A-3, and found them very informative.  I certainly appreciate any input on this, as I did on my P2V-3 Neptune build, which could not have been as accurate as it was, without your valued input.  Thanks!!

 

Ed

Edited by TheRealMrEd
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Are the wheels your getting from Reskit RS 72-0169? if so I just ordered one set for a B-66, should have ordered two sets, oh well. Do you know what years they would have changed the wheels? Wonder if the B-66 shared them and changed at the same time.

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It wasn't so much that they changed the wheels in a given year for the A-3 -- they changed it for apparently every other type than the bomber versions....

 

I changed out these wheels because the kit wheels were of the non-bomber type, and I needed the bomber type.

 

The B-66 wheels in my 1/72 Italieri B-66's seem to have the correct B-66 wheels, just not as detailed as the Reskit ones, if you are a detail geek...

 

Ed

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8 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

This is an interesting conversion. The prototype looks really shark-like compared to the production one. Love the attention to detail going on here!

 

Regards,

Adrian

Went from baby shark to daddy whale. Do de do do...

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11 hours ago, TheRealMrEd said:

It wasn't so much that they changed the wheels in a given year for the A-3 -- they changed it for apparently every other type than the bomber versions....

 

I changed out these wheels because the kit wheels were of the non-bomber type, and I needed the bomber type.

 

The B-66 wheels in my 1/72 Italieri B-66's seem to have the correct B-66 wheels, just not as detailed as the Reskit ones, if you are a detail geek...

 

Ed

I may have to get or make a second set. Have to compare them.

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Great to see this from you Mr Ed, love the Skywarrior in all its forms from the XA3D-1 to the last EA / ERA-3Bs.

Love your work and illustrative style, so makes the prototype conversion even better!

 

I found the Hasegawa kit one of their best ever for fit and subtle detail, it's simple and provides a good canvass for extra work.

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  • 3 months later...

Well, hello again!

 

After a long hiatus due to remodeling various kid's houses and generally hiding out, I'm finally able to continue with this build!

 

Actually, I've been sneaking in small bits of work here and there, but just haven't had time to process the photos and write the needed info here.  I'll try now to get caught up a bit.

 

The next step is gluing on the wing slats:

 

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which gets this part of the wing ready to go.  Next up, the engine nacelles.

 

The Muroc Models parts are CA'ed together, and will require a slight bit of filling, for pinholes and the like:

 

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The fit is not too bad, and will only require a little Perfect Plastic Putty, where the nacelles join the wings.  I glued the nacelles to the wing with CA glue, and when dry, used a tiny rat-tail file to clean up some of the joins, then a coat of Alclad II Grey primer, followed by the afore-mentioned PPP, smoothed with a wet Q-tip, results in this:

 

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When doing twin-engine (and most multi-engine) aircraft, I find it difficult to fill the lower wing to fuselage join, and well as the inner nacelle to wing join, so it has become my custom to paint these items before assembly, and to touch up where needed afterward.

 

The next photos show the results of a lot of work that I did not photograph:

 

1) White primer where the red goes on the front of the nacelles, followed by a coat of Insignia Red atop the white primer.

 

2) This was masked off, then then whole of both nacelles were airbrushed with MM 15042 Gloss Navy Blue overall.  The gloss Navy Blue will provide as good an undercoat for the Alclad II metallics to follow later, on the rear end of the nacelles, as  the usual Gloss Black.

 

3) After several days of drying, everything but the bare-metal parts on the rear of the nacelles was masked off with Parafilm M, and the Alclad II Polished Aluminum was added.

 

4) When dry, the red and bare-metal areas were re-masked with Parafilm M, and the nacelles were glued to the wings with CA.  After drying, everything on the wing was airbrushed the Gloss Navy Blue:

 

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Well, that's all for now. Back soon with more.

 

Hope all of you out the are alive, kicking and doing well!

 

Ed

Edited by TheRealMrEd
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Hello again. This time, back to the fuselage.

 

The resin cockpit and nose gear well are glued to one side of the fuselage with CA, then a layer of a sort of flexible CA as a backup, in this case Go 2 Glue by Loctite.  This helps assure that the parts don't come adrift in case I drop the fuselage, etc. --  which I have been known to do!

 

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Next, the cockpit (before installing) was done up with that sort of dark green mystery color that we all keep wandering about, along with black colored upper consoles,etc.  The black seats were added after the fuse halves were assembled.  Also shown below are the vacuformed canopy (trimmed to fit), and the resin master which Muroc thoughtfully provides in case you have to vacuform another copy:

 

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The canopy is a different shape from the production models, and is shown above right, after being installed with G - S watch cement, which can be smoothed with 91% alcohol when dry.

 

Next, the fuse only required a small bit of filling at the lower rear, while the drop-down air diverter in front of  the bomb bay on production models must be filled in (A below):

 

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The nose, tailfin cap and rear turret have been added and faired in.  Note that on the prototype, no guns were carried. Next up, the entire fuselage is painted Gloss Navy Blue, after the entire canopy was masked with Parafilm "M":

 

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Above the model is shown after the flat black areas (nose, front anti-glare panel and rear of tail cap) have been masked off and painted.

