Final Update--1/48 Monogram B-58 Hustler in Bare Metal Foil WIP

It's time to glue the fuselage to the wings.

There is a problem with the seam between the fuselage and the wing. This is a well documented issue.

The only solution is to get out the big old clamp. 

After the glue has set and the clamp was removed the seam has been reduced. After a little bit of putty the seam will disappear.

I started the foiling process on the wing. When the foiling is finished I will add rivets. There were certain areas of the real airplanes' wing that were painted an aluminum color. I painted those areas of wing with Testor's Metallizer Aluminum. The paint was sealed with Testors' flat.

Many publications indicate that this planes wings and fuselage did not have rivets and that all of the wing and fuselage panels were glued to the frame of the aircraft. That is only partially correct. Flush rivets, similar to those used on modern commercial aircraft were used on the B-58, espicially along panel edges. If you enlarge the above photos the rivets are clearly seen.

It's interseting to compare the fuselage of the B-58 with the fuselage of the B-24. The B-24 has thousands of rivets visible and the fuselage panels are all dented. 

The seams on the fuselage fave been filled and sanded many times The nose was painted white and black. After the paint dried I sealed the paint with Testors flat.

This phot compares the B-58 with the B-24J that I am also building. The fuselage of the B-24 looks like a box compared to the steamlined B-58.

Route62 and Goldhammer,

Please, keep the comments coming!! I am a retired architect with 45 years of having my projects reviewed and critiqued, usually by a group of people.  That is the life of an architect. It makes a person grow up real fast.   I am not offended by review comments. That is how a person learns.

I stand corrected.

In your pic, those do look like your standard hose clamp, or a band clamp of some sort, probably right in a field mod to secure a line in a longer run where it was unsupported.

Scale-wise, yeah, a little wide, but you work with what you have, I withdraw my nit-pick.  You are the only one you have to make happy, and you're doing another nice build.

Regarding the posts about the brake lines. You are both correct regarding the adel clamps. The odd thing is that I looked at a photo of a B-58 front landing gear and it looks like stainless steel 'hose" clamps were used to secure the brake lines. They also extended around the strut. This is where I got the idea to use hose clamps on my landing gear. There may be a rubber bushing between the hose clamp and the brake line? If you look below the bottom red arrow you can see an adel clamp. Maybe the hose clamps were added in the field???

This is a photo of the B-58 front landing gear next to the front landing gear of my B-29. The tires on the B-58 landing gears were only 22" in diameter and inflated to 220 p.s.i. The hose clamps on the B-58 landing gear may be a little bit too wide, but I think that they look okay.

Toshi

I can’t wait for the B-58 to get it’s BMF.  Every thing looks fantastic.

Your friend, Toshi.  

 

Thanks for the kind words.

I can’t wait for the B-58 to get it’s BMF.  Every thing looks fantastic.

Your friend, Toshi.  

route62

If you dont mind a little critique, with all the great work you are doing, the hose clamps look out of scale and out of place.  Aircraft brake line clamps typically do not wrap around the entire strut.  The struts on a B-58 are pretty big around and hose clamps like that would cause binding issues with all the moving parts found on most aircraft struts.

 

Have to agree, most brake and other fluid piping are secured with adel clamps with rubber inserts to avoid rubbing a hole in the line with normal vibration.  Also allows a little movement so the line won't work harden crack over time.

On the other hand, the pit, tailpipes and gear leg are some nice work.

If you dont mind a little critique, with all the great work you are doing, the hose clamps look out of scale and out of place.  Aircraft brake line clamps typically do not wrap around the entire strut.  The struts on a B-58 are pretty big around and hose clamps like that would cause binding issues with all the moving parts found on most aircraft struts.

Brake lines, wires and other pipes on aircraft tend to be clamped individually or in pairs with isolated clamps.  On 1/48 scale a simple way to simulate this is to take black electrical tape cut into 1/16 inch strips or thinner and wrap the tape around the brake line in several places and then glue the brake line to the strut.  

Aircraft clamps are usually metal clamps with rubber isolators to keep vibration to a minimum and the black tape simulates this pretty well. 

If you want to get really fancy, take masking tape, use a sharpie and color the tape black. Then take a very fine tip silver color pen or sharpie and run a line up the tape where you colored it black.  Then cut the tape into thin stripes where there is a little black showing on each side of the silver line.  Wrap this around the brake line and glue in place.  Now you have simulated both the metal clamp and the rubber isolator.  

You could also use a thin line of bare metal foil wrapped around the brake line to simulate clamps or even apply a thin strip to the black color tape and then trim into thin strips with black peeking on each side of the silver foil.

Jay Jay

It may save you some time and a little money by testing the joints with a silver sharpie instead of the foil. Works for me.

 

It may save you some time and a little money by testing the joints with a silver sharpie instead of the foil. Works for me.

I sanded and added putty twice and the fuselage joint looks really good. But, is it perfect and ready for foil??? The only way to know for sure is to test the joint. I apply thin strips of foil to the joint. Any imperfections in the joint are immedietly visible. I mark the fuselage with a black marker, remove the foil, and add more putty. After the putty is sanded I'll test the joint again.

To be honest, filling the fuselage joints on these older Monogram/Revell kits is becoming a real pain. 

The joint was pretty tight, so I used Mr. Hobby's Mr. Dissolved Putty. 

I glued and clamped the two halves of the fulelage together after installing the small side windows and nose weight. 

