Bell X-1 1/100 scale

[CMDRTED]

Needing a slightly less challenging kit for follow up of the betty project Chuck Yeager's X-1 Glamorous Glennis was picked for its relative simplicity. After all what could possibly go wrong with Bruno's simple 15 part kit that is basically a tube with wings? You guessed it, my involvement and need to "improve" on things like landing gear and altered exhaust tubes etc.
Looking at internet pics I fell back on an old kit from The Japanese company Pmodel. these are excellent downloadable kits in 1/50 scale. I borrowed the landing gear from that kit, found it wasn't readily scalable to 1/100 so I used the ideas to scratch build the landing gear.
Also the aft exhaust was a simple circular bulkhead so this was re-edited to simulate the 4 exhaust tubes seen on X-1 photos, more on that happy accident later...

[CMDRTED]

The fuselage is simple, cones and tubes, when assembled kinda looks like a ship from Flash Gordon. Here was the happy accident. while fitting the re-edited after bulkhead, I had the idea of cutting the notches around the edited exhaust tubes. While fitting the part after the cuts I squeezed the end of the fuselage and wow It fit and looked fairly convincing, so that's how that came about... Now on to my biggest challenge with My technique not the design of the kit, those G-x%#! dorsal and ventral bulges...
As designed the parts have big tabs to secure them to the fuselage. Mistake one, I used the damn tabs! I could't get the things to lay flush enough with the proper nips and tucks to conform to the fuselage shape using the base 67lb card stock. Next I tied using regular type/bond paper. This "looked" promising but while fitting the rudder they got squished and the project almost ended up in the file 13 basket. You can see the relics in the backround later pics. The I resorted to what worked best for me in the past,, no tabs, butt glue the nips and tucks and butt glue the bulges to the fuselage...Bazinga!

[Texman]

Nice recovery!

[CMDRTED]

after that hurdle, the rest went well; rudder added, the forward faring needs trimmed to the end of the dorsal hump, previously commiserated. The wings were added, no apparent dihydral
from what I could discern and was placed in the ubiquitous polymorphic lego building jig to dry. The after stabilizers were not added yet so that the next challenge could be met...

[CMDRTED]

Thanks Ray, that little bit stretched what was a day or two "simple" build to a project. The next challenge was simple in my addled mind, the landing gear. As before I borrowed the idea from the PModel then drastically simplified the gear. Two trapezoidal parts the top splint in two to straddle a simple tube with the wheel attached to that. The the gear doors. The front gear was so short the all that was needed was a simple U holding the front wheel and was glued to the forward gear well area. A few bit of #7.5 shot was added to the nose cone to keep the front gear from doing the up in the air thing...

[CMDRTED]

And just like that, pitot tubes were added from 0.3 mm lead and she's done, ready for Yeager to break the sound barrier!

[Don Boose]

Turned out very well after all the drama!

I was glad to see the close ups of the finished model after hearing your description during last Saturday's on-line meeting.

Excellent model of a historic airplane.

Don

[rmks2000]

Sorry I missed the meeting but the X-1 came out great!

[Siwi]

The thing is, it starts with landing gear and you just get sucked in. I knew I had a problem when separating the flaps and painting became mandatory but by that stage I was in over my head. Before you know it a simple Bruno kit of a fighter has taken a month and has four times as many parts as supplied in the pdf. Take my advice kids and just say no. Build your models out of the box.

[Rata]

Turned out real neat CMDRTED! Your mods really add.

As an aside, I read Yeager's autobiography book a while back. Talk about larger than life!