61-7950 A 60 year Personal Journey. Revell 1/48 Lockheed SR-71A with extras

[LorenSharp]

Greetings all. For todays entertainment I'm starting a new thread with the intentions of having this piece of history  completed by Dec.22, Why this particular day you may ask? Weelll I tell you. This particular tail number is for the Lockheed's SR-71 first test flight. Commanded by the Skunkworks Chief Test Pilot, Robert J. “Bob” Gilliland and flew out of Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale California on that bright and crisp December morning. The personal aspect was that was also the day my father reported to work with Lockheed as a civilian technician whose specialty was engines, both rocket and jet. A perfect match with the Blackbird. He always considered that aircraft his "baby" even years afterward any mention of the Blackbird and you could see the range of memories and emotions in his eyes. You knew that was"his" aircraft. Unfortunately he's no long with us.Which sucks for me.I could use his "personal" recollections while building this, especially the J 58 Engine. I know this particular aircraft has been done many, many many times. But to try and do something different. I'm going to sree how much detail I can stuff into the J-58 among other things.God willing and the creek don't rise I hope to have this finished by my self imposed dead line.And along the way I'll try to pass on what anecdotes of what I know along the way. here's what I have so far, though more is on order and hasn't arrived yet b

I am still waiting on the P/E set and as you'll soon see a certain amount of print work will occur as well. I'll have to create the proper tail number which is why I have the extra decal sets. Eventually they'll be used on other Blackbird projects in the future. So let's see where this rabbit hole will lead us. Cue some Jefferson Airplane .

 

[LorenSharp]

Last things first, at least going by the instructions. Starting with the J58 I assembled  the body of the kit J58. To say I was less than impressed with the fit would be an understatement.

This will NOT do. So taking a page from our @Serkan Sen I'll make my own danged J58. and it'll be purdier too.theorectically... so here's what I came up with today. These are the visualizations of the base J58 body and intake fans. I should have the printed parts ready sometime tomorrow. then I'll work on the afterburner cans and bypass piping and other small parts in prep for all the hydraulic lines that as of right now I'm going to try and do with several different gauges of florist wire and soldering wire.

Starting with a basic outline derived from several different images.

That in turn lathed into the bare bones shape. taking care to get the proper length. The kit engine is about 10mm too short.

Then the afterburner end.

 

[LorenSharp]

A lot of cutting and splicing plus lots and lots of bolts.... I mean a lot.

The kit engine has several rows of what look like rivets. but on the actual engine its a series of panels bolted together

 

[LorenSharp]

Now to get the intake compression fans done.

I left a space opening behind the blade to give a heightened sense of depth.

With all the fine detail I'll be surprised if it all prints. It may take a coples of re-positionings to get everything to come out. But we have ignition folks. more fun to follow.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

I built the 1/48th Testor’s/Italeri kit when I was 16-17 and gave it to my USAF Recruiter as a gift along with the 1/48th U-2. I still need to replace them both in my stash. So I will follow along for memories and to study. 

[LorenSharp]

Welcome aboard dennis. The more the merrier. I have several in the stash to do the various incarnations including a YF-12A. But it will be a while before I get to those. I do want to do  Article 121, the A-12, aas it first looked before it got its tail numbers and paint job. But that will be a while.

[Serkan Sen]

A great start as always Loren.

Although the new Revell kit has superior surface details and better plastic than the old Italeri/Testor, but there are still many significant issues to be fixed/improved in this model. These are mainly:

• Funny intakes and spikes
• Shape and positions of tertiary doors at exhaust
• Nozzle detail
• Funny conical afterburner can
• Undersized engine (which is around 10mm shorter than it should be)
• Poor NLG bay and strut details (+ wheels)
• Very primitive pitot tube
• The improvement of main wheels, bays and struts

If you need any printed parts listed above (except full J-58), just let me know.

 

Serkan

[LorenSharp]

Thanks Serkan I appreciate it. I had catalogued all those wonderful deficiencies and I know what I'm in for.There will will a lot of modification work to do to bring this kit up to proper statndards.Not nearly as much as the Testors kit, but that's another story for another time. For now I'm concentrating on making the J58 as accurate as possible given the scale.everyting but the hydraulic piping I think, can be printed. I don't believe  I want to try and print those out. The orientation and supports needed to successfully print, for me would be too problematic. So for those I'm going on a different tact using thin florist wire bent properly. Don't know if it will work but I figure I can do it. I ain't never not done it. Multi layer P/E might do it for the illusion of "busyness" but I've never gotten home made P/E to work out right. I did toy,pardon the expression, with the idea of lighting this up. But I'll save that for the A-12 down the line. Waaaaaay down the line.. I may be crazy, but I ain't nuts. Right now I'm waiting for the engine housing to finish printing to see what ,if any, needs adjusting, mostly the the fine bolts due to their really small size. I may have to over exaggerate to make visible and survive printing and cleaning.

