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Special Hobby 1/48 X-15A-2 Build


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I haven't posted much lately, I've been busy with other things in between builds and haven't been able to post.  I have also noticed that the forum has been fairly quite of late so here is a thread on a build I completed back in September.  A friend of mine saw my 1/144 X-15 build and asked if I would like to build his 1/48 X-15.  He had bought the kit several years earlier and each time he opened the box, he felt a bit overwhelmed and put it away.  I gladly said yes and thus the build began.

 

Here is the box art for this version of the Special Hobby kit.

k7tVuiq.jpg

 

The kit comes with a sprue of injection molded parts.

Ho08q5b.jpg

 

It also has a bag of resin parts for most of the details of the kit.  There were a couple of small parts that had snapped from their pour plugs.  You can see them in the second from the right in the top row pour plug.  Also there are two VERY thin parts (first row third from the left) for the ejection seat fold out stabilizers, one of the pair was broken.  I used some CA to carefully glue them back together.

sssLiRE.jpg

 

Lastly a couple of sheets of decals are included.  I also purchased a decal sheet from Hypersonic Models (not pictured).  These are excellent decals and cover virtually every marking that appeared on the X-15's over the years.

HeLk2Dd.jpg

 

The kit parts are mostly pretty clean.  The fuselage parts do have a slight warp lengthwise that I’ll have to contend with when they go together.  It does have some fine engraved panel lines so that is good.  Some parts will need to have holes drilled in them to insert their resin detail parts.  The inside of the parts are a bit rough and will need some work to get the fit right.

 

My friend wants the kit built as an inflight representation so the cockpit will barely be seen through the small oval windows.  Here is the initial fit of the cockpit canopy.

5SBvV6S.jpg

 

After quite a bit of sanding and shaping I was getting close.

dtFdyJx.jpg

 

It's much better, but I’m not quite happy with it.  I’ll work on it a bit more before throwing in the towel.

 

Here I have attached the main control stick to the cockpit.

oH60qyJ.jpg

 

The right side hand controller went on well since there was a hole for it to fit into.  The throttle was a bit harder since it was very thin and had no hole.  The air brake control handle needed a small trough added before it could go in.  Here is the cockpit with all the control handles added.

t0R2c6x.jpg

 

I removed the ejection seat from it’s pour plug.  The ejection seat needed a couple strips of styrene added in order to properly attach the fold out stabilizers.  I also cleaned up the control panel.

CF7stnW.jpg

 

Next I repaired the broken ejection seat stabilizer and removed the pour plug from the nose wheel well.  The wheel well will never be seen, but I am going to include it for overall balance of the model on it’s base.

HAGeQif.jpg

 

I placed the ejection seat in the cockpit to verify my mod would not interfere with proper fit.  I’ll glue on the stabilizers after the cockpit and ejection seat are painted.

6y0g2eC.jpg

 

I next moved on to the dorsal vertical stabilizer.  The plastic parts are pretty rough on the inside.  There are injection plugs that will have to be removed and the leading edge will have to be tapered far more on the inside to allow the proper angle on the wedge shaped stabilizer.

8qjloxP.jpg

 

You can see the amount of angle the kit had by the bright edge above.  It required a lot of sanding.  It is not nearly as bad as another kit is back in the stash closet.  It is a model of the Have Blue aircraft, the precursor to the F-117 Stealth fighter.  The wings on that kit (by Pegasus) are horrible.  I’ve pulled that kit out several time over the past 4 or 5 years only to stick it back in the stash after more sanding.  Someday I’ll finally get it finished, maybe.

 

Anyway, after sanding the proper profile into the inside of the stabilizer, they were glued together at the leading edge only.  When that set, I added the wedge to the top of the fin.

Wfl0TO8.jpg

 

I then removed the resin fin back piece from it’s pour plug and glued it into place with CA.

PyYWv3p.jpg

 

More to come in the next post.

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Great to see you back here again, Randy! 