 

Below, the black areas are now masked off, and the wings are glued to the fuselage prior to final checks and final painting:

 

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Note that the wing to fuselage joint fits very well, something that I had checked before painting anything!

 

Well, that's it for this time.  See y'all later!

 

Ed

 

 

 

 

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I don't know if would help any but I have the Ginter A3D SKywarrior part 1. It has the cockpit` layout of the A3A/B. Unfortunately not in color.

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We'll try another round on this puppy...

 

First up, all the masking is now removed:

 

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A couple more views of the cockpit.  The windows will be cleaned with G00-Gone after all the final masking/painting is done:

 

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One of the biggest problems with this build is that for the life of me, I could not locate and overhead view or drawing of the glass area of the XA3D-1.  Muroc gives you decals to outline the windows, but not any pics or drawings of EXACTLY how and where they fit.  In addition, my vacuformed canopy doesn't clearly show clearly the outlines of the windows.  So, I solved my problem by scanning the decal sheet, and printing out the needed window surrounds on plain paper:

 

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For me, this photo prints at actual size. Your mileage may vary.  Next, I put some kubuki tape sticky side down on a piece of plastic, then added some thin two-sided tape atop that, then placed the printer paper outlines atop that, right side up:

 

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Upper right photos: with a new #11 blade, I carefully cut around the outlines, taking two or three shallow passes to try to get as clean a cut as possible.  At first, I left the paper atop the masking tape masks, but eventually, I separated the two-sided tape and paper from the masking tape and just used the masks, to make conforming to the curves easier.  All the little green spots are touch-ups with Micro Mask to clean up the corners, etc. where needed.  Punched tiny disc of tape would have worked, but I am lazy...

 

Below, the front view.  If any of you ever build this model, these views will be most helpful!

 

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Looks like I also need some cleanup behind the cockpit so I'll add some PPP before masking the black anti-glare once again and shooting the final Gloss Blue.

 

That's all for now.  Please have a solemn, but happy Memorial Day and remember those who have paid for our freedoms.

 

Ed

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On 5/21/2020 at 10:07 AM, TheRealMrEd said:

Well, hello again!

 

After a long hiatus due to remodeling various kid's houses and generally hiding out, I'm finally able to continue with this build!

 

Actually, I've been sneaking in small bits of work here and there, but just haven't had time to process the photos and write the needed info here.  I'll try now to get caught up a bit.

 

The next step is gluing on the wing slats:

 

spacer.png

 

which gets this part of the wing ready to go.  Next up, the engine nacelles.

 

The Muroc Models parts are CA'ed together, and will require a slight bit of filling, for pinholes and the like:

 

spacer.pngspacer.pngspacer.png

 

The fit is not too bad, and will only require a little Perfect Plastic Putty, where the nacelles join the wings.  I glued the nacelles to the wing with CA glue, and when dry, used a tiny rat-tail file to clean up some of the joins, then a coat of Alclad II Grey primer, followed by the afore-mentioned PPP, smoothed with a wet Q-tip, results in this:

 

spacer.png

 

When doing twin-engine (and most multi-engine) aircraft, I find it difficult to fill the lower wing to fuselage join, and well as the inner nacelle to wing join, so it has become my custom to paint these items before assembly, and to touch up where needed afterward.

 

The next photos show the results of a lot of work that I did not photograph:

 

1) White primer where the red goes on the front of the nacelles, followed by a coat of Insignia Red atop the white primer.

 

2) This was masked off, then then whole of both nacelles were airbrushed with MM 15042 Gloss Navy Blue overall.  The gloss Navy Blue will provide as good an undercoat for the Alclad II metallics to follow later, on the rear end of the nacelles, as  the usual Gloss Black.

 

3) After several days of drying, everything but the bare-metal parts on the rear of the nacelles was masked off with Parafilm M, and the Alclad II Polished Aluminum was added.

 

4) When dry, the red and bare-metal areas were re-masked with Parafilm M, and the nacelles were glued to the wings with CA.  After drying, everything on the wing was airbrushed the Gloss Navy Blue:

 

spacer.pngspacer.png

 

Well, that's all for now. Back soon with more.

 

Hope all of you out the are alive, kicking and doing well!

 

Ed

 

I like the work you have done on this kit. Attaching the the engine/pylon to the wing prior to attaching the wing assembly to the fuselage was an astute move on your part. I have almost finished the Hasegawa EKA-3B and I elected to attach the engine/pylon after the wing is attached to the fuselage and the model including the engine/pylon assembly has been painted. The fit of the wing assembly to the fuselage is excellent on this kit and I wish now I had done your way. The fit of the engine/pylon to the under wing is also good however the fit of the pylon to the leading edge of the wing requires some work which would have been better done prior to paining.

 

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Don't be hard on yourself Billy54.  I worked on that area before paint, after painting, and now again, before final (I hope) painting!

 

Ed

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Back again.  After some more masking and painting, here she is.  The cockpit glass area worked out okay:

 

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After all the paint dries for a day or two, it'll be time for decal-ling. (The spelling editor insisted upon this word -- looks odd to me...)

 

And on another subject, the difference between the kits "version"  wheels, and the Reskit "bomber" wheels:

 

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The kit's "version" wheels stick out further at the hub, and appear to be a little more heavy duty.

 

Anyway, more later.

 

Ed

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