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Collect-Aire 1/48 Martin XB-51 or The Resin Paperweight


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Following along in this fabulous 50's Golden Era of Flight I'm  in, I have for your viewing pleasure, an oldie but a goodie from beautiful Baltimore, Maryland on the banks of the Patuxent River the Martin XB-51 by Collect-aire.

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And old is right. This big lump of resin manufactured back in '96. This should be interesting, The last pure resin build I did was maybe 20 years ago, an old ARBA  Bristol Blenheim Mk1. Though small it was hefty and this will be heftier.

This build may take a while depending on how much extra goodies I stuff in to its innards.Plus being old enough to vote AND drink the resin maybe too brittle to work with and I'll have to make new pieces.But we shall see, what we see,so shall we?

As always, comments suggestions and observations are heartily welcomed. As the famous General said" Forward! Into the fog and Damn the Martinis, full speed ahead." At least I think it was Martinis, He may have ment Martians but I doubt it was ours.

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The ever popular Collect-aire Highly detailed instructions  in brilliant yellow for those of us who can't see as it is and decals that will not go anywhere near anything remotely damp. those have been rescanned and I'll reprint when the time comes. Some parts will have to be redone entirely like the ARDC and AFTC logos. And no I'm NOT doing the GIlbert XF-120 . I go towards the unknown, unwillingly enough the way it is.🤔

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This model seems to be in better condition than some I have. Haven't come across any warpage or micro pits. And it's been well pack to prevent damage. Everything in its own neat little sealed bag surrounded by tissue paper.The fuselage halves come in to sections, fore and aft.butt seamed together. Ahhhh no. That would be a disaster of epic proportions. If not now, later. Because of the weight I can see the back breaking on this eventually.So, I'll grind out sections above and below the center brace and glue in thick plastic card or .020 brass plate I have for strength.

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Highlighted areas are what I will remove.

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Interior detail like any resin leaves much to be desired. More than a vac. And that leaves more room for improvement.🤨

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Now this I Will have to probably redo. The bomb rack was a rotating affair to keep wind buffing down during the drop. Very innovative, Martin later used it on the B-57 Canberra. But this piece is so far the worst. Instructions show it as 2 pieces but must have been too delicate to ship and was glued together at the factory. wished they  had cleaned it up a little before they had. But like a vac there is a lot of cutting scraping and sanding. Talk amongst yourselves while I sort this out.

 

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Just now, AdrianMF said:

A trimotor! How quaint...

 

Seriously though, without wishing to jinx it, it looks like a nice kit of an interesting type. Looking forward to this one.

 

Regards,

Adrian

Yeah ,but this ain't no Ford or Auntie Ju. Glad to have you along Adrian.

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Nice, trijets are few and far between and the XB-51 is a very nice example of early jet design. It will look great in shiny NMF.

Collect-Aire kits can be hit and miss, some are nicely designed and detailed, others are real dogs to put together. Yours seems to be one of the nicer examples. Will follow with interest.

 

Cheers

Markus

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I have always loved the XB-51! I will be watching your WIP with great interest. I think I have a vacform kit in 1/72 scale. but offhand I can't remember who did it- maybe Execuform? I know Anigrand did an all-resin 1/72 kit, but as I recall it had some fairly serious issues. It always looked like it was going Mach 1 standing still!

Mike

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14 minutes ago, hairystick said:

Is there any way you could put a nut & bolt through those areas of resin, to join the two sections of fuselage?

No need to worry about using Nuts or bolts, A modified version I used on my NB-52A(that I really do need to get back to) just stiffer to account for the heaviness of the resin.

15 minutes ago, 72modeler said:

I have always loved the XB-51! I will be watching your WIP with great interest. I think I have a vacform kit in 1/72 scale. but offhand I can't remember who did it- maybe Execuform? I know Anigrand did an all-resin 1/72 kit, but as I recall it had some fairly serious issues. It always looked like it was going Mach 1 standing still!

Mike

Welcome aboard! Execuform did a vac version long time ago. Biggest problem  was the landing gear had a tendency to collapse if the pilot didn't land with both front and  back wheels touching at the same time. It had high marks from all the test pilots including Chuck Yeager, but it finally got beat out by the B-57 because it had a better range/loiter time to bomb load.And the higher costs per unit.Both test versions eventually were lost because of pilot error due to not landing correctly.

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Starting on the cockpit, the instrument panel supplied not only small but incorrect. Toss that out and make my own., once the sides are together though almost all the detail will disappear but like anything else "it's the principle of the idea that matters."

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The next updated area is the ejection seat. Both the Pilot and the Shoran Operator's seats were ejectable, although I don't think I would give the backseater much of a chance. For a plane this size the crew area is smaller than the inside of a VW.

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After putting the cockpit floor and bulkhead together something didn't look right and after going back and studying the images that I have of the instruments the opening to the pilots station is backwards,but since the kit had moulded on instruments I made my own, then cut the panels off and rearranged them in a more logical, semi correct orientation.

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Also tidied up the floor of the back area on top and the access area.

