XP-56/I Black Bullet
Comments
12 18 September 2019, 12:02
Maciej BellosWelcome Łukasz, Dave, Ricardo, Bart and Erik! I got beer in the fridge! LOL
Łukasz, I have quite a few cool projects in my stash, this was waiting for a long time.
Yes Erik, it's not an easy kit. There aren't any locating pins, there was a lot of dryfiting just for the cockpit wall, the cockpit is bare, I have no idea how the front wheel well will fit. I am even worried how will all the small bits fit in the thankfully rather spacious cockpit.
Work to follow in the weekend.
19 September 2019, 19:40
Maciej BellosWelcome Hans. Yes, it's a bit challenging, mostly due to the missing locating pins and secondly, having a bare cockpit. So I had to fill it up with lots of small plastic bits.
7 October 2019, 12:07
Maciej BellosLeft side of the cockpit is almost ready. One last thing to add.
11 October 2019, 22:07
Maciej BellosThe fuselage has been glued and as you can see from the last photo, the left half is slightly larger than the right half. Both in lenght and height, so there is some work to be done there. The make or break of this kit will be to achieve the correct placement of the wings, since there are no locating pins...
4 November 2019, 20:08
Łukasz GlińskiUgh, that difference between the fuselage halves is the thing I hate the most. Fingers crossed Maciej! 👍
4 November 2019, 20:51
Maciej BellosIt's a bummer yes. But we 've encountered worse things.
At least those limited run kits cover some interesting topics. We can't have it all!
Thanks mates!
5 November 2019, 19:15
Maciej BellosAdded formation lights from clear plastic. The red is from a LEGO block, which is quite soft while the green is from a plastic stick. The red was placed as is, while the green, which was kind of fluorescent has it's back painted with a darker clear green and will also be painted with the same green later on.
I am done with sanding of the fuselage and ready for the big step of gluing the wings correctly.
29 November 2019, 21:09
Maciej BellosThe crude locating tabs are in place. I will probably put on the wings tomorrow.
1 December 2019, 19:09
Maciej BellosAlmost two months later which where spent with putty and sanding multiple times, I think it's ready for paint. Or at least masking the canopy and putting it in place.
30 January 2020, 08:36
Bart GoesaertNice and tedious. Some serious plugs to fit the wings. But a lot better then just a flat surface
30 January 2020, 13:25
Maciej BellosThanks Bart! The fit wasn't bad, way better than the TS-11, but it still needed some work. I think it's my second decent WW2 wing-fuselage join. Fingers crossed for the paint.
Hahahah, yeah, kind of. So we started with an inverted MiG-21 and now it looks like a Komet. Let's see what's next!
30 January 2020, 18:44
Maciej BellosThanks Juergen and welcome! It's going better than expected! Long live the short runs. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have some pretty interesting topics like this one.
31 January 2020, 17:51
Maciej BellosLet's start a big discussion here about RAF colours!
In the book "Northrop Flying Wings" it is revealed that the first XP-56 sported a three tone camouflage, using the same colours as the RAF Vengeances, built under licence from Vultee. Those colours were DuPont 71-009, 71-013 and 71-021, which are Dark earth, dark green and sky. For this kind of camo airfix uses Hu 29, Hu 30 and Hu 90. Am I correct to use them? There is a pretty good photo of the side the aircraft where we can see that the colours have little contast between them. This would imply a more drab-ish green or a more green-ish dark earth, with the former being more correct for me.
What you the RAF enthousiasts say?
13 February 2020, 22:05
Maciej BellosRicardo, Humbrol is the vast majority of my paints. Quite a few of them being 20-25 year old tins still going strong. I started buying some Gunze Acrylics, mostly for my jets, so no greens and browns in the stash. There is a long way to go in replacing my Humbrol stock. I know that Gunze are a breeze in cleaning the airbrush up, but they seem to be less value for money considering coverage.
Ventilation is no problem, I spay at the balcony, whether it's 5 degrees or 40 degrees 🙂
So what do you think about the colours? Should I go for it?
14 February 2020, 13:33
Alec KHi Maciej - If you are asking whether Humbrol Hu 29, Hu 30 and Hu 90 is a good match for DuPont 71-009, 71-013 and 71-021, I don't know. My hunch is that it will take some digging to figure that out. Sounds like you like your Humbrol paints, so ignore the following if that's what you are going to use regardless.