Yeah, this forum has seen ver-r-ry little activity in the last year and a half. Myself, I think I burned myself out. I've got 3 models that are almost done and I just ... can't ... get back in the groove. This Virus thing has been preoccupying my interest, honestly. But I do need the diversion from it and I'm hoping the urge to complete those 3 models will happen real soon!

I tend to get motivated when there's a Contest but, as we all know, those have been gone for months ... but maybe, may-y-ybe-e-e the BIG local one will re-appear in March!

 

This Special Hobby kit has had my interest for a few years and I'm really gonna look forward to seeing what you do with it! It has a lotta potential to be a show stopper! I saw one on Large Scale Planes many years ago wherein the builder did a superb job on the paint!

 

I think you may be the inspiration for a few of us to join you back here! Hope so anyway ... a lotta names have disappeared and I hope to see 'em all again ... SOON!

 

Thanx Randy!

Pete

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I didn't go crazy with mods on this kit but I did make a few changes here and there.

 

At the end of the previous post I showed the progress on the dorsal vertical stabilizer.  Well, after looking at it, and then doing some dry fitting, I discovered that the wedge should have been flush with the back of the fin sides and the resin back piece should have been put in below the wedge.  So I removed the back piece and then cut a small piece of .01 x .01 inch strip and glued that to the back of the wedge.  Then I re-installed the resin back piece.  Here is how it looks now.

CaSeVjo.jpg

 

Before I started work on the ventral fin, I noticed that the sides of the dorsal fin had a slight curvature.  To correct it I inserted a small strip of .01 x .01 styrene.

1IQVtBN.jpg

 

I then got ready for the ventral fin.  When reviewing my research data, it looked like the ventral fin was slightly shorter than the dorsal fin.  Why didn’t I notice that when I was doing the 1/144 scale version?  Well, it turns out that both of my 1/144 scale X-15’s were modeled with only the fixed portion of the ventral fin that contains the air-brake.  So, I dove deeper into my research data to find some dimensions and sure enough, the ventral fin is 11 inches shorter at the back and 9 inches shorter at the front.  I guess I just never paid enough attention to that before.  Anyway, I converted those dimensions to 1/48 scale and drew then onto the ventral fin inside face as seen below.

VYl5fjE.jpg

 

The lowest line coming off the curved lower edge was to get a measurement line.  The next line up shows the fixed portion of the fin.  Finally the top line shows the amount that needs to be removed.  I made the same marks on the other side and then started cutting off the excess.

 

In the meantime I primed some of the parts to help highlight any areas that might need some more work.

kY8auoc.jpg

tPqBKqt.jpg

 

I then did a little work on the nose gear door.  It required quite a bit of sanding and shaping to fit properly, and I still don’t have the scoop door added yet.  As an aside, the scoop door is what allows the nose gear door to open at a high angle of attack, otherwise the air stream pushing against it would keep the nose gear door from opening.

hYd37zS.jpg

 

Back to the ventral fin.  The movable portion of the ventral fin is ejected before landing otherwise the fin would hit the ground before the skids did.  The ejected portion had a parachute in it so it could be recovered and reused.  This meant that I needed to model a parachute door on the back side of the fin.  The supplied resin part didn’t have any provision for a parachute door and it also had piping molded in that never existed on ventral fin of the actual plane.  Removing the piping would pretty much destroy the part.  So it was just easier to scratch a new one.  I took a section of .01 sheet stock cut to the proper shape and then marked where I wanted the door to be.  Next I glued on sections of .01 x .01 strip stock to represent the corrugations.  Then I cut a rectangle of .005 sheet stock to represent the door.  Onto that I glued some more .01 x .01 strip stock.  I then glued that to the gap in the strips I had left.  Here is a photo of the original part and my scratch build replacement.

aqxlu5u.jpg

 

I then went back to the ventral fin and started construction.  I began as I had with the dorsal fin, by gluing the leading edge.  I then added the top wedge, followed by the new back piece.  I also added the resin top of the air-brake.  Here are a couple of photos.

uzNouVT.jpg

wBwuoAa.jpg

 

Here is a side by side picture of the dorsal and ventral fins and their size difference.  Note that I also have added some filler to both parts as well.

