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1/72 Modelcollect B-2A


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Hello ! This is my first "real time" post. The new project I'm working on is a B-2A. It's been a long time since I want to build this aircraft (since the roll-out of the aircraft in fact ;)). I had started a Testor one in the past, but I stopped. Then Modelcollect produced a kit for the B-2A spirit at my favorite scale. 

 

It will be the basis of the building (and I expect to go up to the end this time even if it's a quite a challenge considering the quality of the Modelcollect kit).

 

I begin with the cockpit which is quite wrong (as most of the kit in fact ...). I will have to move the position of the seats and the board of more or less 5 mm (red arrows), move the the access hatch to the exterior, remove some part of the intermediate wall (blue arrows), move the electrical cabinet to the interior (yellow arrow), remove the unexpected door (violet cross) and rebuild the electrical shelf (pink arrow) because the aft wall is not vertical on the aircraft. That's the plan ...

 

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This is the first step of building. The new access hatch is in place (white arrow) and the new electric cabinet and shelf too. The structure in black is made with Micromark decals.

 

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Following this, I begin to build the forward part of the cockpit. Some part are just positionned for the photo (blue arrow for example).

 

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Everything in place (dry fit)

 

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After trying several possibilities, I have chosen to use the kit ejection seats, but with modifications. For example, the green gaz bottle is on the right side of the seat (light green arrow), and not on the left side as on most of the ACES II seats. The B-2A seats are also equiped with armrests (red arrows).

 

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The floor of the cockpit has to be dug for the seat to be at the correct height in the cockpit (red arrows). The central console is also moved to the back to be at the right position (blue arrow). The board will be positionned thanks to a specific piece (pink arrow). The rudders are coming from the Eduard set for the Testor kit.

 

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Everything in place ... unfortunately, the seats were still too high ...

 

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I made some other changes to be conform to what I can understand from a recent video of a tour in a B-2A cockpit. The hole in the floor for the seat is deepened (red arrows)

 

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The sides of the cockpit have been modified to be flat and not curved as on the original kit (white arrows)

 

P1040282.JPG.9c7c6c3a8241e7f2eefbe3f34a981267.JPG

 

and that is the upper part of the cockpit. The internal framing of the canopy are made with black styrene sheet pieces. It is a test on a spare canopy (I have two). I want to build a B-2A to the more recent standard so there is a kind of "ears" (pink arrow)

 

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this is the external view (the "ears" with red arrows, the inner frame of the canopy in blue arrows).

 

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I hope you'd like it (and sorry for my english)

 

Colargol

 

 

Edited by colargol
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I carry on ...

 

The second difficult part of the building is the air intakes. First, the fitting of the internal ducts is not very good, but mostly, the air intake are not in the correct position! They have to be moved 1 cm to the back. 1 cm of the upper part of the intake has to be cut (yellow text), and the forward part has to be modified (following red line). The inner parts to position the intake (black arrows) has to be removed too.

 

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see the difference (dry fit).

 

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The boundary layer trap are made with 0.25 mm Evergreen sheet using Eduard set pieces (for Modelcollect kit) as model (red arrows).

 

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Finally, I decided to cut the forward part of the intake (yellow arrows). The pieces are glued in place.

 

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The gap is filled with a 1 mm thick styrene piece (yellow arrow)

 

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After a first series of steps of putty/sanding, I have put in place the boundary layer traps. The central spike of the plate has to be 5 mm in front of the inner spike of the air intake (I used Tamiya tape to locate the correct position). I also build the 3 structural pieces to support the boundary layer plate (blue arrows). Unfortunately, I made a mistake ... they should be one step more to the center ...

 

P1040373.thumb.JPG.4d37730785cdb1cd87377d1807f416f5.JPG

 

After another series of steps of putty/sanding ... I filled the gap in the refueling door (which has to be moved backward too)

 

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After a first paint layer, I corrected some of the sanding, then apply another layer of paint. The result is not perfect for the moment.

 

I have build the clear aperture of the astronavigation system using a part of clear sprue (from an old Hasegawa Phantom ;))

 

 

P1040410.thumb.JPG.50b1e4c92d1d919a0ca2021c9569af9f.JPG

 

Colargol

 

 

 

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I still carry on. The part I have decided to work now is the front landing gear. The Modelcollect version is very basic and approximative. I remove some part and I had some styrene pieces

 

P1040429.thumb.JPG.22a8d95ced08a86531cf4f660dc662f7.JPG

 

The landing light will be build after a first series of cabling. Has the holder of the light is not directly connected to the landing gear, I positionned it using a temporary gluing of a longer piece (green arrow), then adding the supports (pink arrows). After positionning the lights, I will remove the unwanted part.

 

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And this is the front landing gear.

 

P1040462.thumb.JPG.29a3673cc3449971da4dc37d0c5f518b.JPG

 

Colargol

 

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I just set mine on the MLG, the left wing is warped and I had a huge lean I think on 

my LMLG. Can’t do much about the wing warp, and good thing the bottom is not the most viewed. I can’t wait to get it finished. I hope the B-52 builds better I have 3 of them.

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17 hours ago, markiii said:

@colargolWhat references are you using for your dimensional information?

