checksix

I love your "how I did that" tips. I appreciate all the little tidbits of info that help me improve my own (much more modest) efforts.

This is going to look amazing! Regarding drilling acrylic: I've had similar experience when drilling flat acrylic plates: after drilling what appeared to be clean holes, several days later small cracks and stress fractures appeared. After some experimentation I found that using water as a drilling lubricant prevented the fractures from later appearing. I just used an eye dropper and kept refilling a little puddle around the hole while drilling. I suspect the water has two effects: it provides cooling so the plastic doesn't melt and it also somehow allows the drill to cut a cleaner hole without chipping away at the walls of the hole.

As long as you're putting all those lights in place, maybe you should put blue/pink leds within the engine to create afterburner "shock diamonds" using edge lighting, by adding frosted concentric rings on the outside of your clear support rod? You might be able to achieve an effect something like this:

Stellar. I like how you documented this project and especially how you described the painting and color process. I learned a lot. Too bad about the flecks inside the front canopy. It's probably happened to everyone. I've learned to completely seal the cockpit tub all around where it meets the fuselage interior in order to prevent sanding dust from working its way in during subsequent work on outside areas. Also I fully blow out the cockpit with (empty) airbrush at high pressure to get rid of any pesky dust that might be sticking underneath instrument panels, seats, etc before sealing the canopy. Again, great job.

A lovely work of art. You really need to pose it with a nice uncluttered background for some beauty shots.

It is indeed a "white rocket" :)

All that panel work is really going to look good when painted. Love the decal on back of pilot helmet. Don't rush to get it finished! It's going to be a beauty.

I used original Rockwell / North American Aviation drawings for the B-1B, obtained here: http://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/catalog/drawndoc.htm "Airdrawing 2" and "Airdrawing 18" This was a great resource. You place an order via paypal and he email's you a temporary web address and password from which you download the .zip file containing the drawings. I used a program called "Imagemagick" to convert and rescale the desired image ("B-1b.gif") into a pdf file that I took to a local Office Depot and had them print on one of their big architectural printers (48" x 36") for about $7.

I'm planning on adding "EL" (Ellsworth) markings eventually. My son will be PCS'ing there sometime this year as a pilot. I'm waiting to see what plane(s) he'll be flying so I can pick something appropriate.

Thanks all for the kind words. It was a lot of work. I had to put it back in the box a few times after frustration with fitment issues, but finally decided to beat it into submission with clamps and glue. It all worked out in the end. It will be interesting to see what ModelCollect comes out with if/when they release a kit.

Completed All done. The base of the display stand was cut from poplar. The vertical portion is a temporary mdf template that will be replaced with clear acrylic. With clear acrylic display stand, cut from 3/8" sheet:

Painting I was looking for a worn, somewhat aged appearance. After priming with Tamiya gray liquid surface primer, I sprayed multiple thin coats of Tamiya XF-54 "Dark Sea Gray", stopping before obtaining complete coverage. For walkway markings I used XF-24 "Dark Gray". For the nose cone and dielectric panels I used a 50:50 mix of XF-54 and XF-24. The wing pivot areas are X-31 "Titanium Gold". Lastly, I dirtied things up a bit with some XF-1 "Flat Black". The flat paints look good but are delicate. For final assembly and handling I wear thin cotton gloves (thanks wife!).

Back end The Barracuda resin exhaust nozzle castings are quite detailed. Installing the tiny actuator rods is a challenge. They are sliced one at a time from the casting block and then CA'd in place. Many spares are provided. I only lost two: After painting and applying a wash of clear smoke:

Front end Rather than using decals, I painted all lines and markings. Window seal outlines were applied using the Barracuda canopy masks. To make a mask for the refueling markers, I scanned the original decal sheet, did some photo editing to generate a black-on-white image, and printed out the image. Then I overlaid some frisket film on the image, traced out the pattern with a fresh X-Acto blade, transferred the film mask onto the model, and sprayed several thin coats of off-white: The resin pitot tubes are tiny. They are installed into holes that must be drilled. I used the tip of an X-Acto blade to start each hole and then opened them to size with a finger-turned .081" drill bit. A needle file was used to ream out each hole for a custom friction fit. A couple of holes came out slightly too large and required a tiny smear of epoxy:

Stabilators I added a metal reinforcing rod to ensure positive alignment during assembly: