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Hello,

For this GB, I will build Italeri's YF-12 kit. It will be totally OOB. The kit comes with decal options for all three YF-12's, one NMF/black one, and two overall black ones. I will probably build 60-6936, which was lost in a crash in 1971 near Edwards AFB. This is one of the overall black options. The other one is 60-6935, which comes with a nice shield on the tail, that Italeri screwed up nicely by putting Out Standing Unit Award under the logo, instead of Air Force Systems Command.

Work started with the totally inaccurate cockpit, but not much will be seen of it anyway, so I'm not going to bother to fix some things.

P4034691_zpsact9c1rr.jpg

Seats were split in a left and right half, resulting in some nice visible seams P4034692_zpsvjmvblyo.jpg

And this is nice too...

P4034694_zpsfmwjj5uu.jpg

In the end it should look something like this, although the kit decals only come with those kill markings under the cockpit for the left side, and that white panel under the engine nacelle is not mentioned in the instructions... <_</>/> :

362377main_E-22047_full_zpskfivp4cd.jpg

Edit; I have found out by now that the white panel is actually part of a large white cross, to help timers and observers on the ground during some speed record attempts.

Edited by Pete
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  • 3 weeks later...

Update time!

This is a simple kits, with just a few parts, so you have an almost finished model quite quickly. After doing the cockpit, you basically put the lower and upper fuselage halves together, and glue them to the rear lower and upper fuselage parts.

P4255068_zpsk9zr13xn.jpg

After that, the real fun starts. Filling and sanding! :banana:

The fit is not exactly stellar, and you will loose some raised details, but at least most of the seams and steps are on the bottom.

P4255069_zpsvzd9m4za.jpg

I opted to close the weapons bay, because there basically is no weapons bay, just a few braces to hold the missiles in place. Up next is smoothing out all the sanding and restore some panellines.

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  • 1 month later...

Finally did some more work on this one. I already sprayed some black on the tails, exhausts and intake cones, and I have sprayed and masked the big white cross on the bottom. I'll probably spray the rest black tomorrow.

P6045082_zpsh4imwpfz.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

The white cross came out pretty nice:

P6135251_zpswizzuncz.jpg

I got some nice weathering effects on the flat black paint, but the semi glosscoat with a Tamiya rattle can made it all dissapear again. Guess I will have to try it afterwards again.

Working on the decals now. Usual Italeri quality, so they work well, but not very accurate. Two panels on the underside for instance, are in real life some sort of tan/greenish fibreglass color, but the decals for them are bright grass green. I shall paint them instead.

P6205257_zpsvqdnqs5p.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

And it's all done!

Not the best kit in the world, and the decals were far from brilliant, but it looks like an YF-12 to me. More pics on the Tarmac

P6295261_zpsu63w8crk.jpg

Edited by Pete
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