This is my 1/48 B-58
Hustler by Revell. It was bought by my wife for me as a Christmas
present, I started building it over the Christmas holidays, so it's taken me
about 4 months to build.
I mostly build
British / RAF jets, so this massive USAF B-58 was a bit of a change, I have
always liked this plane and I thought it was a fantastic design; silver
sharp and super fast - it looked like it was doing Mach 2 just standing there!
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images below to see larger images
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Construction started
with the main fuselage. I quickly abandon the sequence as prescribed by
Revell, as I wanted to get the fuselage into one piece so that I could fill and
sand the plane as a whole. The cockpit was quite well detailed (I'm used to
scratchbuilding most of
my cockpits) so was built out of the box. It looked quite impressive, but most
of the detail is lost when you install the pilot hatch - you can't get the angle
to see or photograph it properly. The Engine nacelles were built next, I removed
the solid disk of plastic that surrounds the intake cone, leaving just the
three supports, so the engine could breath properly. Filling and sanding was
quite a job due to the sheer size of the kit - nearly 2 feet long, and there is
quite a sizable nose weight in there as well. The landing gear and the free fall
Nukes were built as sub assemblies and attached after most of the paint work was
done.
Another (very daunting) first for
me was that this model required an Natural Metal Finish (NMF). I had a look at
quite a few silver paints and at Alclad Lacquer before I started. I had high
hopes for the Alclad, however when I did a test I didn't use my main Airbrush as
I was unsure how to clean up after finishing and I didn't want to clog up my
main Airbrush (I now know you can use Cellulose thinners - Lacquer thinners). So
I took the easy way out and used Humbrol #27002 buffable silver. I'm quite happy
with the finish it gave, but it's very fragile, there was no question of masking
using ordinary tape, so most of that was done with post-it notes. The lack of
easy masking also taught me a lot about how to spray neat free-hand lines and
edges with my 155 Anthem Airbrush, so that will help with other projects that I
have on the go. The darker areas on the engine and flaps are painted with
Humbrol buffable polished steel, the matt grey is Humbrol Aluminium. I did not
apply any clear coat as I didn't want to dull the silver.
The last step was to apply the decals. One mistake that I made
was applying the very large USAF to the Starboard wing (it was getting late when
I did this - should have gone to bed instead!) was that I put it on as one great
lump - the carrier film stands out like a sore thumb, even with lots of
Microsol and Microset - I hope I don't do that again.
Overall I'm pleased with the model, although I would probably do
some things differently. Mainly, I would use Alclad instead of the Humbrol,
even if it's only for the more durable finish.
Enjoy.
Karl
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images below to see larger images
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