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Italeri B-57 Canberra


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Well I've been racking my tiny little brain for quite some time as to which kit to build for this GB as there were quite a few that came to mind that I used to build a lot of such as the Airfix Dornier Do-217 or Heinkel He-111, or pretty much  the entire Matchbox catalogue. But then I had a thought (yes I know that's a rare occurrence before any of you comment) the age limit on this goes up to 18 and the kit needs to be a memorable one, now like a lot of you I left school at 16 (I know it would have been earlier for some of you old buggers) and started work and with my first weeks wage packet I indulged my hobby.

 

At the time I was fascinated by the Vietnam War and the aircraft that took part in it and had worked my way through the kits available from Airfix such as the Phantom, Skyhawk, AC-47 and E.E. Canberra and wanted some of the other types not covered by their range. It was at that point that the local CO-OP started to stock Italeri kits which had some of the aircraft in their range that I had been reading about. Now my Dad had decided that I was too old for models after the age of 13 so my kits had had to come as presents from relatives or bought with cash for birthdays or Christmas but when I got my first wages I could buy what I wanted, so I did! I came away from the CO-OP with three Italeri Vietnam era classics; the AC-119, B-66 and the B-57, and no my Dad was NOT happy, never mind eh! :) 

 

I have all of these in the stash today (not the same ones I bought in 1987) and have decided to build the B-57 as it was the first of the kits I built from my new stash. Obviously back then I built it in the Vietnam camouflaged markings that came with the kit but this time around I am going to do it as something different, as either a B-57B or B-57E used for testing at Edwards AFB, the decision is yet to be made.

 

Here are the usual box top and contents shots and also a couple of additions that I might use during the build;

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The new boxings excellent decal sheet;

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And the extras that I might use;

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Thats the introduction over so as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

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Wonderful Story Craig, Hopefully your Dad approves by now 👍

And what a choice! Super exciting and you always find the coolest scheme choices With each build. Let’s see the resin when you get chance.


My this is turning out already to be stock full of exciting builds.

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Dansk said:

Wonderful Story Craig, Hopefully your Dad approves by now 👍

And what a choice! Super exciting and you always find the coolest scheme choices With each build. Let’s see the resin when you get chance.


My this is turning out already to be stock full of exciting builds.

 

 

Thanks Paul, I'm hoping it will be a cool scheme as it will be either NMF with Dayglo bands or the same scheme but with insignia red on all the upper surfaces too.

I will show you the resin in the boxes at the next update.

And my Dad has now moved on to "reluctant acceptance", a step in the right direction!

19 minutes ago, Hewy said:

Nice choice, craig , it'll still turn out a big un even in 72nd

Cheers Glynn, yes she is still quite big in 1/72, but a lot easier to store than 1/48!

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Italieri were quite exotic back in my day. Not the usual fare of Airfix, Matchbox and Revell that I was used to. I always wanted to build their He 111 as it had the "correct" upper gunners glazing compared to the Airfix equivalent. 

 

Good choice Craig 👍

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17 minutes ago, GREG DESTEC said:

Italieri were quite exotic back in my day. Not the usual fare of Airfix, Matchbox and Revell that I was used to. I always wanted to build their He 111 as it had the "correct" upper gunners glazing compared to the Airfix equivalent. 

 

Good choice Craig 👍

Thanks Greg, yes Italeri did produce some aircraft that nobody else went anywhere near and they went together nicely. In fact a lot of their choices either still haven't been revisited or are only recently being re-tooled.

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Great choice Craig,I can't remember when I first came across Italeri kit's I would think not until the early eighties when returning to the hobby after a 

couple of year's away but this kit I  did build in I think an all black scheme back then.

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1 hour ago, stevej60 said:

Great choice Craig,I can't remember when I first came across Italeri kit's I would think not until the early eighties when returning to the hobby after a 

couple of year's away but this kit I  did build in I think an all black scheme back then.

Cheers Steve, I remember building another one in the all black scheme, it was the first time I used a rattle can for the paint which worked a lot better than if I had tried to paint it with a brush.

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13 hours ago, modelling minion said:

Thanks Greg, yes Italeri did produce some aircraft that nobody else went anywhere near and they went together nicely. In fact a lot of their choices either still haven't been revisited or are only recently being re-tooled.

Yes, I have said He 111 in the stash, and am building their Ju 52 at the moment, which has been a bit of a bear to build! It definitely needs to be redone. 

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This is a really nice kit. I had this and the Airfix version on my shelf together in the mid-1980s and this one definitely had more finesse. 

It's a pity that Italeri never reverse engineered it into the English Electric versions. 

John 

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Thanks John, yes this is a nice kit and I agree that it is a shame that Italeri didn't make the British Canberra versions from it.

 

I've made a start and been busy most of the day on her but she doesn't look much different from when I unpacked her. Being of a certain vintage the kit comes with raised panel lines, now I can live with fine raised lines (I'm building a Monogram AV-8B which has them) but these stuck out a mile which is even worse in 1/72 scale so I made the decision to re-scribe the kit and remove all the raised details, in keeping with the kid part of the GB I did a fair amount of it al fresco (once it had warmed up a bit) which saved in having to clean up the mess from all the sanding, happy days! This is what it looks like now;

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A little bit of tidying up and all should be good.

 

Now as I eluded to in the opening post I have got a couple of resin extras to help but I didn't show what was inside the boxes so here are some pics of the cockpit set;

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Looks quite good to me. And here is the target tug conversion set;

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I have yet to unpack this as I am not 100% sure I will use it yet, the instructions for it are a bit basic consisting of a couple of pictures of B-57 target tugs pulled from the internet, and they are not even close ups of the equipment, we shall see.