[f111guru]

@LorenSharpWhat a great project to go head long into. I have at least one maybe two Testors kits in the stash. Started one many many years ago. Got stalled from various issues from family to consignment projects. So there it sits. At any rate I'm late for this show and will quietly pull up a bench and observe the progress.

 

I don't have the equipment or the know how to achieve the detail as what your doing but will absorb all that I can.

 

Fantastic beginnings and looking forward to the progress.

 

All The Best,

Ron VanDerwarker

[dnl42]

That's jumping into the deep end! 

 

I love a build with a personal connection! 

[bar side]

I will be following along with this one Loren.  Great start & you can never see too many of these built.  It made an impression on me when I saw Ichi Ban flying at Mildenhall in that late blacker than black paint scheme, trailing exhaust diamonds.

[TeaWeasel]

You definitely have more patience than me, I wouldn't even begin to consider designing a whole engine. Looking forward to this one though, picked up the Italeri M21 recently and the fit on that makes this one look like a dream. 

[LorenSharp]

Finally got a few things in the post to assist with this project and I finally dug out some of my reference books that were buried in the bookshelf.

I got 3 different sizes of wire,2 in silver, 1 in bronze,

and a wire bending tool.

Hopefully this will make it easier to do the hydraulic lines rather than trying to print all those out.

[LorenSharp]

Some of the reference books I'll be using,

A family scrapbook from when the Blackbird was young,

Wings of Fame, which  has some duplication in addition to a few enlightening nuggets,

And of course a Haynes repair manual, you never know when you Blackbird may breakdown and you have to do some HArry Homemaker repairs in the garage.

 

I do have one other book on order and hope it will be in in a few days,

An illustrated history of the SR-71 by Jim Goodall, not Jane Goodall, I'm not monkeying around. I do have one of his other books on the B-2. Which was very helpful, so here crossing fingers that  this volume will be of as much help.

[LorenSharp]

Now to see what disasters my modelling/printing has wrought.

I wanted to get as much of the preliminary bit accomplished before proceeding further. Namely the Engine body, the afterburner can, fans, and bypass piping.

I did the printing at the thinnest layer possible . which was .01 um(microns) I wanted to see how much,if any, of the finer detail would even show up. As I feared, at least on the body, most of the bolts and sensor blocks didn't make it. I'll have to go back and over emphasize their scale to properly show up. 

I will have to increase the diameter. I took a shot at the widest, 50in IRL, being the afterburner area. I think now looking at the actual images I have and how this turned out I will have to go by the intake fan as being 50in across.

Because even the interior of the afterburners seems too narrow. 

So I'll have to increase the diameter about 4 mm.

[Jonners]

Wow, what a great project. The possibilities of 3D printing constantly astonish me, especially as those possibilities can be realised at home. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in the modelling Dark Ages! 

 

I was fortunate to be able to see 'real, live' SR-71s at a couple of Mildenhall Air Fetes as an air cadet in the late 1980s, both static and flying. What an awesome machine. 

 

Jon

Edited September 25 by Jonners

[LorenSharp]

The front fan came out great, though as mention small, the 2nd compressor fan, I'll have to go back and thicken the blades.

I took these while the print was still drying. the crooked blades finally did straighten out, but though they are scale could be a little bit thicker to avoid any print problems.

The bypass tubing came out as I hoped as did the oil tank.

This unfortunately is a problem at times, at least for me, in the computer you can create all kinds of intricate detail but judging that compared to real world printed size , a lot gets lost in translation. But thats the reason for the test shot. now I know where things need to be improved and increased in size. And if you;re wondering, at .010 mm it had around 10,000 slices and took about 32 hrs, because of orientation, to print. Definitely need more work. I may end up getting the plane finished before I get the engine finished. Oh Well... Forward into the fog!

[whiskey]

@LorenSharp this looks like a lot of fun. I've always wanted a Blackbird and have been really eyeing picking up the Revell kit. Can't wait to see more of your build.

 

@Serkan Sen with all of the deficiencies that you listed with the Revell kit, which ones would you say are the more pertinent to address if I wanted to make an in-flight model?

[Serkan Sen]

12 hours ago, LorenSharp said:

Because even the interior of the afterburners seems too narrow. 

Not only narrow but also in truncated cone shape to give a depth feeling.

I am following with great interest to see the result 😀

Serkan

[Serkan Sen]

11 hours ago, whiskey said:

with all of the deficiencies that you listed with the Revell kit, which ones would you say are the more pertinent to address if I wanted to make an in-flight model?

The replacement of pitot tube and Intake & exhaust assemblies should be sufficient to build a nice model in flight mode.

Serkan

[PeteH1969]

15 hours ago, LorenSharp said:

Now to see what disasters my modelling/printing has wrought.

I wanted to get as much of the preliminary bit accomplished before proceeding further. Namely the Engine body, the afterburner can, fans, and bypass piping.

I did the printing at the thinnest layer possible . which was .01 um(microns) I wanted to see how much,if any, of the finer detail would even show up. As I feared, at least on the body, most of the bolts and sensor blocks didn't make it. I'll have to go back and over emphasize their scale to properly show up. 

