+++ FINISHED! +++ B-1 Excalibur (Academy 1/260)

[jrlx]

Hello,

 

This is my build log of the Academy 1/260 B-1. It's called "Excalibur" in the box, though I couldn't find any reliable evidence about the use of this name for the aircraft.

 

Anyway, it's a very simple and already a bit old kit. According to Scalemates, it's an 1990s Academy rebox of 1980s kit by Sunny:

https://www.scalemates.com/products/product.php?id=107369&p=timeline

 

I decided to build it in parallel with my build of Zvezda's A-90 Ekranoplane when I was approaching the painting phase of the latter build. I thought the B-1 wouldn't cause significant delays to the build of the Ekranoplane and could serve as a parallel testbed for the "black base" technique.

 

Here's the box and contents:

IMAG6665

 

The instructions are just this sheet:

IMAG6666

 

First built: the stand:

IMAG6667

 

Fuselage parts, engine parts and one wing off the sprues and cleaned:

IMAG6668

 

It is evident that the air-intakes must be blanked, otherwise the empty insides of the engines will be visible:

IMAG6669

 

Blanked with pieces of plasticard:

IMAG6672

 

Blanking was also needed for the side openings on the fuselage for the variable-geometry wings:

IMAG6673

 

The wings were glued to the top fuselage part in a fixed fully extended position:

IMAG6675

 

The bottom fuselage half was glued in place:

IMAG6676

 

Nose pitot in place:

IMAG6677

 

Vertical fin in place:

IMAG6678

 

Pieces of plasticard were used to fill in the ejector marks:

IMAG6679

 

The horizontal stabilisers were then glued in place:

IMAG6680

 

As well as the engines and exhausts:

IMAG6681

 

As can be seen in the previous photos, there are a lot of bad joins which had to be treated with generous amounts of Perfect Plastic Putty (PPP):

IMAG6682

 

IMAG6683

 

IMAG6684

 

IMAG6685

 

After cleaning the excess putty, things look better:

IMAG6686

 

IMAG6687

 

IMAG6688

 

Thanks for looking

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[HOUSTON]

Jaime,

 

SUPER work.

Looks Brilliant.   

Nice ...   

 

keep it coming. Will be following this Lovely build.

Thank you .

 

[Richard E]

28 minutes ago, jrlx said:

This is my build log of the Academy 1/260 B-1. It's called "Excalibur" in the box, though I couldn't find any reliable evidence about the use of this name for the aircraft.

Robert F Dorr referred to the proposed name "Excalibur" for the B-1 in a Defence Media Network article dated 11 March 2010 however this was vetoed as it was also the brand name of a popular product in the United States.  As such, the name Lancer was adopted as an alternative although for a time the name "Eagle" was also considered for the aircraft before it was assigned to the F-15.   

[jrlx]

@HOUSTON thank you very much for your kind words and interest!

 

@Richard E thank you for the reference. I read that story about the name of the aircraft in a blog but couldn't find any proper reference.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[jrlx]

Another update.

 

The model was primed with Alclad Black Primer and Microfiler, because I wanted to use the "black base" technique. The primer revealed several spots where additional seam treatment was needed, so more PPP was applied:

IMAG6691

 

IMAG6692

 

While the putty dried, I painted the base. First I painted it Alclad Burn Iron but it turned out to be too dark for my liking, so I repainted it Alclad Steel:

IMAG6693

 

The excess PPP was removed and the second and final coat of black primer was applied:

IMAG6703

 

IMAG6704

 

Next, I applied a light grey mottling layer. This would provide tonal variation under the final camouflage colours:

IMAG6705

 

IMAG6706

 

This kit comes with no paint scheme in the instructions. I had to search the net for the camouflage colours of early B-1s, which turned out to be dark green FS34086 and dark grey FS36081. As I'm using Gunze acrylics, the corresponding references are H421 RLM81 Brown Violet for the dark green (there's no direct reference) and H301 grey FS36081.

 

For the camouflage scheme itself I had to use the pictures on pages 57 and 84 of Daco Publications book on the B-1B. I'm not sure these top and bottom pictures correspond to the same scheme, because there were some areas where they were difficult to reconcile but I wasn't worried about accuracy with this kit, just using it to test the "black base" technique.

 

After the mottling, I painted the dark grey areas. After letting these areas dry, I masked them before painting the dark green areas. Masking was done using blu-tack to delimit the camouflage and masking tape to cover the areas to be protected. It was a very tedious process which took me several sessions to complete. Here's the result before painting the dark green areas:

IMAG6707

 

IMAG6708

 

After painting the second camouflage colour, the masking was removed, resulting in this:

IMAG6719

 

IMAG6720

 

The two camouflage colours blend very well (the dark grey has a greenish tinge) and the underlying mottling provides the intended tonal variation. It should be noted that both camouflage colours were applied in very thin layers (50% paint / 50% thinner) in order to keep the mottling visible. The final matte coat should reduce the contrast and give a subtler result.

 

Thanks for looking

 

Jaime

 

 

[CedB]

Nice build of an interesting subject - good work Jaime  

[silverkite211]

Is it too late in the build process to tell you that you should remove that probe on the tip of the nose, that is incorrect for the aircraft. The B-1 has six L shaped probes, three on each side of the nose, to provide data.

[jrlx]

@CedB Thanks!

