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1/32 X-15A-2 special hobby


LOX

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23 hours ago, TallBlondJohn said:

These are both X-15s on display and so not very reliable for in service. As Antti_K says above the nose gear was fully compressed in every post mission shot, it came down a long way and came down hard:

The compression is not weight in the tanks as they would only be filled once the X-15 is on the wing of the carrier B-52, so an X-15 on its wheels/skids always has empty tanks. So its a characteristic of the shock absorption system which used pressurized nitrogen - it doesn't rebound back as a conventional gear would, as this is not a conventional aeroplane. Note the display aircraft also have the NLG bay door fully extended, on the landing X-15s above it is retracted up into the bay to allow for the gear travel:

 

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For more detail see here:

 

https://history.nasa.gov/x15conf/design.html

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, now I understand, I thought...or assumed that the NLG bay door was fixed and was only there to open and close. I did not now it could also move inwards.

I think the X-15 is more beautiful with the NLG compressed, so I will see how much room  I have to lower the nose when the fuel tanks are installed.

 

Thx for the feedback.

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Ah yes the tanks - they would be jettisoned before landing. So you need to know what state of X-15 operation you are going to depict. Tanks on and undercarriage down would only be for display purposes and maybe ground testing, never for flight operations. In which case a high nose and fully dropped bay door would be correct.

 

Though its your model and you can do what you liked. I had this issue with mine, I wanted the airbrakes fully deployed but my kit only had extended landing gear. So my X-15 shows the exact moment of touchdown.

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today It was a nice day out here, sunny, 18 degrees, no wind so I thought lets take my RC plane out for a nice flight after being grounded for the whole winter. 

It started nice, but about 1 min into the flight I lost control for some reason, could not correct and ended up in the ground nose first.

 

So that was that for the day, better get back to my X-15 then ...

 

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I started on the stabilizer, I was a bit tired of the small parts of the cockpit and wanted to build some larger pieces. 

As you can see on the first picture the quality of the rivets is not good, and also the texture of the plastic itself is not that great. So I started to sand the whole part with 800 to 1500 and then draw the lines where the rivets go and started to make them. 

 

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I then glued the parts together, and as you can see the fit is not that good. I ended up sanding down the top of the stabilizer and scratch build it, I thought it would be faster and would lead to a better result than to use filler and try to sand it.

I also added 2 vertical strips of white plastic to the back stabilizer, so you have that edge like the original. On the photo of the original one you can see why i did it. I do not know how to explain this in the correct terms.

 

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On 22/02/2021 at 19:04, LOX said:

 

 

Ok, now I understand, I thought...or assumed that the NLG bay door was fixed and was only there to open and close. I did not now it could also move inwards.

I think the X-15 is more beautiful with the NLG compressed, so I will see how much room  I have to lower the nose when the fuel tanks are installed.

 

Thx for the feedback.

The X-15A2 had a slightly lowered nose leg (9 inches) as well, so be careful that you are looking at pictures of  66671 AFTER its modification to A2. As others have said, you can have nose leg uncompressed, tanks and on the dolly or nose leg compressed, no tanks and landing skids extended if you want to be wholly accurate. X-15s differed for every flight so if you really want to get into it you need to pick a flight and model that! The X-15A2 didn't appear until 1964 so the X-15 in the picture with the B-52 can't be the A2. Lovely work so far I have three of the 1/48 versions which I think are less accurate but it's the only game in town. 

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thank you guys.

 

On 2/25/2021 at 8:04 PM, Phoenix44 said:

The X-15A2 had a slightly lowered nose leg (9 inches) as well, so be careful that you are looking at pictures of  66671 AFTER its modification to A2. As others have said, you can have nose leg uncompressed, tanks and on the dolly or nose leg compressed, no tanks and landing skids extended if you want to be wholly accurate. X-15s differed for every flight so if you really want to get into it you need to pick a flight and model that! The X-15A2 didn't appear until 1964 so the X-15 in the picture with the B-52 can't be the A2. Lovely work so far I have three of the 1/48 versions which I think are less accurate but it's the only game in town. 

 

Indeed my goal is not to go for a exact copy ( if that is possible al all ). My personal philosophy is the more realism and authenticity the better, BUT you can not put realism in at the expense of fun.

So when I stop to have fun, there I draw the line. But that line is different for each builder of coarse.

 

So I will not select one particular flight, my X-15 will be an interpretation of the real one.

 

 

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Hello all.