I will have to increase the diameter. I took a shot at the widest, 50in IRL, being the afterburner area. I think now looking at the actual images I have and how this turned out I will have to go by the intake fan as being 50in across.

Because even the interior of the afterburners seems too narrow. 

So I'll have to increase the diameter about 4 mm.

 

15 hours ago, LorenSharp said:

The front fan came out great, though as mention small, the 2nd compressor fan, I'll have to go back and thicken the blades.

I took these while the print was still drying. the crooked blades finally did straighten out, but though they are scale could be a little bit thicker to avoid any print problems.

The bypass tubing came out as I hoped as did the oil tank.

This unfortunately is a problem at times, at least for me, in the computer you can create all kinds of intricate detail but judging that compared to real world printed size , a lot gets lost in translation. But thats the reason for the test shot. now I know where things need to be improved and increased in size. And if you;re wondering, at .010 mm it had around 10,000 slices and took about 32 hrs, because of orientation, to print. Definitely need more work. I may end up getting the plane finished before I get the engine finished. Oh Well... Forward into the fog!

Your printing looks great but if the engine is your design can I suggest splitting the engine into 4 pieces and printing them vertically along the access of the engine, there are several prominent points on the engine that could be used to hide the joints and tilt your compressor fan so it is no higher than the tallest engine section that should reduce your print time dramatically?

 

This will be good to follow.

 

Pete

 

 

[LorenSharp]

4 hours ago, PeteH1969 said:

 

Your printing looks great but if the engine is your design can I suggest splitting the engine into 4 pieces and printing them vertically along the access of the engine, there are several prominent points on the engine that could be used to hide the joints and tilt your compressor fan so it is no higher than the tallest engine section that should reduce your print time dramatically?

 

That's what Revell did and I'm staying away from that parts breakdown mostly because of potential warpage. I could rotate ,and I still may, to lower the print time. I wanted to see what detail ,good and bad, shows up. where do I make changes,addition or deletions,? How comfortable am I with what I'm trying to achieve, which by the way is probably the finest detailed subject I've ever attempted.There's a very good reason why @Serkan Sen chose not to do the full J58. It is a definite rabbit hole to go down. I'm pursuing it as a personal challenge to see if it's possible to do this and stuff as much extremely fine detail as physically possible given the scale I'm working in. AS to the fan blades, they did finally straighten themselves out once dry but on close inspection will have to be thickened by about 75%. An increase in diameter will also help with some of the lost detail. I could also break down the length of the body doing the after burner exterior separately. Had this come out perfect the first time I would have been amazed. I expect I'll have to do 3-4 more tests before I'm satisfied. Print time isn't really a factor at this stage I did it this way knowing it would be a lengthy print to see what the worst, or best case scenario, depending on how you look at it, would be. Were I really Nuts(no comments from the Peanut Gallery Please) I would scale the engine up to a length of 45 cm, or there abouts, and do it proper justice. Who knows, in the future I may just do that. The hard part would be already done in the design work. But first I'll tend to this scale. besides. as LI like to say I figure I can do it. I ain't never Not done it.

[LorenSharp]

Showing detail is the biggest issue. for example, I have an Anycubic Mono M5.  resolution is 14k which is a kind of a misnomer. The pixels(smallest single point on the screen )is 17x25 um actually 16.8 x 24.8 um (Microns) in the XY plane ,they're actually rectangular rather than square like on your computer screen.Most ads will go with the smaller size to to promote the fine detail. It's not a falsehood persay, it is part of the actual size, but the larger of the two should be the number to pay attention to, at least to my way of thinking and experience. so if widest part of the pixel is 25 microns and the piece on the object is 100 microns you have  4 pixels to create. That's not a lot of area for detail. especially in 1/48 scale. Now if this build was say 1/32 or even better 1/24 fine detail wouldn't be an issue. Working on an object in the computer as with @Serkan Sen's subjects,which are outstanding from a computer modeling standpoint, I should know, I've done enough of that in animation. you can get down into the real nitty gritty of exacting detail. but when it comes to printing out in a particular scale ,trade offs have to be made to get any type of detail.I've learned through  trial and error that 125 microns is about the limit size wise  with the current technology to show any thing. I'm sure printers will be able to go finier in the future. But for now this is what we have to work with. This first real print is basically a test shot to see what does and doesn't show. and then go from there. I will have to get more resin. that is for sure.

[LorenSharp]

8 hours ago, Serkan Sen said:

Not only narrow but also in truncated cone shape to give a depth feeling.

I am following with great interest to see the result 😀

Serkan

I agree. I think they were trying for a "forced perspective" to give that greater sense of depth.

[Serkan Sen]

3 hours ago, LorenSharp said:

There's a very good reason why @Serkan Sen chose not to do the full J58.

This is not fully correct. I have started to model this engine but then I realised that if I use the same effort, I can complete the entire Oxcart/Blackbird family. 😁

But one day I will finish my J-58 project too.