1/48 Bell X-1B

[SteveV22FE]

It's not quite finished, but thought I would post anyway.

I got this model off ebay. It was an estate sale purchase.

I paid way too much for it, but I like the old dogs and it is an original Strombecker kit.

Here is the condition it arrived:

I can only imagine the pride the original owner felt building this kit all those years ago.

After a few years of off and on work to it, this is how it appears today:

I kind of went overboard with it. I replaced the kit wings with the wings out of the Eduard X-1 kit, The landing gear wheels and nose gear strut were replaced with the Eduard parts.

As far as finish, I admit, I suck at NMF, so I decided to go for "the dull, well-used X-Plane look" of the model. I still have to paint the canopy and find some instrumentation probes.

All the decals are either from the spares box or I digitally created and printed them on decal paper.

Enjoy!!

Edited April 11, 2015 by SteveV22FE

[Albert Moore]

Very nice save, Steve. It's always good to see an old model restored instead of being discarded.

Cheers,

Albert

[Don]

Whoa nice restoration ! Just goes to show you that there is life left in built up older kits. Great work indeed.

Thanks for sharing.

Regards,

Don.

[SteveV22FE]

It was a lot of fun bringing this one back to life. When I found it, my only thought was that if it didn’t sell, it was either going to get tossed in the trash or given to kid to be played with until it destruction. I almost felt obligated to rescue it.