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The Blackbird Builder's Thread


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Well, Cobrahistorian and I have been on a bit of a SR-71 Binge the past several days, so this idea came to me. Sooner or later Brain P is going to release his Blackbird sheet...and those Testor's kits are gonna come out of the stash.

Thought we'd get the party started early with a thread where you can show off your builds of the A-12, YF-12, SR-71, M-21/D-21 family of aircraft. Post up reference sites you come across, and any helpful tidbits you happen to want to share :)

Personally, I've never made one, but I do have a couple that I'd pull out with new decals to put on them. Specifically interested in the 1/48 YF-12...if anyone's ever made one :)

Take care,

=Anthony B)

Edited by AnthonyWan
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Built this in 1986 or so... 1/48th Testors with a few minor mods here and there, all rescribed, Microscale decals and painted with "Wet Paint Gloss Black enamal, overcoated with Advanced Products Full Flat. All covers were copied from shots i took at Edwards AFB open house. I kinda re-built it in 2007 for the AVG club Edwards Display.

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img057.jpg

I hope this fits the bill.

Cheers,

Larry McCarley

21045

Edited by Incaroad
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Okay, how about these pics:

fin71-4.jpg

fin71-1.jpg

fin71-3.jpg

Kit used was the 1/72 Hasegawa Blackbird with NASA decals to do it up as NASA 844 (formerly USAF 980, the last new Blackbird off the assembly line). Primary color used for the black coloring was Floquil Grimy Black as it matched pretty close to the coloring of a Blackbird on display nearby to me. The Hasegawa kit builds easily, although accuracy is a little off since it is the oldest 1/72 Blackbird kit in production and near as I can tell the second SR-71 kit produced behind pre-meger Revell's (and they modified their YF-12 mold to do it). Shape looks good and lines look good, but some of the tiny details up close aren't quite right. When built, she does look like a Blackbird though.

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Well, I got a significant amount done on my D-21 last night. The airframe is together, engine intake spike and exhaust nozzle are installed and the next step is to fill and sand until the vertical fin is completely faired in.

Once that's done, it'll be prime, preshade, paint and install on my soon-to-arrive Blackbird which will be converted to an M-21!

Jon

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Built this in 1986 or so... 1/48th Testors with a few minor mods here and there, all rescribed, Microscale decals and painted with "Wet Paint Gloss Black enamal, overcoated with Advanced Products Full Flat. All covers were copied from shots i took at Edwards AFB open house. I kinda re-built it in 1987 for the AVG club Edwards Display.

IMG_9981.jpg

IMG_8739.jpg

CopyofIMG_9863.jpg

CopyofIMG_9866.jpg

CopyofIMG_9869.jpg

CopyofIMG_9871.jpg

CopyofIMG_9873.jpg

CopyofIMG_9880.jpg

Copyofimg085.jpg

img057.jpg

I think this fits the bill.

Cheers,

Larry McCarley

21045

thats the best HABU i have ever seen :(

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Anyone ever done an A-12? I've never actually seen a build of one before.

:(

Paul Boyer did one in FSM (January 2006 issue I think) and it was not quite 100% accurate, but pretty good. HS also has an article up for doing an A-12 and it is more accurate then Pauls.

I've collected kits to do an A-12 in 1/72, but haven't started the conversion work yet. I would like to do it in 1/48, although trying to find a decent priced Testors/Italeri YF-12 for the unique tail section is tougher then hen's teeth right now. I wish Testors would just stick the YF-12 parts tree in the SR-71 kit so one could do practically any Blackbird from it (including an SR-71C if one so desired). The kits are 85% common otherwise.

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I'd be up for sponsoring and moderating a "Black Jet" group build. Say any aircraft that came from a 'Black' program or any actual jet painted black. Say April timeframe. Should be plenty of time after the release of our SR-71 sheet...

-brian

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I'd be up for sponsoring and moderating a "Black Jet" group build. Say any aircraft that came from a 'Black' program or any actual jet painted black. Say April timeframe. Should be plenty of time after the release of our SR-71 sheet...

-brian

I'm in (EDIT), no wait, I'm not. The little one should be arriving around the same timeframe, so I'm not going to have any time for it. I do have a 48th YF-12 arriving any day now. Anyone interested in resin tailcones?

