WB-57F Oddball-1:48 build

[murphyaa]

That one looks way better than the one I built. Interesting idea breaking up the wingspar too, I usually glue the whole thing together, then slide it through the fuselage.

You might have some issues with the inner wings with your method. As designed, I planned on having the inner wing glued to the fuselage, then the engine slid up against it to help keep it's strength and shape. If you try to attach the inner wings with the engines already mounted, you might have some fit issues.

[Leif Ohlsson]

I remember your litter box well.

That is actually the most out-of-the-box-thinking example I can recall off-hand. - L.

[Swampfox]

Originally Posted by murphyaa

You might have some issues with the inner wings with your method. As designed, I planned on having the inner wing glued to the fuselage, then the engine slid up against it to help keep it's strength and shape. If you try to attach the inner wings with the engines already mounted, you might have some fit issues.

Thanks for the heads up Murphy, where were you while I was in the middle of this build?

Stay tuned;-(

SFX

[Swampfox]

Originally Posted by Leif Ohlsson

I remember your litter box well.

That is actually the most out-of-the-box-thinking example I can recall off-hand. - L.

I was wondering how long it would take before I heard that!!!

[murphyaa]

Originally Posted by Swampfox

Thanks for the heads up Murphy, where were you while I was in the middle of this build?

Stay tuned;-(

SFX

Probably doing 65mph down a highway somewhere.

[Swampfox]

Next up came gluing the engines to the fuselage using the anhedrial wing spar sections to attach the pieces.


Recall a couple of steps back I glued the appropirate piece of anhedrial wing spar to its correct engine. Notice the white styrofoam block sticking out of the engine on the right? Just a small piece of reinforcement to make sure the wings don't flex too much once glued in place. I added these block to both engine/wing sets.

Nothing complex here and it was a fairly fast, painless procedure. Just pay attention to the alignment of the parts and line up the pieces to the guide lines... I had to fight the urge to "fix" the alignment of the wings and really wanted to correct the droop in the wings!! DON'T DO IT. Stay on the lines provided on the parts


This step is quick and easy that I did not think to stop to take pictures of the steps.
Sorry about that!!

SFX

[Swampfox]

Originally Posted by murphyaa

You might have some issues with the inner wings with your method. As designed, I planned on having the inner wing glued to the fuselage, then the engine slid up against it to help keep it's strength and shape. If you try to attach the inner wings with the engines already mounted, you might have some fit issues.

I thought it was perfect timing that Murphy made this comment just a day or so ago.
__________________________________________________ __________
This involved wrapping and gluing the inner wing panel of each wing into the space between the fuselage and the main engine.

This was going to be a slow process and I dry fit the parts over and over trying to make things look right.......BUT THEY DID NOT?!

I looked at the piece's from the kit, and looked at several drawings I have of the plane and something was wrong..the landing gear bays were in the wrong place!! This affects sheet 8 and 11.

I triple checked and they were drawn incorrectly. Using Photoshop and Illustrator, I made the corrections and sent them to Arron Murphy to include in both the USAF and NASA versions he was selling on ecardmodels.


The original parts placed the landing gear back about 2 inches on the model or 8 feet on the full scale aircraft.

If you've bought these models from ecardmodels, check your kits and make sure that you have the correct parts.
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CONTINUING...........................

I glued the contact points between the inner wing piece and the fuselage about 1 inch at a time, cutting thin, thin slivers every inch of the way to make it fit.....


Working slow and steady, allowing the contact points between the 2 pieces, to dry for an hour or so, while I worked on another part.

I had a tough time getting these pieces to finally stay in place. I added some thickened white glue to the seam and this finally worked as can be seen in this picture.



Finished adding innerwing panels.

I would like to suggest that if your going to build this model, take a look at another build thread by gomidefilho/Péricles-- here-- Martin RB-57 in 1/100 scale - Oddball Productions
He approached this step the way Arron suggested in the quote that I started this post with and I like his solution better than mine...and he took better pictures than I did.

PLEASE NOTE: The nose cone is not glued in place, I only press it into place to take the picture and then remove it to continue!! I don't know how much weight I'll need to add to the nose yet, so it will remain unglued until the very last step.


SFX

[Swampfox]

If this seems like a strange place to be gluing the landing gear in place......it is!!

I was concerned about the amount of droop in the wings. Would the tips touch the ground? On an actual RB-57F, fully loaded, the tips get within 18 inches of the ground!! At 1:48 that is 3/8" or ~9mm!!

I had to make sure I didn't end up with wingtips underground. SO, I decided to attach the landing gear at this point.

I'd built the parts several steps back, so they were ready to go.

No problems in this step, I also added all the landing gear doors and other support parts to make a rigid structure.
,

Wheels on the ground
, ,

Looks like it belongs at the Salt Flats in Utah!!


SFX

[Ashrunner]

Good looking build, Swampfox.

One of the things I vividly remember about all the B-57 varieties I refueled during my military career, was the way the aircraft sat on the tarmac. It sat tail high, with the nose low to the ground. The nose wheel of the aircraft was depressed so that maybe a quarter to a third of the top of the tires were covered by the bay doors.

You can see that lower nose well in the photo here.

The EB-57s which were assigned to Elemendorf AFB during my first stay there, had almost half the nose wheel hidden, more than any other -57 I had seen. I believe that was because the aircraft there were even more nose heavy due to the variety of electronics on-board for its mission.

The photo here (shot at Elmendorf after the -57s were reassigned from there) shows how the EB-57s sat on the ground. The only difference between the aircraft in the photo and the EB-57E aircraft which were located at the base during my tour of duty, is the "horns" are missing on the nose. This can only mean a difference in the avionics located in the nose, which may explain why the nose of the aircraft in the photo is slightly higher than I remember.

By the way, the "horns" I refer to are seen in the photo here.

[Swampfox]

Ashrunner, thanks for the kind words, much appreciated.

I have to agree with you about the HIGH Tail low nose character of the B-57 in general. Next to the drooping wing tips of the F model, the high tail really does stand out.

I agree also that the electronics packages they carried were leading cause of HIGH TAIL in these aircraft, they were packed to the max with sensors and the like.

I believe that only 3 of the 21 F models built had the 'horns' you refer to, and I also believe that in those cases, the horns were part of the aerial refueling equipment on those particular aircraft. Not at all sure about the photos you referenced in your post. Possibly sensor probes of some kind?

SFX