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WIP - Monogram 1/48 B-58 Hustler in foil


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15 hours ago, Vince Maddux said:

btw, if it helps other, I found that I could get the upper wing to fit the fuselage better by cutting the upper wing in half, and gluing then to the bottom wing. it prevents fighting with the upper fuselage/upper wing fit

That's a really good idea. Too late now, but still an excellent idea.

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Let's talk about what caused me to put this model on the Shelf of Doom earlier this year. 

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I was doing some dry fitting and noticed that the tail assembly does not fit properly into the fuselage. 

 

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I don't know if this problem is unique to my kit, or if I did something wrong, but when the tail was inserted into the fuselage a huge offset appeared at the tail/fuselage seam. At this point I put the kit onto the Shelf of Doom last March.

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In June I started to work on the kit again. After a lot of finagling and sanding the seam became acceptable. 

 

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15 hours ago, Vince Maddux said:

btw, if it helps other, I found that I could get the upper wing to fit the fuselage better by cutting the upper wing in half, and gluing then to the bottom wing. it prevents fighting with the upper fuselage/upper wing fit

 

Vince,

 

How did your B-58 turn out? Any other tips?

 

John

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Now comes the not so much fun part -- applying foil to the model. This is a large model with large amounts of foil, so this will take some time.

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The wings are built similar to the hull of a Navy ship. Corrugated spars, space 15" apart, extend from the edge of one wing, through the fuselage, and onto the edge of the next wing. Due to the high stress and high temperature imposed upon the wings and fuselage, the aluminum panels are made of bonded sandwich panels. The top and bottom of the panels are 1 mm aluminum sheets bonded to a 1/2 inch thick resin honeycombed panel. The panels were fastened to the spars with titanium screws instead of rivets.

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The right wing and part of the fuselage has been foiled. I use Bare Metal Foil Matt Aluminum and Improved Chrome. The majority of the panel are Matt Aluminum. Bare Metal has a natural grain and I rotate the grail now and then to add some visual interest to the model.  I used a rivet wheel to mimic the appearance of the  titanium screws and I used the spar drawing as a guide for the location of the spars. 

 

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This how I do the riveting. Using the spar drawing as a guide, I make equal spaces on Post-It notes that represent the spacing of the spars.

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Next I transfer the spacing marks to the wing using a marker pen.

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I run my R B Productions rivet wheel along the edge of my old high school plastic lettering guide .

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The result is equally spaced, parallel and straight rivets, or in this case, titanium screws.

 

 

  

  

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15 hours ago, Whiskey said:

Now that is what I truly call attention to detail. Coming along quite amazingly John, keep it going strong!

 

Thanks.  Regarding attention to detail, I'm a retired architect (45 years). I don't know if you know any architects, but they have a strange obsession with detail. Very strange people😲

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After I finished foiling the top of the aircraft, I came to the decision that the color of the elevons were the wrong color. 

 

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It is next to impossible to cover BMF with masking tape. The foil gets lifted when the tape is removed. So I purchased some low tack masking tape (purple color). I also pressed it against my greasy forehead a few times to remove some adhesive. I masked the foil adjacent to the elevons and covered the remainder of the model in kitchen plastic wrap. First I sprayed the elevons in Testors' Metalizer Aluminum Plate. After that dried, I sprayed the elevons in Testors' Metalizer Titanium. Both colors were from rattle cans and both paints are lacquer. 

 

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After the Titanium lacquer paint dried I wiped it with Testors' Enamel Thinner. I wiped in the direction of the airflow over the wing. The enamel thinner immediately dissolved most of the Titanium lacquer paint revealing the Aluminum paint. I like the result. It is way better looking than the original Aluminum Plate color. I have no idea why the enamel thinner would dissolve lacquer paint.

 

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The final result looks close to the real aircraft.

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5 hours ago, Johnny_K said:

I will probably be using the decals that came with the kit. If they fall apart I'll have to look elsewhere for decals. Do you have suggestions for aftermarket decals?

Caracal decals for the win, but they are out stock on the site. Maybe you can source some.

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On 8/13/2019 at 11:02 AM, Johnny_K said:

The pods are pretty big when compared with an F-86. 

 

Quite an eye opener!

 

I've always enjoyed your bare metal builds/tutorials, the Hasegawa F-86 being a particular favorite.

 

Gene K

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19 minutes ago, GeneK said:

 

Quite an eye opener!

 

I've always enjoyed your bare metal builds/tutorials, the Hasegawa F-86 being a particular favorite.

 

Gene K

 

Gene,

I'm glad that you enjoy my builds. The F-86 came out very nice with colorful decals.

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2 hours ago, Slartibartfast said:

Mike Grant also did Hustler decals in 1:48.

 

Grant's decals for a B-58 are out of stock. I can't find any decals for a 1/48 B-58 anywhere. I'll try one of the kit's decals tonight to see if it falls apart. 

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OMG   I am such a dork🤓 I was looking in the kit's box for the decals. Upside down in the bottom of the box was a complete set of Caracal decals 😃. I must have bought them a few years ago when I bought the kit. 

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Wow, this is really good work! Great attention to detail.

 

52 minutes ago, Johnny_K said:

in the bottom of the box was a complete set of Caracal decals 😃

The ideal complement to your excellent work!

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The foiling of the fuselage and wing is complete. I did not foil the area of the fuselage that is adjacent to the tail because some sanding may be required. I put tape over the painted nose to protect the paint from getting scratched while the kit was foiled.

 

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Before attaching the tail, I decided to test fit the engines onto the wings. Guess what??? More of Monogram's poor engineering shows up again. The engine pylons have two tiny alignment pins that are suppose to fit into two oversized holes in the wing. The engines are heavy and there is no way that those tiny pins will keep the engines in place while the glue dries. Monogram should have used a long mortise and tenon joint. It's time to crank up the old brain cells for a solution.

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7 hours ago, Johnny_K said:

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The foiling of the fuselage and wing is complete. I did not foil the area of the fuselage that is adjacent to the tail because some sanding may be required. I put tape over the painted nose to protect the paint from getting scratched while the kit was foiled.

 

EoptLD9.jpg?1

 

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Before attaching the tail, I decided to test fit the engines onto the wings. Guess what??? More of Monogram's poor engineering shows up again. The engine pylons have two tiny alignment pins that are suppose to fit into two oversized holes in the wing. The engines are heavy and there is no way that those tiny pins will keep the engines in place while the glue dries. Monogram should have used a long mortise and tenon joint. It's time to crank up the old brain cells for a solution.

Magnets ?

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