Thank you

 

Hello,

 

I am using pictures from the correct angle. I rotate the picture to have the line between the nose point and the tail point as horizontal as possible (black line). Then, I know that de distance between A and B is around 27.9 cm on the kit, I find the position of the item I try to locate - for example the central spike in the boundary layer plate (line E and F). Then the distance between the noise point and this point is equal to ((E+F)/2-A)/(B-A)*27.9 cm 

 

I check that the length of the aircraft is correct too by making the same calculation with rear spikes of the wings : ((C+D)/2-A)/(B-A)*27.9*72 ==> that gives me the length of the aircraft that I compare with the actual one to possibly correct the previous measurements.

 

I am using Powerpoint to make the geometrical construction, so I can have the position of the line to make the calculations as properties of the lines.

 

Using that on a dozen of pictures, I was able to evaluate that the position of the central spike in the center of the upper part of the air intake should be at 8.2 to 8.4 cm from the noise point. It is at 7.3 cm on the actual Modelcollect kit. 

The modification is also coherent with the evaluation of distance between the central spike and the middle of the "V" of the gaz exhaust.

 

 

 

thumbnail.thumb.jpeg.64d48922e55ba95022db6585b58c583c.jpeg

 

I hope it would respond to your question ...

 

Colargol

Edited by colargol
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Hi!

     Funny.... I was just thinking earlier today that this kit could be on my radar for an upcoming build as I have seen very few built. After seeing all of the flaws of the kit, I think it just went off of my radar! Still, I'll be following your build. It's looking great thus far 👍 Fred K.

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1 hour ago, Badmofo said:

Hi @colargol  that is some serious scratchbuilding.  Awesome!!  Would you know where I can find the video of the B-2A cockpit tour?  Would you be adding details to the engine bay?  If so I would look forward seeing it!! 

I think I saw it on YT.

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4 hours ago, Badmofo said:

Hi @colargol  that is some serious scratchbuilding.  Awesome!!  Would you know where I can find the video of the B-2A cockpit tour?  Would you be adding details to the engine bay?  If so I would look forward seeing it!! 

 

Hello and thank you for the comments 😉

 

The link to the video is this one : Video

 

I will close the engine bay because I don't have information enough to scratch build anything properly. Moreover, as the weapon bays are going to be open, the opening of the engine bays would create an obstacle to see correctly the weapon bays (I intend to open one of the bay completely, with the bay door in the horizontal position close to the fuselage). For the same reason, I will keep the main door of the front gear bay closed.

 

And I love the joke about the radar 🙂

 

Colargol

 

 

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Hello, 

 

I carry on ...

 

I had to modify the front landing gear door especially because the shape is incorrect. I first thought that the door was 2 mm too long, but it turns out its the front landing gear which is too short. But the shape of the door is wrong too. I corrected the shape (1.5 mm reduction, red arrows) and used the piece as a patron to have a 0.25 mm thick door. (clear blue arrow) I reduced by 0.75 mm (±) each side of the Modelcollect piece (orange arrow) and glued them together. 

 

The locking device of the main door is seen here (pink arrow), the main door will be closed.

 

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The landing gear bay is wrong. On one hand, the position of the side in not correct compared to the opening of the bay (bay is not large enough compared to the opening) and on the other hand, the central piece of the bay is too wide to permit the building. Everything has to be corrected (which is more or less the case of everything on this kit). I had to add 0.5 mm i width (2 x 0.25 mm, blue arrows below) to fit properly the opening (and I modified the lips of the opening and the sides too). The upper part of the bay (white arrows) that will be in contact with the bottom of the cockpit is also modified to increase the margin ... I tend to doubt any dimension on the kit and I suspect that the building is impossible otherwise. The purple arrow shows a part of the side that I have removed for the access ladder (as I have moved the position of the hatch in the cockpit). That is another reason why I have chosen to close these door.

 

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Here is the bottom part of the fuselage, with the modification of some part: as I have removed 1.5 mm from the front landing gear door, I have to add it on the fuselage (red arrows). The grey arrows are showing the lips I have modified to be finer and mode suited to a valuable building.

 

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This is the front landing gear assembled (not glued)

 

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This part is finished ... I am afraid that the main landing gear will be more difficult to deal with (unusable pieces, bad positioning, bad fitting, everything to reduild ... joyfull fime !). For the moment, I haven't not modified any piece ...

 

Colargol

 

 

Edited by colargol
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  • 3 weeks later...

Hello,

 

I have changed the background color 😉

 

I am currently building the main landing gear bay. Everything has to be rebuild. The internal structure proposed by Modelcollect is incorrect and I decided to remove it all. The position of the rotation axis is wrong too. It should be a little bit lower in the bay and a little bit more behind. In fact, the Modelcollect landing gear piece (as well as the Testor one) has the rotation axis (yellow arrows) aligned with the main vertical axis of the landing gear, but it is not the case on the actual aircraft. As the landing gear has to be reworked a lot do look like a B-2A one, I have decided to take into account this modification. On the left, the pieces with the structures removed. On the right, the original pieces.

 

P1040503.JPG.14ce39fbaf5d79fc6c81088e97cafc81.JPG

 

I have also modified the external bottom part of each piece so that in the end, the vertical structure would be aligned with the opening of the bay (as I did on the front landing gear bay). with the red arrows, the new rotation axis position (diameter 2 mm). It should be a little more below and behind, but I will do with this. With the clear blue arrows, the new lips of the opening (0.25 mm x 0.75 mm). As I have changed the configuration of the landing gear bay, I had to add some pieces to the long side part of the bay (1 mm x 1 mm, white arrows). The wiring is not finished yet, I will wait till the end to finish it.

 

 

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With the 4 walls (the longest is not glued yet)

 

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I hope you like it 😉

 

Colargol

 

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