8CrxiCw.jpg

 

I have some painting to do on the cockpit parts before I can start on the fuselage.  More in the next post.

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I finally finished the nose gear door. The scoop door required a lot of reshaping to fit the hole. I suppose it would have been less noticeable if I was modeling it with the gear down, but with gear up you have to carve quite a bit off to make it fit.

porJP9n.jpg

 

You can see from the above photo that the RCS nozzles were drilled out. The original molding was just a small engraved circle. Here is a before photo:

vHEfPfb.jpg

 

Next I painted the cockpit parts. Mostly gray with some black panels, gauges, yellow eject handles, red cushions on the seat and headrest, and some orange on various parts of the ejection seat.

yW8yKBV.jpg

 

Then I glued the nose gear well into the bottom half and the instrument panel and cockpit tub into the upper half.

ilDvXDx.jpg

 

Here is the cockpit tub.

TQzNXkn.jpg

 

Here is the cockpit from the top side.

1DcFFH5.jpg

 

I taped the upper and lower fuselage halves so I could do a preliminary balance check. I want the model to have a CG near the center so it will fit on it’s stand without trying to pull itself off from the front or back. When I went to hold the model halves together so I could tape them, I noticed that the front of the fuselage would not close.

hTwjFCv.jpg

 

The edges of the cockpit tub were too straight and were interfering with the curvature of the lower fuselage.  I should have noticed that when I was gluing the tub in place.  I took some coarse sandpaper and started removing material. Basically I was rounding the edges off.

eqSvSLt.jpg

 

I was then able to close the fuselage halves.

6nnu9Ah.jpg

 

I needed to work on the back of the fuselage and glue in the rocket nozzle. I taped the halves together and then slid the nozzle into position and used CA to glue the bottom half to the fuselage.

9ovTh53.jpg

 

I put the wings in their spots and did a balance check. So far so good. The next balance check will be prior to drilling for the stand. At that time I’ll also tape on the vertical stabilizers so I can get a better check on the CG.

QaZab1G.jpg

 

I used some epoxy to firmly attach the nozzle to the lower fuselage. I made sure the epoxy puddle flowed forward a bit so it could grab one of the mold plugs. That way if for some reason the epoxy let go there would be a mechanical fit so it would be less likely to move around.

41EwNmf.jpg

 

In the next post I'll show the work on the external tanks.

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I moved on to the external fuel tanks. I glued them together and used a bit of filler putty to cover the seam. I also glued the pylons to the tanks. The standard model would pretty much have you stop there and have you add a few resin details.  1/48 scale is large enough to allow modeling of the piping that ran along the top of the tanks. The 1/32 scale kit includes the parts to do just that. For this model I needed to scratch build the piping.

 

Beside the piping there were some standoffs that kept the pipes off the surface of the tanks along with some hardware that assisted with ejecting the tanks. I used some .010 strip stock for the standoffs. I was going to use .015 styrene rods as the piping, so I needed to get a .015 bit to drill holes in the standoffs. Here you can see the standoffs after I drilled them. They are a bit too tall, but I will fix that with some sandpaper after I glue them on.

EZSL8P8.jpg

 

After gluing some of them on and sanding them to a good height, I ran some test piping through to see if this idea would work. I chose two short pipes that disappear into the tanks after passing through a couple of standoffs. I had to drill the holes into the tanks as well.

EkmZihy.jpg

 

As long as I can thread the .015 rod through everything without kinking or breaking it, this will work out nicely. I also had to drill larger holes at the back of each tank for the resin details to be installed. Once they were in I drilled some holes for the piping at the back.

