I just bought tamiya’s Bell X-1 and I thought it was a great kit. When I got home I realized that I didn’t have orange paint, so I had to hand mix the paint from tam acrylics red and yellow to achieve the orange. I’ve always been keeping my eye out for a bell x-1 in my LHS, because I feel no collection is completed with one! So without further adu, on to the pics![:D]
Here’s a side view. The black parts on the glass were handpainted with no stencils, so it was a make or break operation.[:0]
Here’s another view. I know, shame on me I didn’t put a wash on it, but since they made it all bright and orange and only used this particular plane once, I decide no wheathering. Plus my Dad’s going to put it on his desk at work, so I didn’t want to make the thing look used and abused.
Cutting through the air!
I glossed it up with future. I wanted to flaten it so bad, but it looked like it was supposed to be glossy, so I left it…
Thanks for looking! All comments are welcomed!!! [:D]
Ryan I have that very kit in the pile and if it comes out half that good I’ll be happy! Awesome job on mixing that paint… and on handpainting the framing. I think I’m going to try the Floquil Reefer Orange for the out of the bottle orange. Did you have any particular problems with the kit itself?
Thanks for all the comments![8D] The fit was HORRIBLE on the landing gear on this kit! The two fuesalage halves went together perfectly, but if you want the landing gear in and you want to glue the doors shut like I did, it takes a lot of sanding and dry fitting and it’s still not perfect. This model is ment to have the gears out, so if you want to put them in like I did, it might be a little trouble. But everything else went together prefectly. It comes with the option to show off the engine and all that detail on the inside. It has fuesalage halves that are clear, so you can glue the clear half on to show it off. The only problem with this is the clear half that is supposed to show is on the side with the decal “Glamorous Glennis” and I didn’t want to lose that, so I felt I was kind of forced to not show the clear halves. But I’d give it an 8 out of 10, 10 being the best. It took one day to build and it was pretty fun! I’d recomend it.
Great job! I’m especially impressed by the canopy. I have Eduard’s 1:48 scale, and the canopy intimidates me – I couldn’t imagine doing a 1:72, and free-hand at that! Excellent job!
Some years ago, I made the Tamiya X-1, and did the canopy framing with thin srtips of black decal. It worked well, so you might like to try this approach on the Eduard 1/48 model. Be sure to use lots of softening and setting solutions, do the lengthwise frames first, then paint a layer of Future. Then do the width-wise frames, and another layer of Future. You should find that everything blends in well and that the framing looks part of the plane’s structure.
Great model, .ArmorMaster! I especially liked your mix for the orange. You’ve got it spot on for Yeager’s first supersonic flight.
Thanks everybody, but bad news:[:(] on the way to work in the car the x-1 broke! He said the traffic was really rough, so the right elevator snapped off, along with the nosecone pitot! I put so much future on it, so it didn’t scratch the paint, so it’s not that bad, just 30 minutes of repairs…
Chris - thanks for the tip. There was an article in FSM last year where the same technique was used on the 1:48 Eduard, so I may just have to try that.
Ryan – I’m sorry to hear about the accident, but glad to hear that it was easily fixable!
ArmorMaster:
1st: great looking x-1 ! [tup][tup]
2nd: ouch! 2 bad about the damage… i hate it when that happens ![xx(][xx(][xx(]
3rd: really glad 2 hear it was fixable ! [:D][:D][:D]