I decided to work on the nose landing gear while the glue on the fuselage was curing. I painted the gear Testors' aluminum and weathered it with black and rust wash.

While looking through my spare parts box I found a set of P.E. radiator hose clamps that I used on my 1/12 scale Ford GT. I thought that they would look good as pipe clamps on the landing gear. So I added brake lines and used the hose clamps as pipe clamps.

I found a couple of issues when joining the two fuselage halves.

One issue is regarding the locating pins. Ther are super small and there are not enough of them to keep the two halves of the fuselage properly alaigned. Plus, they are easy to break off.

The second issue is that the two halves of the fuselage do not properly alaign which makes for a nasty joint. This is a well known problem with this kit. 

Sanding the lower half would have been a long, tedious job, and would have ruined the curved shape of the fuselage. To solve the problem I glued a strip of plastic to the lower half of the fuselage to force the two halves into alaignment.

The joint is now perfectly alaigned.

route62

If you have trouble getting all the weight in, you could spread it out.  Some in the nose, some in the front of the fuel tank and some in the front half of the forward jets as well as behind the pilot.  Great job so far.  Would love to know your method of rescribing.

 

If you have trouble getting all the weight in, you could spread it out.  Some in the nose, some in the front of the fuel tank and some in the front half of the forward jets as well as behind the pilot.  Great job so far.  Would love to know your method of rescribing.

Tuning in to watch this one moving forward. That cockpit is incredible!!

It's time to see if the model is a tail-sitter and determine how much weight is required.

I taped the model together, and sure enough, it is a tail-sitter. 

There isn't much room in front of the cockpit due to the front landing gear bay, so I'll put the weight behind the pilot. I kept adding lead shot into a small plastic bag until the nose sat down. Then I added a littlr bit more for good luck. Nothing worse than finishing a model and have the thing sit on it's tail.  I'll glue the bag into the fuselage before I assemble the fuselage. 

Time to work on the engine pods.

The afterburnner detailing of the Monogram kit is not very good so I purchsed a resin detailing kit from Fishermodels. The quality of the detailing is outstanding.

I finished the outside of the nozzel with Bare Metal Foil that was darkened with Jax Aluminum Blackener. The interior was painted white and barkened by drybrushing with blkack paint.

On the left is the nozzel and on the right is the flame holder?

The nozzel is glued into the flame holder.

This what it looks like when looking down the completed exhaust pipe. Four of these need to be made.

While the filler putty dries on the wings of the B-24J I'll return to the B-58.

Per GMorrison's advice, the composite fairings at the front and rear of the landing gear are painted a light gray color on the actual plane. I painted them with Testors' Metallizer Aluminum from a rettle can. I did not buff them because I wanted a matt finish. After the paint dried I sealed it with Testors' Clear Flat. The moveable portions of the wings were also a flat gray color on the actual plane. How about those swirl marks in the plastic Can you imagine how this model would have looked if it wasn't painted??

The landing gear bays on the B-58 were painted with either a white of aluminum paint. I chose an aluminum color. The bays were kept relatively clean, but the did get dustu, so I used a rust wash to simulate dust.

Okay, here we go again. The wing sectiions were warped!!! First the B-29, then the B-24J an now the B-58 Once again I used clamps and my architect's scale to solve the problem. Due to the large size of the wing I had to glue one side and then the other side.

While the glue dries it is back to the B-24J.

I am looking forward to this build. I like the delta wing aircraft, F-102, F-106, B-58. The amount of foil would also be an intersting figure to have. The Record setting B-58 in the USAF Museum has an intersting history to go along with the record setting flight. Anyone know who the pilot was?   

I started by working on the cockpit. I painted the interior of the cockpit a light gray and the seat's cushion is a red color per photos on the Internet. The kit did not provide any way of detailing the gauges so I used some left over PE gauges from my recent B-29 build. They are not accurate, but they look good. The funny looking plastic that is in front of the cockpit is the color of the plastic that the model is made of. It is similar to a metalflake silver. There is supposed to be a clamshell ejection case that surrounds the seat. Unfortunetly it was missing from the kit. No big loss.

GMorrison

There are composite fairings at the front and rear of the landing gear fairings on the top surface of the wings. They are a medium gray.

 

OOH I'm in on this one for sure.  I have a 1/72 Testors/Italieri kit in the stash just waiting for the inspiration.

There are composite fairings at the front and rear of the landing gear fairings on the top surface of the wings. They are a medium gray.

JohnnyK

 

 

Hodakamax

Yay! Count me in as an observer on this one. One of my favorite models as a kid. I stood by this record setting B-58 a couple of years ago in Dayton Ohio USAF museum. What a craft!

Max

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the combo nuk bomb/fuel tank under the fuselage. The orange thing on the floor is the ejection pod. What is the huge airplane located to the left of the B-58? Is that a B-36?

 

 

Yep, and hundreds more. What a place. Don't miss this place. Put it on your list!

I definitely want too see this build finished. I built that same kit back in 86 or 87. I thought it was an awesome plane. I just don't remember those swirl marks. . Then again look how long ago it was. :-)

I thought it was an awesome kit for the time althought I just did a staight up build, no paint or anything. Couldn't afford it it and paint was expensive compared to the kit at the time. All I had available were the tiny Testor's enamel jars. 

Pretty sure your kit will look amazing when you're done with the foil and updated details.