EexWvci.jpg

 

Next it was time to scratch build the hardware that goes near the front of the tanks and has some of the piping passing through it. It was built up from a couple of sizes of styrene strip and a couple of sizes of styrene rod. A couple of the styrene rods had to be drilled out at one end to accept some of the piping. I had to be careful while holding the rods for drilling so I didn’t slip and drill into my finger. That bit isn’t much bigger than some straight pins, but it does a wonderful job.

KAfQNKh.jpg

 

Here is a shot of the completed parts. I think I’ll glue them on after I paint the tanks to make masking easier.

2Qey4b7.jpg

 

Here are the external tanks with most all their details added. Now its time to get them primed and then paint. I’ll add the piping itself after the tanks are painted. There is no way I could mask them off while painting. The tanks are handed since some of the details are in different places depending whether they are on the left or the right. Also the piping is slightly different between the left and right.

1kEfq7V.jpg

 

I also positioned the tanks where they would go on the fuselage and drilled a register hole. The tanks will have a short piece of 1/16 inch rod that will fit into the hole and aid in getting them in their proper place. The tanks will not be installed until the plane itself is painted.

21t3krs.jpg

 

That's it for this post.  More to come.

Edited by as205
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I’d been procrastinating on doing the windows for the cockpit. The windows have to be cut from a supplied square of clear plastic. I started by cutting out a rectangle of the approximate dimensions and then I carefully sanded the rectangle into an oval shape that will fit the openings in the cockpit canopy. It actually wasn’t as difficult as I was imagining. It did take a while to get a shape that fit, but careful sanding slowly created window that fit well into the opening. In the picture below if you look closely you can see the window in place. I used Plasti-Zap CA glue. It does not fog clear plastic, but holds the parts together very tightly.

vXXGdf7.jpg

 

I then shaped another window for the other side. I only dropped a window into the carpet once. Fortunately I was able to find it and didn’t have to shape another window. Once they were glued in and the glue cured, I used some alcohol on a cotton swab to clean the windows both inside and out. I then brushed on a coat of Future Floor Finish on both sides of the windows. It not only makes the windows very clear, but it also helps to hold them in place similar to the glue.

dLNsU6d.jpg

 

Next I applied some Tamiya masking tape and used a fresh #11 blade to mask the windows for future painting.

WJZzW3x.jpg

 

It was now about time to glue the fuselage halves together, but before I could do that I needed to nail down how the model was going to be displayed. Special Hobby does not provide any stand for the model if you build it as an in-flight version. My friend supplied a stand that he had bought some time ago. He and I were both fairly sure it would not work. Once the external tanks were mounted, the stand would not fit between them.

 

I looked on the internet for an alternative. I thought I had found one, but after it arrived and I started doing some fit checks, I realized that it wouldn’t work very well either.

The stand had a very long curved chrome bar that came up from the wooden base. Since the X-15 has a substantial ventral fin, this stand would have required the model to be mounted just behind the cockpit. That was the only way to be sure the ventral fin would not hit the chrome bar. This would have resulted in a very unstable mount.

 

So back to the internet I went. I finally found one that looked narrow enough and had flat metal bar that would be next to the model that was only and inch or so long. That would easily clear the ventral fin. When it arrived in the mail I was even more pleased. It included a threaded insert that could be glued into the model and then it had a thumbscrew that secured the model to the stand. It also had another short pin that went into the model and prevented it from spinning on the thumbscrew. Here are some photos of the model with the holes drilled and the threaded insert in place, but nothing is glued in.

PxJzPGk.jpg

 

Here is what the holes look like from the outside.

CvTpQWs.jpg

 

Here I have attached it to the stand.

LY5AEVW.jpg

 

Here it is from the side.  The nose up angle looks good.

CaC1r1e.jpg

 

After verifying that this was going to work, I added a small styrene fence and then poured epoxy all around the threaded insert to permanently affix it to the model.

tYKVtTk.jpg

 

Now finally I could glue the fuselage halves together. The halves were slightly warped, but that was easily taken care of by gluing the halves together bit by bit from the nose toward the rear. When I was about a third of the way down I shifted to the rear and moved forward. It went together pretty well. I used Tenax 7R and it welded the halves solidly.