I did some work on the bottom stabilizer and brake flaps. The kit has a resin part for this, but I decided to rebuild this.

My reasoning for that is because the model will be quite heavy I rather have a chemical glue bonding with the main hull, instead of a resin part that is hold in place with some CA glue. 

And also the brake flaps have a little surface area to attach them to the stabilizer, so here I also prefer a chemical glue bonding. 

The kit Is the X-15A-2 and that version has a short bottom stabilizer, because of testing being done with a ramjet engine. Special hobby's past X-15 models where early versions with a large bottom stabilizer, and they left them in the kit. With a notification on the instructions to not use them.  

It was probably cheaper to leave those parts in and add the resin part for the A2 version. 

So I used those extra parts to build the small stabilizer in plastic instead of resin.

 

The quality of the brake flaps. 

 

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Edited by LOX
wrong information.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Slowly going forward. I did some work on the internal break flap system.

I just need to ad a few things here and there, but that is when the painting is done.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Again a small update, the model needs more extra love than I thought so progress is slow.

In the meantime I bought myself the F-117 nighthawk in scale 1/312 to keep the mojo high. I feel the need for something that needs a little less work to be presentable.

 

I started to add rivets on the wings.

And I rebuild the nose wheel bay, with some little detailing. You will not see much of it so.

 

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  • 2 months later...

Back at it, it has been a while. I do my building between home renovations, raising 2 kids with my wife and work. So yeah ... life .

 

In the mean time is started to work at the back section of the X-15, I glued the back section together.

This was no easy job, apart from the poor fit, the glue joints are on the top side of the model in plane sight, right next to very textured panels ( see photo ). and that makes sanding that area almost impossible.

So I spend a good time sanding and dry fitting and sanding and dry fitting ... but in the end it came out surprisingly well. I also had to glue the back section in 4 phases and with 2 clamps, first left back, than left front followed by right back and right front. That way I cloud align one section properly and so better control the whole thing.

 

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I After the glue part that took me about a week, I started to add rivets on the hull, improve some of the details that where badly molded on the model and installed the engine section, again here the fit was very poor and it took me a lot of effort to get it presentable.

Because of the poor fit and all the sanding it needed, the rivets that where on the engine section where lost, and added again.

 

Before :

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And after:

 

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A dry fit of the bottom tail section.

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Great work, it reminds me of the old Monogram kit in 72nd scale, I built over thirty years ago, there wasn't any AM accessories available back then, well that I know of.

 

Colin

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  • 2 weeks later...

The work continues,I finished some of the smaller parts. The landing skids and the front wheel cover, both those parts needed some love, but all in all it was not that much work.  

And I also started to add rivets on the front section of the X-15.

 

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A lot of rivets done...and a lot more to go.

 

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Hello fellas.

the work continues and I did most of the rivets on the front section. The rest I will finish when the two halves of the model are connected. 

I also opened up the maneuvering thrusters in the nose section. And I started to work on the fuel tanks, they fit poorly so I had to do a lot of sanding.

 

Next up is the painting of the cockpit, I am always reluctant to do some airbrush work. overall I like building more than painting.

 

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A small shout out to Specialhobby. While working on the X-15 I noticed that one part was missing.

Half of the metal dome construction was missing, I misplaced it or it was not in the box ... I don't know. To do a parts check before I start to build did not occur to me.

So I contacted the customer service trough the website, and got in touch with them. I explained my situation, included the barcode from my box and a photo of the missing part. And yes 9 days later I got a package in my mailbox, free from charge withe the desired part.

So and now I can continue with my tail section, awesome.

 

Maybe there is someone here who can explain to me what this metal dome is ? I have no clue, and much info on that specific part I can not find.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I started to paint the cockpit. And it did not go well ... I use Vallejo model air to paint everything and it went good, better that I anticipated.

Did my pre shading and all, let it dry and put some satin varnish on it from Alclad so I can give it a wash afterwards.

The varnish was very yellow when I bought it, but I did not think anything of it, it airbrushed with no problem and I did not get a yellow color on my parts. So I let it dry, did some chores around the house and a few days later I wanted to continue.

I grab the cockpit and it was still sticky, sticky like that fly trap tape sticky ... so obviously a big fingerprint and dust on all of my parts, was the varnish bad or something ? I do not know.

Frustrated I put the parts in a bag with oven cleaner on it and let it rest, then I ordered varnish from Vallejo. 