@silverkite211  I'm afraid its too late. The build is already finished. Anyway, as I said above, accuracy was not my aim with this build but thanks for pointing that out.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[jrlx]

Hi again,

 

The next step in the build was the application of decals. Before that, the model was coated with Microgloss and dried for at least one day.

 

The setup for decal application was this:

IMAG6721

 

There was only a very small number of decals to apply. The decal for the wind-screen was not used. I'll paint the windows black and I'll apply a coat of Alclad Acqua Gloss to simulate the glass. The other decals reacted well to the solvents, though they are about 30 years old.

 

Here's the model after decal application and with the wind-screen already painted black. A new microgloss coat was also applied in preparation for weathering:

IMAG6729

 

IMAG6730

 

IMAG6731

 

The weathering consisted only in a brown wash. For that I used Vallejo's acrylic greased earth wash. Here's the setup:

IMAG6735

 

After letting the wash dry for a day, the model was coated with Alclad Flat kote. To finish with, the exhausts were painted by paintbrush with burnt iron and the windscreen received a coat of Aqua Gloss.

 

Here's a detail photo where the finished exhausts and the effect of the wash can be seen:

IMAG6748

 

And here is the windscreen:

IMAG6749

 

Finally, the model was glued to the stand and here are some final pictures:

IMAG6751

 

IMAG6753

 

IMAG6752

 

IMAG6754

 

I believe the "black base" technique worked quite nicely.

 

So, it's done I'll publish better pictures latter in the RFI section.

 

Thanks for looking

 

Jaime

 

 

 

[CedB]

Very nice Jaime  

 

1 hour ago, jrlx said:

I believe the "black base" technique worked quite nicely.

Me too!

[jrlx]

27 minutes ago, CedB said:

Very nice Jaime  

 

Me too!

Thanks Ced!

[jrlx]

Hello,

 

Just to let you know I've published the final photos in the RFI area here.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[CT7567]

On 6/27/2020 at 8:10 PM, jrlx said:

 

This kit comes with no paint scheme in the instructions. I had to search the net for the camouflage colours of early B-1s, which turned out to be dark green FS34086 and dark grey FS36081.

Hate to have missed this before the model was complete, but the B-1B camouflage (referred to semi-officially as the "Strategic" scheme) actually consists of three colors: the upper surfaces are FS34086 dark green and FS36081 dark gray, with the undersides in a similar disruptive pattern of FS36081 and FS36118 (aka "Gunship Gray"). 

 

FS36081, sometimes referred to as "Euro I gray" has a strange, greenish cast in some lighting (and after fading), but is also sometimes (inaccurately) called "dark gunship gray" - which explains your confusion, and probably accounts for the discrepancies you mentioned in trying to correlate the upper and lower patterns.

 

Posting this mainly so others can avoid the same issue - don't take it as a criticism of a very nice build of a tricky little model.

[jrlx]

4 minutes ago, CT7567 said:

Posting this mainly so others can avoid the same issue - don't take it as a criticism of a very nice build of a tricky little model.

Thank you very much for the detailed information. That certainly can explain the difficulties to correlate the upper and lower camouflage schemes from the pictures. As I said elsewhere I wasn't very concerned about accuracy due to the limitations of the model and because the main purpose was to test the black base technique.

 

I hope a good modern 1/72 scale model of this aircraft appears in the market in the near future. Wasn't Modelcollect planning to launch one?

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[CT7567]

14 minutes ago, jrlx said:

I hope a good modern 1/72 scale model of this aircraft appears in the market in the near future. Wasn't Modelcollect planning to launch one?

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

+1 on the hope for an accurate new-tooled B-1B in the One True Scale.  The "future release" is still on Modelcollect's website, but I've not heard anything recently on the timeframe for its release.  After the debacle their B-52s turned out to be, I can only hope they take extra care to get the B-1 right.

[jrlx]

28 minutes ago, CT7567 said:

+1 on the hope for an accurate new-tooled B-1B in the One True Scale.  The "future release" is still on Modelcollect's website, but I've not heard anything recently on the timeframe for its release.  After the debacle their B-52s turned out to be, I can only hope they take extra care to get the B-1 right.

I didn't buy their B-52 because I already have Italeri's in the stash. However, I bought their B-2 and Eduard's PE sets for it. It'll be a while before I manage to start building it.

[CT7567]

On 7/2/2020 at 7:39 PM, jrlx said:

I didn't buy their B-52 because I already have Italeri's in the stash. However, I bought their B-2 and Eduard's PE sets for it. It'll be a while before I manage to start building it.

The B-2 from what I've seen is very good - certainly an improvement on the vintage Testors kit.  I was hoping for better on the B-52, but their research team clearly let them down by confusing variants and getting some shapes plain wrong.  Since the changes over time to the B-1B are less dramatic than the BUFF I'm hoping they won't have any major snafus.

[jrlx]

4 hours ago, CT7567 said:

The B-2 from what I've seen is very good - certainly an improvement on the vintage Testors kit.  I was hoping for better on the B-52, but their research team clearly let them down by confusing variants and getting some shapes plain wrong.  Since the changes over time to the B-1B are less dramatic than the BUFF I'm hoping they won't have any major snafus.

I'm relieved to know the B-2 is good. I hope they eventually launch a good B-1.