GffqJh3.jpg

 

It required a bit of seam scraping and some filler to get a clean joint. Then I needed to re-scribe some panel lines where they cross the seam. I then epoxied the ejection seat into the cockpit. It looks pretty good. I didn’t go all out on the instrument panel since so little will be visible through the tiny windows.  The decision had already been made by this time that the cockpit canopy would be glued into place.

ouzLXwd.jpg

 

Here it is from the front.

MjfBZXq.jpg

 

The canopy didn’t give me as much trouble as I was afraid of, but it did take a fair bit of sanding, scraping and re-scribing.

c0BKQ9d.jpg

 

The wings gave me more trouble than I was expecting. They were both warped. I hadn’t noticed this before, but then I wasn’t really looking at them very closely at the time. I soaked them in boiling hot water for a few minutes and then took them out and carefully bent them to remove the warp. I wasn’t able to get all the warps out, but they are now visibly straight and you need to look closely to see the remaining warp.

8zVumTy.jpg

 

I also attached the horizontal stabilizers. Now it is really starting to look like an X-15.

vzPnB9t.jpg

 

Next post I get back to the external tanks.

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Pete,

 

The kit came with the resin parts.  Much of the resin is for the ground dolly.  I didn't build that since he wanted this to be an in-flight version.  This version did not have any PE.

 

Randy

 

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I have the external tanks primed and the first color applied.

Ys6vFGZ.jpg

 

If I was doing it again, I'd wait to install the resin part that represents the tank jettison rocket.  I got ahead of myself and installed that before painting.

 

I painted the rest of the tanks. All that is left is to paint on the final few details and then spray them with a clear coat prior to adding the decals to them. I’m sure that I will have to run a drill bit through the small holes to remove the bits of paint and clear coat so the 0.015 rod will pass through.

7BHIwz1.jpg

 

The external tanks were painted and ready for the final details to be added. I did that by using CA to attach a device that I had previously scratch built. I’m not sure the exact function of this device. I can’t find any documentation for it as of yet. However, it is built and looks similar to the one on the actual tanks. I painted it silver and then attached it to each tank. I then sprayed on a clear coat to prepare them for the decals.

neFMbDg.jpg

 

I gave my friend some options on which flight to depict.  The external tanks were painted differently and there were some sample ablative patches on the X-15 depending on which flight was going to be modeled.  He decided to go with flight 2-45-81 on July 1, 1966.  It was Robert Rushworth's final flight in the X-15 and the first with fully fuled external tanks.

btuKqY8.jpg

 

I started applying decals to the tanks with the black stripe that starts at the forward black stripe and then spirals around to the back of the tank. The two tanks do not have the same spiral. The white tank has a spiral that goes from the top front around the tank and back to the black end also near the top. The silver tank spiral starts at the same place as the white one, but the spiral ends at the back near the bottom instead. Then there a LOT of info and warning placards on the tanks. There are eight on the front of each tank under the nose. Then there are four on top of the tank. Fourteen on the outside of each tank. Two on the inside of each tank. Five at the back of each tank. Finally there is one on the pylon of each tank. I then put on a light coat of matte clear to protect them.  The Hypersonic Models decal instructions and a few photos I was able to find on the internet were a big help in locating where the decals went.

HQIQ257.jpg

 

Here is a view of the side of the tanks.

PogSYGf.jpg

 

With the decals on I moved to piping the external tanks. I started with the ammonia tank and the pipes that run from the pylon forward. I had to use a straight pin to clean out the holes on the stand offs a bit so the 0.015 round stock would pass through without a lot of pressure.

buVNtUP.jpg

 

I chose the ammonia tank first since its piping was a little more complex than the oxygen tank. Someof the pipes need to cross each other on their paths. The scratch built sliver piece of hardware where you see three of the pipes going have holes drilled in them to help in attaching the pipes. I next moved to the back of the ammonia tank to add the piping there.

aSRElBd.jpg

 

The back of the tanks have some piping needed to be added as well.