Jon

Edited by Cobrahistorian
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Anyone have an instructon sheet for the testors 1/48th scale sr-71 scanned they could email? I bought a kit on ebay that did not include the instructions.....so much for a "mint in box" kit...........

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Anyone have an instructon sheet for the testors 1/48th scale sr-71 scanned they could email? I bought a kit on ebay that did not include the instructions.....so much for a "mint in box" kit...........

They're on my desk at the moment. I'm happy to photocopy and mail you a hard copy. Scanning/resizing and would take too much time. PM me your address and I'll mail them out in the morning.

-brian

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I'm in (EDIT), no wait, I'm not. The little one should be arriving around the same timeframe, so I'm not going to have any time for it. I do have a 48th YF-12 arriving any day now. Anyone interested in resin tailcones?

Jon

Very interested Jon :thumbsup:

I'd be up for sponsoring and moderating a "Black Jet" group build. Say any aircraft that came from a 'Black' program or any actual jet painted black. Say April timeframe. Should be plenty of time after the release of our SR-71 sheet...

-brian

I'd be in for that Brian...:wacko:

Edited by AnthonyWan
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I'm in (EDIT), no wait, I'm not. The little one should be arriving around the same timeframe, so I'm not going to have any time for it. I do have a 48th YF-12 arriving any day now. Anyone interested in resin tailcones?

Jon

Yes I am interested. That way I wouldn't have to acquire a YF-12 just to recast the kit parts to convert an SR-71 to an A-12. And yes, a Black jet group build would be great.

I proposed a stealth one about 18 months ago, but it fell on deaf ears (and Blackbirds qualify as early stealth). I don't know if I would do the 1/48 kit, even though I have collected bits for it (such as the Cutting Edge exhausts). But there are a couple other NASA Blackbirds I would love to do in 1/72, such as the SR-71B, and the YF-12A and YF-12C.

As for differences between A-12s, YF-12s, M/D-21s and SR-71s, I recommend going here for starters:

http://habu.org/

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Yes I am interested. That way I wouldn't have to acquire a YF-12 just to recast the kit parts to convert an SR-71 to an A-12. And yes, a Black jet group build would be great.

I proposed a stealth one about 18 months ago, but it fell on deaf ears (and Blackbirds qualify as early stealth). I don't know if I would do the 1/48 kit, even though I have collected bits for it (such as the Cutting Edge exhausts). But there are a couple other NASA Blackbirds I would love to do in 1/72, such as the SR-71B, and the YF-12A and YF-12C.

As for differences between A-12s, YF-12s, M/D-21s and SR-71s, I recommend going here for starters:

http://habu.org/

Have that site bookmarked Jay :cheers:

On a totally different note, would it be illegal for you to cast copies of the exhausts that we could trade you other resin bits for? :thumbsup:

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Have that site bookmarked Jay :cheers:

On a totally different note, would it be illegal for you to cast copies of the exhausts that we could trade you other resin bits for? :P

Sorry, THOSE I am not recasting as I don't think it would be ethical (and there are copyright issues). Plus, depending on who ended up with the masters, they might become available again in the not too distant future anyway. Also, my experience with recasted parts has always been that they never work quite as well as the originals anyway due to a 1% amount of shrinkage in the molding process that always occurs. As the pieces get bigger, that 1% error manifests itself with some rather nasty surprises. I have one set of these resin exhausts and they will get used in a Blackbird, just as they were intended.

That being said, paint work on the stock exhausts can make them look almost as good as the resin ones. Indeed I might do my first Blackbird essentially box stock (as a B model with the canopy closed) before attempting to do a fully tricked out one with a resin pit, wheels and exhausts.

Edited by Jay Chladek
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Sorry, THOSE I am not recasting as I don't think it would be ethical (and there are copyright issues). Plus, depending on who ended up with the masters, they might become available again in the not too distant future anyway. Also, my experience with recasted parts has always been that they never work quite as well as the originals anyway due to a 1% amount of shrinkage in the molding process that always occurs. As the pieces get bigger, that 1% error manifests itself with some rather nasty surprises. I have one set of these resin exhausts and they will get used in a Blackbird, just as they were intended.

That being said, paint work on the stock exhausts can make them look almost as good as the resin ones. Indeed I might do my first Blackbird essentially box stock (as a B model with the canopy closed) before attempting to do a fully tricked out one with a resin pit, wheels and exhausts.

That makes sense.

Hope Brain gets this GB going...should be an interesting event. :P

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