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1/48 Fonderie Miniatures Bell X-2


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I’ve always loved the muscle car looks of the tragic, short-lived Bell X-2 and decided it was time to pull the 1/48 scale Fonderie Miniatures kit from the shelf of doom.  It landed there years ago after I did some “reconnaissance in force" style preliminary construction.  As often happens, I found myself stumped on which version to build and how to address its (many) flaws or omissions.

As time passed, I picked up Cutting Edge’s excellent decal sheet and more references became available.  Why only have one “sow’s ear” project going when one can compound the pain?

As delivered, the kit depicts the early version of the X-2, but I wanted to build a late version with the rocket nozzle extensions.  Once I figured out how to fabricate the nozzles it was time to get going. 

The initial posts will chronicle progress to-date and I'll pick up with contemporary updates once I've escaped the rubber room of AMS.

 

What do you get?

  • Injection molded airframe
  • A resin cockpit tub
  • A featureless white metal instrument panel
  • White metal ejection seat and control stick
  • 2 Vacuform canopies
  • White metal nose gear and wheel
  • White metal pitot tube
  • White metal landing skid
  • White metal whisker skids
  • White metal rocket exhaust bulkhead
  • White metal towing cradle with resin wheels

Bell%20X-2-1.jpg

 

Plan of Action

  • Detail the cockpit – guided by references and Shepard Paine creative gizmology.
  • Make the canopy removable.
  • Fabricate rocket nozzle extensions.
  • Add missing fairings, lines and exhaust ducts to the tail area.
  • Thin the trailing edges, but preserve blunt aileron trailing edges.
  • Box in the landing skid bay, adjust the geometry of the landing skid.
  • Fair in the wing-mounted whisker skids (they were found unnecessary once the main gear was shortened).
  • Reshape, smooth, re-scribe as necessary.
  • Scheme is still TBD, but I'm leaning towards how it looked prior to Mel Apt's flight. 

 

 

Edited by Propellerhead
Changed image hosting from Dropbox to Photobucket.
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As always, it starts with the cockpit...

 

The cockpit tub detail is not exactly accurate and has only engraved details.  If built all closed up one could get away with paint and cannibalized decals for the instrument panel, I suppose.

 

I didn’t like how the resin cockpit tub fit in the fuselage and used Milliput putty to bulk it out and close up some gaps in the nose wheel well.

I used the cockpit tub from the 1/48 Hasagawa F-104 to detail the left and right sides of the resin tub.

 

Bell%20X-2-2.jpg

 

 

 

I fabricated a new instrument panel in styrene that better matched reality and went to town with the punch and die set.

Bell%20X-2-2.jpg

 

 

I then used cockpit parts from the Trumpeter Vigilante and some A-10 Verlinden resin leftovers (super stinky resin!) to dress up the rear bulkhead.  I also added the rocket engine "go-knobs" made up of styrene rod and gel CA glue.  Slices of styrene rod were used for the rear face of the instrument panel.  None of this may be visible in the end, but...new skilz!

Bell%20X-2-4.jpg

 

 

It needed rudder pedals so I stole the footbox from the F-104 tub, glued it on, blanked it out with styrene sheet and sanded it to shape.

Bell%20X-2-5.jpg

 

Edited by Propellerhead
Rehosted photos from Dropbox to - yes - Photobucket
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Once things looked busy enough I painted and installed the cockpit. I chopped up some thick Evergreen strip into blocks to establish its fore and aft position.

 

Bell%20X-2-6.jpg

 

 

Things get hot at Mach 3.  The sidewalls have quilted insulation that I simulated with wine bottle lead foil, embossed with the end of a rounded putty knife and washed with gray panel liner.

 

Bell%20X-2-7.jpg

 

 

 

OCD pays off once again...

 

I had an acetate sheet from Eduard's Profipack X-1 that had unused instrument panels on it.  I punched those out and applied them to the instrument faces with Future.

 

The cockpit was painted with Tamiya NATO black and details picked out in silver, yellow and red.  I scuffed the floorboards with a Prismacolor silver pencil.

 

Bell%20X-2-8.jpg

 

Edited by Propellerhead
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  • 8 months later...

And...we're back.  I had to drop this and all other projects to prepare our house for sale, relocate ourselves and the modeling cave.  Sow's ear projects like these can crush the mojo, so to christen the new cave I decided to finish a P-51B project first and then unbox Project X-2.

 

Here's part 1 to catch-up what happened before I boxed it up last year.  The theme of this post is “one of these things is not like the other.”

 

The main landing skid bay consists of…well…just a mounting plate for the white metal landing skid gear.  So I boxed it in with Evergreen and putty to have a more positive location to mount it later.  I don’t intend to detail it, there won’t be much to see.

Bell%20X-2-9.jpg

 

 

After closing up the fuselage and test fitting the wings I found that the wing roots were mismatched.  Fantastic.  One of my friends (h/t David Atkinson) aptly calls this manufacturer:  "Fonderie Merde."  If Monet's excuse for his paintings looking like they do was incipient blindness, I'm not sure what F-M's excuse is. <shrug>

 

So out came the saw and I gradually scored through the port side wing root/fillet.

Bell%20X-2-10.jpg

Bell%20X-2-11.jpg

 

 

 

I re-located it further up the side, reworked the trailing edge with more Evergreen and applied Tamiya putty.  Better.

Bell%20X-2-12.jpg

 

 

How about the horizontal stabs, you may ask?

 

Err…umm...