 

I followed a similar procedure for the front and back of the oxygen tank.

qGFhBF8.jpg

 

Here is a view of the back of the tanks.

IvmFAl6.jpg

 

After the piping was done, I painted the pipes silver. To avoid getting silver on the orange, white and black areas, I put small slips of paper under the pipes while I painted them.

Ovaj2ns.jpg

 

Now that the external tanks are done, I need to get back to the X-15. More in the next post.

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20 hours ago, habu2 said:

I have the version of this kit without the external tanks, it includes resin and a PE fret. You can find a parts breakdown in the instructions, found on scalemates:

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/special-hobby-sh48008-north-american-x-15a-2--130373

 

.


well #^%*+ that was supposed to be an edit to fix an unfortunate typo but it ended up being a reply….

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10 hours ago, as205 said:

After the piping was done, I painted the pipes silver. To avoid getting silver on the orange, white and black areas, I put small slips of paper under the pipes while I painted them.

 

Hey, that is a useful idea even though I'm not building rocket plane fuel tanks, yet it is similarly piping attached to a pressure vessel, piping on 1870s steam locomotives.

Wonder how well slices of Post-it Notes would adhere, well enough to stay put and yet poorly enough to not mess with metallic paints?

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I wrestled with how to get the piping painted without messing up the paint underneath for a while.  Trying to mask it would have been a pain.  Then a little synapse fired and I thought about brush painting the pipes with slips of paper slid underneath.

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That is awesome! My dad was stationed at Edwards from 1958-1964 so I got to see the

B-52/X-15 taxi out and go in all the black smoke and a couple times he took me and my 

sister out to watch it "slide back home" on the lake bed. Was a great time   to be a young

fella loving aviation. 

 

Cheers...Ron

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Back on the X-15 itself, I glued on the dorsal fin/rudder with Tenax. There is a gap that will have to be filled where the fin meets the fuselage, but it is not too bad. I also glued on the resin helium tank box. It will require a bit of filler to make it properly meet up with the air brakes.

to2Osu7.jpg

 

There are also a few small pinholes on one side that will need filling.

sSnLJTo.jpg

 

I then glued on the ventral fin. It too has a gap at the fin/fuselage joint that will need filling. It also had a much larger gap at the base of the air brake on the right side. I couldn’t use filler since the air brake was a moveable surface and should have a small gap at the fuselage. I ended up gluing on a strip of .010 sytrene to fill the gap. The end result looks good.

JzhCfv4.jpg

 

Next came the landing skids. I removed them from the pour plug. They are a two piece assembly. One small piece represents the hinge where the skid is attached to the fuselage. The instructions indicate to glue the hinge to the fuselage first then glue the skid to both the hinge and the fuselage at the same time. Of course by this point I have ditched the instructions long ago. I glued the hinge to the skid and made sure they were square and lined up properly.

LOminj1.jpg

 

I then glued that assembly to the fuselage. This worked very well. The fuselage has some small marks molded into the plastic that indicate where the skids should go. This helped getting them aligned properly.

rrPZ8Fk.jpg

 

I then masked the back of the ventral fin/rudder at the air brake opening. This will keep primer and paint from getting on the detail parts inside that are already painted.

vOcGBwg.jpg

 

I next tackled the APU exhaust ports. They are small pipes that exit the fuselage near the cockpit at an angle. I took a piece of 3/64 styrene rod and drilled it out to make a tube. I then cut off some angled sections and glued them in place.  I could have just used some 3/64 styrene tube, but I didn't have any. However, I did have some rod and a drill bit.  The end result looks good.