 

Thats it for today folks thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

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Just now, Dansk said:

Great stuff craig. Those instructions sound hysterical.

Don’t you just love a big fat canberra wing?

Cheers Paul, yes the "instructions" are far from concise but I think I will be doing one with the target tug equipment fitted as I have a picture of a very colourful one in use at Edwards AFB. 

And yes I do love the big fat Canberra wing!

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23 hours ago, modelling minion said:

Cheers Paul, yes the "instructions" are far from concise but I think I will be doing one with the target tug equipment fitted as I have a picture of a very colourful one in use at Edwards AFB. 

And yes I do love the big fat Canberra wing!

I’d love to see the reference shots you’re aiming to recreate

 

edit: any progress today craig?
 

Edited by Dansk
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High Craig,

 

Looks like a nice kit. Over the years I have had a few Canberra's - Frog and Matchbox long scrapped, Airfix PR9 which I really must build some day, and a couple of years back I bought the Italeri B-57G with the knobbly nose. I would imagine it is related to your kit  as it comes with the same nose which has to be cut off and replaced, so I will be watching with interest for any tips. The resin cockpit should help with the ballast, not that there is any shortage of room up front unlike some kits.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

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18 hours ago, Dansk said:

I’d love to see the reference shots you’re aiming to recreate

 

edit: any progress today craig?
 

Hi Paul, no real progress to report, I have glued the wings together and added some filler where needed but nothing really photo worthy.

 

The only picture I have seen is a rather small one of the aircraft in a book I have on aircraft at Edwards AFB from 57 to 66, I'll see if I can take a pic and post it for you soon.

18 hours ago, MarkSH said:

great start Craig, good work with the re-scribing.

Mark.

Thanks Mark, not my strongest skill but having big solid lines to use as a guide helped!

8 hours ago, Hewy said:

A smashing start there craig, the resin bits look nice, and the scribing pal

Cheers Glynn, hopefully the cockpit will get a coat of grey soon then I can start detail painting it.

24 minutes ago, PeterB said:

High Craig,

 

Looks like a nice kit. Over the years I have had a few Canberra's - Frog and Matchbox long scrapped, Airfix PR9 which I really must build some day, and a couple of years back I bought the Italeri B-57G with the knobbly nose. I would imagine it is related to your kit  as it comes with the same nose which has to be cut off and replaced, so I will be watching with interest for any tips. The resin cockpit should help with the ballast, not that there is any shortage of room up front unlike some kits.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Thanks Pete, yes your B-57G kit is based on this one and just has the different nose and a few other bits to be added. I hope the cockpit does help with the ballast but like you say there is plenty of room for additional weight.

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On 4/26/2020 at 9:25 PM, Dansk said:

I’d love to see the reference shots you’re aiming to recreate

And here you go Paul, this is the picture I'm using;

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Now first off this is not my picture, I have taken a photo of the one in my Edwards AFB book so I have no rights over it.

The fact that it is a photo of a small picture in a book explains the poor quality of it but you get the idea of what I am doing. The author of the book (who took the picture) says the aircraft had aluminium upper wings and red upper fuselage which is different to most of these tugs as they have red on the upper surfaces of the wings and tailplanes too.

So there you have it, this is the one I am going to build.

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Time for a proper update, with pictures and everything!

As I mentioned earlier i have been working on the wings and have now finished them, nothing particularly tricky with them just a matter of adding a couple of panels at the front where the wing armament would be, an intake under each engine and the nav lights at the wing tips all of which have fixed, filled and polished up so I now have a pair of wings which look like this;

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The next job has been painting up the replacement cockpit and it's various components which has also been done, I have to say that the detail on the cockpit parts really is very good but the fact that it comes as one piece makes painting the side consoles a bit tricky. Don't get me wrong it is not impossible by any means and makes for a nice solid cockpit but it is just a little tricky to paint and to photograph, anyway here are the pics of the cockpit and it's parts;

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The tub has now been added to the port fuselage half and it just needed a small piece of scrap sprue to get it sitting at the right angle but other than that the fit is very good indeed and is just a straight swap for the kit part. The control column is also the kit part which fits very neatly into a small receptacle for it on the tub floor with again no modification needed at all, so top marks to Blackbird Models for their cockpit design. Here are a couple of pics of the cockpit fixed in place;

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I have to figure out how to get the front instrument panel in but even the kit instructions have you fit that after joining the fuselage halves together so I will have a look and see which way is best, and I will need to add a good amount of nose weight to this one too especially as I have extra resin bits to fit to the rear of the fuselage later, when I can figure out where they go that is!

 

So thats it for today folks so thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

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Excellent choice Craig and a kit that I’ve not that long added to my stash (along with the RB-66) having wanting them since their late 80’s release... isn’t it great when you start to earn money! 
 

Looks like you’ve made a nice start here and as far as panel lines go, you probably won’t find a cleaner airframe than the Canberra, so don’t overdo the scribing as they’re normally smoother than a baby’s.. you know what! 
 

Cheers and best of luck.. Dave 

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4 minutes ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Excellent choice Craig and a kit that I’ve not that long added to my stash (along with the RB-66) having wanting them since their late 80’s release... isn’t it great when you start to earn money! 
 

Looks like you’ve made a nice start here and as far as panel lines go, you probably won’t find a cleaner airframe than the Canberra, so don’t overdo the scribing as they’re normally smoother than a baby’s.. you know what! 
 

Cheers and best of luck.. Dave 

Cheers Dave,

 

Funnily enough this build was a toss up between this and the RB-66.

 

To be fair I think I have overdone the scribing in some places and think that when I build another I will just remove all the raised details and have a smooth surface.

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