I am not sure how accurately the Humbrol paints were formulated to match the original wartime colors. A lot of new work has been done in last 20 years on understanding wartime paints colors, and on model paints consequently. I am currently reading Real Colors of WWII from AK Interactive, so this topic caught my eye. I am pretty excited about their new Real Colors range and the amount of work that went into their formulations. I have not yet tried them, but definitely on my list. There of course are other, newer options as well (Mission Models, Life Color etc.). Just food for though...
This is going to be a great build 👍
14 February 2020, 15:40
Maciej BellosThank you for the info Alec!
It's a bit difficult to get the AK line where I live, but I will check it out!
14 February 2020, 17:37
Łukasz GlińskiFound this
cs.finescale.com/fsm..ts/f/2/t/135413.aspx
and this
jpr-guide.tripod.com/dupont.html
Not sure how accurate these are, hope it helps a bit though.
14 February 2020, 20:32
Maciej BellosThanks Lukasz!
Got it painted. Molak 129 for the brown and Hu149 for the green. Lower surfaces also painted with Hu90.
Gloss is up next.
8 March 2020, 12:20
Bart GoesaertNice touch with the not olive drab version. Can we expect british markings?
9 March 2020, 15:17
Maciej BellosGlad you like it Bart! Unfortunately, under the british guise, she is American all the way.
9 March 2020, 22:20
Maciej BellosThank you Łukasz! I sprayed some W&N gloss and will put on the decals. After that I will tackle the contrarotating propellers that don't have any locating pins (it would be an anomaly for this kit if there were any).
18 March 2020, 18:13
Maciej BellosI sprayed W&N acrylic gloss varnish diluted with Mr Levelling thinner. I applied the numerous decals (4) 😄
Ready for the wash. I was thinking of using olive drab as a panel line wash.
The last chore on this kit is to trill the proper holes on the propeller cone, in order to fit the blades correctly, securely and more importantly, easily.
23 March 2020, 20:57
Maciej BellosYes Bart, it looks interesting and all the pictures of the camouflaged Black Bullet show just the stars.
24 March 2020, 18:19
Maciej BellosJust before the finish line: landing gear, propeller blades and canopy.
29 April 2020, 09:56
Maciej BellosHaha, I think Mr Northrop and Herr Horten might have had a beer or two somewhere!
11 May 2020, 18:37
Maciej BellosJust the canopy left, so there was no use in posting photos without it. I just have to make a rig to glue it. So just a tad of patience.
11 May 2020, 20:59
Maciej BellosFinally got it done! More photos to follow under the sun, with a proper camera.
Thank you all for tagging along this rather difficult but exciting (at least for me) build!
13 May 2020, 15:01
Maciej BellosFinal pictures added! It has been a nice build, trying out new things and expanding my skills. I am happy with the result, I think it's my best build so far.
15 May 2020, 15:53
Łukasz GlińskiAwesome job, cool subject and nice details on top of it all (I like the exhausts and lamps) 👍
15 May 2020, 18:26
Maciej BellosThank you Łukasz for your kind words! The lights are cool, but I think the exhausts are cooler (and were a bit more difficult to do). There is also an antenna made from really thin naylon thread (pic 59).
15 May 2020, 20:01
Łukasz GlińskiYou are absolutely right, the antenna is impressive, for me in particular. It's so thin I couldn't spot it😉
15 May 2020, 20:24
Maciej BellosThe antenna went on quite easily. In fact, if it wasn't for my clumsiness while cutting the excess thread that ripped it off, I would have succeeded on the first attempt.
16 May 2020, 14:34
Lochsa RiverAn egg plane!! very cool for sure...here is another one...
Miles M-35 Libellula | Album by Lochsa_River (1:48)
21 November 2020, 05:40
Maciej BellosThank you Skywalker!
The red light came from a piece of LEGO, while the green one from a fluorecent cocktail stick which was paintd with transparent green.
21 November 2020, 05:44
Maciej BellosI try to find solutions for various things. Some work, others don't. Transparent coloured plastic is suited for older aircraft. The newer use clear formation lights and coloured leds. The latest editions of the F-16 come to mind.
21 November 2020, 07:21
Maciej BellosThank you WhiteGlint!
Nice build Lochsa and another eggplane indeed!
27 January 2021, 20:36
Album info
The first of two Black Bullet prototypes. A friend noted that this is a proper egg plane!