8GbsuX1.jpg

 

After cleaning up some final spots that needed some more filler, I sprayed primer over the whole model. This let me better see if I had some additional areas that needed filling. Of course there were. I had to do additional work on the wing/fuselage joints, the fuselage half seam, the ball nose and a couple of spots at the back near the engine. When those were cleaned up I sprayed primer again.  This view also shows the improper nose shape of the kit.  It isn't horrible, but it is extremely difficult to fix. I decided that in the end it isn't that noticeable to anyone other than an avid X-15 aficionado.

7ORuxot.jpg

 

After looking it over I decided that I had to add the thrusters on the wings. The ones on the nose had been drilled out earlier in the build. They had markings showing where they were. The wings had no such markings. There were two upward facing thrusters and two downward facing thrusters. I went through my documentation and finally found some dimensions that the would allow me to measure where they should be on the model. I made some marks and then drilled out some shallow nozzle representations.

jYSEKkh.jpg

 

I also went back and re-scribed some panel lines near the front of the tunnels that run along the sides of the fuselage.

AdNTqNE.jpg

 

The only parts left to add are a couple of antennas on the ventral side of the fuselage and the two vent booms that project from the back of the rocket motor. I’m leaving them off until painting is finished since with all the handling that will be needed I will probably break them off if I put them on now.

 

Next up, paint!  More to come.

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I started painting by covering part of the bottom area with Vallejo White from the ventral stabilizer and up to the nose gear door. Then another white area from wing tip to wing tip near the flap hinge line. I then masked off exactly where I needed the white stripes to go. I used 1/8 inch wide tape for the wingtip to wingtip stripe and two strips of 6mm tape slightly overlapped for the stripe from the ventral fin to the nose gear door.

CPEsPEJ.jpg

 

With that done I sprayed the model with a base coat of Tamiya NATO Black.

uFRqfRd.jpg

 

I decided to mask off some of the panels to paint with a slightly lighter gray. I first used Tamiya masking tape to outline the areas and then covered the rest of the bird in more Tamiya tape as well as blue painters tape.

9Mnzwag.jpg

 

I then sprayed on the Vallejo Black Gray.

AeIVxzg.jpg

 

When the paint was somewhat dry I removed the masking.

i3M6rAC.jpg

 

I needed to decide what color I was going to use for the areas that were covered with a test ablator. I suspected that a single color would not match what I thought the color should be. I was probably going to have to mix a custom color. I started by getting a part from my spares box and then painted it with NATO Black. After that had dried I masked off six areas to test different paints. The boxes on the top are from right to left: German Red Brown and Red. The next row down is: Amaranth Red and RLM23 Red. For the bottom row I mixed some Amaranth Red with German Red Brown and Amaranth Red with RLM 23 Red.

ewBvL9Y.jpg

 

After the patches dried I decided that the Amaranth Red/German Red Brown was the best match. I then started masking the X-15 for the areas that were to be painted the ablator color.

J0ZqZu9.jpg

 

The black area down the middle of the underside is actually already masked for the white stripes so it didn’t need to be masked again. After the paint dried I removed the masking and the result worked out pretty well.

AoEGbiN.jpg

 

Here is the right side of the craft.

AqUdTrC.jpg

 

And here is the underside.

LvNMqMH.jpg

 

While that was curing I moved to the rear vent pipes and the ventral antennas. You can see that I have already added the third vent pipe to the left hand vents. The resin parts were identical but if you look at any picture of the rear of the aircraft you can see that the right and left sides were different.

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I needed to drill out the vent pipes instead of leaving them as flat ended rods. I also added some straps over the new pipe.

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I needed to thin the antennas where they point toward the rear. The kit part was too thick. It was more like the pitot tube. Here you can see the difference between the kit part (at the top) and the modified part (at the bottom).

h82P0XN.jpg

 

The end is getting close.  Just a little more detail paint here and there and then add the decals and the last few parts.  More to come in the next post.