 

Cleaning the parts was not easy, the Vallejo paint is really hard and not easy to remove. Strangely the layers of varnish peeled off very easy. 

So, demotivated and reluctant I tried again. Used only Vallejo paint and it went great, did some wash and weathering. 

see pictures. The seat turned out a but to green but I wanted to change that.

 

So I was ready for the next step.

The cockpit was glued and properly secured, so I taped it off to prevent damage and dust from getting in. 

Then joined the two fuselage halves, did that like the back section in 3 steps because the fit is not that great.

Sanded everything and added the rivets, but when I took the tape off from the cockpit I noticed that my glue entered the corners of the cockpit and ruined the paint and plastic, you can see it in the pictures.

 

I cloud not sleep with that mistake in my mind and in plane sight, so I had to break the fuselage open to take the cockpit out and start again ... I love the model ... but for my first build after a more then 15 years I should have gone fore a A brand. This model is more work than I realized. 

we will see what happens, for now I will let the model for what it is and try to motivate myself again.

 

 

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Glue damage

 

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Physical damage

 

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On 8/23/2021 at 4:47 AM, JeffreyK said:

Nice work!

Just fyi how the ejection seat looks like:

http://www.ejectionsite.com/x15seat.htm

Are you going to re-isntate the step around the nose wheel door cutout, matching the door?

Cheers,

J

 

Hi Jeffrey, thank you for your interest.

The ejection seat is not finished, I need to add a bit more parts to it. I put it in there to have a more complete look on the photo.

The nose wheel cutout is also added, I just did not made a picture of it yet :)

 

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  • 2 months later...

Hi all, progress on the X-15 is slow. The fuselage is still in 2 pieces, the cockpit was not salvageable so I decided to finish the model with a closed cockpit. 

But my motivation to continue on that part is low, so I tried to do something else to try and find the motivation again.

 

The paint scheme that I would like to make is the one where some parts of the X-15 are painted with the red ablative coating.

As you can see in the picture, the right horizontal stabilizer seems to be red, just like the bottom vertical stabilizer. And also the wheel well cover and skids seems to be red.

I think it will be nice to paint it in a post flight situation, where some of the red paint is worn off and parts of the black main color shine thru. Just to give is some more variation in color.

so that is what I tried.

 

One horizontal stabilizer and the wheel well cover are my experimental parts.

I started with a black base coat, than added the pre shading and last where the black parts (where in my eyes the red coating would have experienced the most heat). 

Next thing I did was paint it red with a heavy deluded red and black mixture so I can slowly build up the layers.

I must say I am happy with the end result.  The wheel well cover is mostly red as this part would have received less heat than the leading edge of the horizontal stabilizer.

 

Next thing is to varnish it, give it a wash and try some oil filters.

 

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  • 3 months later...

And we are back. Decisions were made ... the cockpit is closed. I rather finish this build with a closed canopy than having no X-15 in my display case. 

As was to be expected the fit was not that great. It took me quite some time to remove all the gaps and excess plastic. The cannopy is quite brittle and will crack really fast, so I had to be careful while working on that area.

 

The nose cone was a blob of plastic so I covered that with some protection I see on some of the photos. The same goes for the white evergreen plastic on the back area, saw it on pictures and thought it looked cool and would add some color.

This model will be in a recent post flight/display pose :)

And I started on the ground dolly.

 

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  • 2 months later...

Well it has been a while. I made some progress, things did not went smooth but it would be no fun if it did right ? ...

 

The X-15 is ready for some paint.

I finished painting the area where the speed brakes are because if the tail fin is glued in place I can not reach this area.

 

So what did go wrong ? I gave my whole X-15 a black coat with vallejo model air.

And I Finished the area underneath the tail fin with some weathering, but the paint did not feel good when handling the model. It felt like rubber like, and it kept being sticky. I had same dust on the paint and when I wiped it off a whole section of paint just peeled off.

So i had to strip the whole paint of the model, and it went surprisingly fast, it just kept peeling off. Weird ... the bottle was OK because I used it previously with no issue. 

 

But apparently when painting with vallejo you need a primer ?  So I bought me a bottle of primer and I hope it works.

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently I can not add images from Imgur anymore ?

When I want to insert image from URL non of the links from Imgur work ?

Edited by LOX
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OK so I got it working again.

Here are some pictures in its current condition.

If someone is having the same problem, I use the BBcode link and put the code directly into the post. The " insert image" button is not working.

 

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