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The underneath was sparse with detail and since it would be seen from added some plastic rod and bits to look "busier"

.

 

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Painted and installed along with some added detail to the to the sides.

The kit had a control stick like a fighter instead of a yoke. carefully cut a yoke out of plastic stock.

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Painted up the seats and added belts

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As you can see there is not much room in one of these jets.

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Next comes what will probably be the hardest part. Joining all the individual halves together.

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I did have to move the the Shoran Observer window forward and fill the original hole with Milliput

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The underneath will need a bit of work. Instead of filling the gap in the forward wheel bay I'll just completely re-do the whole lot and clean up the crew access.

The rear fuselage will need a lot of trimming before I attach the forward and rear pieces.

I was hoping to get more done by now but I pinched a nerve n my back doing yard work and have been getting things done in 30 min. spurts sitting upright followed an hour laying flat on the heating pad. It may be a day or two getting the seams all smoothed out

before proceeding further. But that's all for now, as always any comments, suggestions or critiques are always welcome.

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"Back" in the saddle again so to speak, Easier to move around and more endurance getting things done with this resin door stop. As usual resin models are not your usual slap and dash creations. Kind like a vac, just heavier. But come with the territory of a "garage kit. Although Collect-Aire is a cut above most resin models, they did have someone else produce their kits and the boxed them, so quality control is loose at best. Case in point, forward and rear fuselage halves.

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A little bit off dimensionally so i'll break out the milliput to smooth the transition from front to back. Getting it ready for joining I decided to use some spare resin blocks from the B-36 build glued in to give strength to the join

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along  with a good slathering of CA

Once the MIlliput dried I started the sanding down and smoothing process. with the end result.

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I still will use some glazing compound to sooth  the edges further.

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After that I blocked out the wheel bays More plastic rod to fill out the detail

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Something else discovered late, I only had one set of landing gear and one outrigger leg. So back to the drawing board and printed out a close enough copy, but as good as they look i may just print another set and forgo the kitgear entirely.

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I also did a flame holder can for the rear engine it was different from the two side pods as I could see from the pics I have.

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Speaking of engine pods those too will need a little tlc.

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Just a tad warped I think.

Nothing a good slathering of goo can't fix.

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And of course, more sanding, A;;ways more sanding before long I'm going to have sanding pad hands instead of dish pan hands. Note to you youngsters, dishpans are what we used before dishwashers were around.

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A little bit more and they should be done.

Also added the rear engine intake housing and smoothed it out.

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The wings also required some work, mostly from chipping on the edges of the wings where they are the thinnest and the most fragile A little bit of thin card as backing and more glazing compound to smooth it out.

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after all the sanding I went back and rescribed  all the panel lines I could find. After a primer coat I'll scribe more if need be.

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And added the tail assembly. now its starting to look like an airplane instead of a long Churchill cigar.

Tomorrow I'll finish up the wheel bays and get the wings and engine pods attached, and get ready for its first primer coat. So far knock on wood, its coming along better than I had hoped.

Hope it hasn't been too boring. As always all comments, suggestions and ideas are welcome. Stay safe guys.

 

 

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For all the issues the kit has and all the work entailed to get the build to this stage, the results are marvelous. Note: I am the dishwasher in my house and know what a dishpan is and dishpan hands as well. It's quicker to wash dishes by hand than it is to run the electric dishwasher. My two cents worth. We return now to your build.  🔙

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25 minutes ago, SAT69 said:

For all the issues the kit has and all the work entailed to get the build to this stage, the results are marvelous. Note: I am the dishwasher in my house and know what a dishpan is and dishpan hands as well. It's quicker to wash dishes by hand than it is to run the electric dishwasher. My two cents worth. We return now to your build.  🔙

And uses a lot less water.🤔

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In between thunderstorms and power outages I have made a little bit of progress,.I have the front and rear gear bays pretty much done with the exception of electrical and hydraulic lines I'll add those once the exterior painting is done and before adding the main gear.

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The crew access will also have to be tidied up.

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Next I added the engine pods and wings, filled in all the little gaps and a few micro pits. then added the first primer coat to check for things I missed and ensure I got all the panel lines rescribed. before adding the black base coat I'll sand it all with increasing finer grit emery paper. 3000 grit should be fine enough. A lot of builder will go as fine as 12000ngrit, but I've never needed to go that smooth as the base paint self levels and looks like glass afterwards. The hard part is the dust and pollen in the air right now.

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16 minutes ago, Mike said:

This is just plane (geddit?) weird.  I like it. ^_^

You think this is plane weird Mike, I noticed a similarity to to an earlier type...

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hmmm.. I do have an old 1/48 HE-177 in the stash.... some cutting and splicing here and there, and Ohhhh Lookie....

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Rats! Thanks to the Martian and his" lets a build a vac... it's easy! "thread This nefaroius and totally whacked out mind of mine sees a Vac/Conversion/Scratch build in the near future...

 

If I dood it,I'll get a whippin'.  I dood it:banghead:

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