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This is the home stretch on the build. Just a few minor things to do. First was to finally remove the masking from the underside of the plane. There was very little bleed from the black over spray. It was easily touched up.

gZpMI05.jpg

 

You can also see that at this point I’ve added the two underside antennas. I left the masking over the screw hole so that the upcoming clear coats will not gum up the threads.  There is also some small rectangles of masking tape that are covering the area around the alignment holes for the external tanks.  Those will provide a glue surface between the external tank pylons and the fuselage.

 

I next sprayed on a gloss coat in preparation for the decals. Then decals started going on in earnest. I started the process about 7:00 pm one night and got on a roll and when I had finished I noticed that it was 3:00 am. Oops, I hadn’t planned on making it an all nighter, but there you are. Here is a view of the right side of the plane with all the decals on.

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I used only a few of the kit supplied decals. Namely, the yellow NASA tail stripe, the large and small “Star and Bars”, “U.S. AIR FORCE”, and the large “USAF” decals. All the other decals came from the aftermarket Hypersonic decal sheet. This is an excellent decal sheet. I believe that there are markings for any variation of the three X-15 aircraft.

 

This decal sheet is meant to be used with a set of masks that they also sell. The masks are for the markings that I used from the Special Hobby sheet. Those markings were originally the wrong size. Special Hobby did correct them for later runs of the kit it appears. The kit I was working from had corrected sizes. However, I think the “USAF” markings were still just a bit large. Not a deal breaker, but still not quite right.

 

Anyway, after applying some MicroSol to make sure the decals settled in to any details and then giving them time to completely dry, I sprayed on a matte clear to take most of the shine off the airframe. Once that had dried, I removed the masking from the windows, the dot covering then screw hole and the external tank pylon glue points. I mounted it on the stand briefly to get a good overall look at it.

daFXrVX.jpg

 

The only parts left to be added are the vent pipes at the back and the ammonia and LOX tanks. I installed them next, and then did a bit of touch up paint on the vent pipes.

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I then put the model on its stand.  Here is a shot from the back. I dry brushed the back of plane with metallic gray. The inside of the nozzle was given an off white color and the injector plate I painted titanium. I tried to get some of the dark radial pattern of the nozzle but each time it just didn't look the way I wanted, so I ended up just leaving it the base color. I did paint the inside of the pipes with black to highlight them.

AkQYpDn.jpg

 

Lastly here is an overall shot form above.

BHhR4EV.jpg

 

Here it is on its stand before I send it to its new home.

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My friend is very pleased with how it turned out and I found the whole project a fun experience. It wasn’t the easiest kit I’ve ever built, but it was enjoyable overcoming the problems along the way.

 

In the end this was "almost" an out of the box build. I looked back on the build and noted the following modifications that were made.

  • Added hinge standoffs for the ejection seat stabilizing wings.
  • Scratch built ventral fin rear face which includes a parachute door
  • Shorten the ventral fin to scale height
  • Added full piping to the external tanks (granted this was by far the most time consuming mod)
  • Added hardware to attach the model to the purchased stand
  • Added APU exhaust pipes

That’s a pretty short list of add ons. Some of the add ons required more work than others but it is still a short list. There were also the usual amount of modifications to various parts, like thinning the antennas, drilling out pipes an other minor changes.

 

At first this kit made me apprehensive for my own Special Hobby kits that I have in my stash. But after building this one, I feel that those kits will build out just fine.

 

Thanks for following along.

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Thanks, I wasn't sure about it until it actually went down. There was just enough difference between Tamiya NATO Black and the Vallejo Black Gray.  I forgot to mention that I did add a light rub of Tamiya Weathering Master Gunmetal on a few panels but it just about disappeared with the matte coat.

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Wow, that went by fast  : )    I noticed the same with Tamiya Weathering Master.   A friend once told me he seals Weathering Master with clear gloss first to enhance the colors before applying matte, or else it will disappear, although I've never tried it myself.    Lovely model and very inspiring work, as always, as205!

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Thanks, crackerjazz.  Yes, this was a build that I finished back in September (started in May), I just never got around to posting the build until now. Thanks on the info about the weathering masters.  I'll try that next time.

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