Bell%20X-2-13.jpg

 

 

I reboxed this side with Evergreen shims to tighten things up and establish the position for the other side.

Bell%20X-2-14.jpg

 

And opened this side up and re-positioned the mounting slot downwards with more Evergreen.  You can see that the finish of the plastic is - what's a nice way to say this - scabby.

Bell%20X-2-15.jpg

 

I'll toss this quickie iPhone shot in to illustrate the result. Much better. 

IMG_9313.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Propellerhead
Changed image hosting from Dropbox to Photobucket.
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On 3/12/2021 at 7:59 PM, Slartibartfast said:

Your photos don't show for me.

 

Well, they do show if I click on the photo block and open in a new tab. That causes Dropbox to launch.

I switched the photos over to Photobucket.  Let me know if they play better for you now.

 

Thanks!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Another thing to add to the list of wrong on this kit...the canopy.

 

It should interface to the cockpit something like this:

Bell_X-2-22.jpg

 

It doesn't so I got out the tools...

Bell%20X-2-20.jpg


Bell_X-2-24.jpg

 

I don't think I can replicate all of the detail in the Mel Apt/Ivan Kincheloe photo, but I'd like it to be removable and fit into the fuselage.

 

After trimming and extending the canopy I realized that the canopy glass is engraved wrong.  It would end up too low and there would be no frame below it after I worked on the lower edges to make it fit.

Bell_X-2-25.jpg

 

Looks like an opportunity to acquire an new skill.  I poured plaster of Paris into the spare canopy to make a vacuform master and started priming/filling to remove the canopy glass engraving from it.  Once the cockpit sill is squared away and I can get the sacrificial canopy to fit correctly, I'll "paint" the glass into its proper location and use that as a guide for when I start pulling a new canopy.  After I build a vacuform device...that is. 

Bell_X-2-26.jpg

 

 

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And the fabrication hits keep on coming...

 

I'm building the later version of the X-2 with the nozzles.  The kit has none of that and none of the associated plumbing.

 

Bell_X-2-36.jpg

 

I thermoformed the nozzles using Evergreen tubing, the burner on my gas range and the end of an appropriately sized steel nail set. I held the nail set in a set a Vise-Grips, heated it up and pushed a section of tubing onto the pointy end to form truncated cones.  Some cutting, sanding and "lathe" work using a drill gave a number of them that would work. 

 

I also laminated Evergreen tube and strip together to build the fairing for the turbopump exhaust.  I used scrap material from the nozzles, rod, a punched out disc, and strip stockto fabricate the turbopump exhaust exhaust duct.  The kit-provided white metal rear bulkhead was not going to fit or work with my new parts so I cut a new one out of Evergreen stock.

 

Bell_X-2-39.jpg

 

There's trimming and fitting to do on the fairing once the bulkhead is in place, but in the meantime here's a rough assembly:

Bell_X-2-40.jpg

 

 

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The small accomplishments keep on adding up!

😎

Do ya suppose the folks at Evergreen Styrene truly know what they give the model building world?

Which includes the model railway world.

 

I'll bet my box of Evergreen styrene sheets and shapes weighs at least a couple pounds.

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i'm loving your solutions to the kit's issues.

 

I build, primarily, early US Space program spacecraft and the issues you're running into, are part and parcel of these old kits. So getting familiar with Evergreen, reworking wing roots, in some cases rebuilding the part entirely ... is what makes this hobby fun for me. With these kits, there's no such thing as the kit "falling together" ... you'e gonna put in a lot of work an-n-nd, develop some pretty good scratch building skills!

 

This is looking pretty good ... it'll definitely be a "Silk purse"!

Pete

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5 hours ago, K2Pete said:

i'm loving your solutions to the kit's issues.

 

I build, primarily, early US Space program spacecraft and the issues you're running into, are part and parcel of these old kits. So getting familiar with Evergreen, reworking wing roots, in some cases rebuilding the part entirely ... is what makes this hobby fun for me. With these kits, there's no such thing as the kit "falling together" ... you'e gonna put in a lot of work an-n-nd, develop some pretty good scratch building skills!

 

This is looking pretty good ... it'll definitely be a "Silk purse"!

Pete

Thanks!

 

Yeah, I practically rebuilt the S-IVB on Realspace's Saturn IB years ago.  Learned a lot with that one.  I'm doing work to their Saturn I Block 2 as well. It's almost like sculpting an elephant.  Just remove the stuff that doesn't look like an elephant until it's done.

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10 hours ago, southwestforests said:

The small accomplishments keep on adding up!

😎

Do ya suppose the folks at Evergreen Styrene truly know what they give the model building world?

Which includes the model railway world.

 

I'll bet my box of Evergreen styrene sheets and shapes weighs at least a couple pounds.

When I bought most of my stock of Evergreen I had no idea where it would end up or what I'd need.  It's amazing what one can do. 

 

The base for this 2001 EVA pod is pretty much all Evergreen sheet, strip and rod.  The raised platforms are foam core boxed out with Evergreen sheet and the box is half of a wristwatch box.  The "lid" is thick Evergreen sheet.  The walkway is 400 grit sandpaper with strip stock cut on The Chopper and "painted" with a silver Sharpie.

EVA_Pod_New-1.JPG

 

And the accumulating stockpile that creates the new and helps stuff fit...

IMG_9393(1).jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just saw this thread and it is great.  I love all the details fixed and added.  I also love that Evergreen storage set up.  I've got copy that idea!

 

Keep up the great work.

Randy

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