Agape forum member Bo Roberts (jabow) shares his experience building this awesome looking Airfix B-57. Great work Bo!
B-57s were stationed at an AFB in my home town and I had several occasions to give these aircraft a good up close ‘look-see’. They were very well maintained in the mid/late ’50s so I elected NOT to weather this model at all. (Peace time military personnel have all the time in the world to keep equipment in top-notch condition.)
Used SAC landing gear and Terry Dean’s nose weight. Vac-u-formed the Canopy with .010 in plastic and glued it in place with WHITE GLUE!! Used Eduard Canopy mask and canopy DID NOT pull loose when removing mask. Haven’t tried picking up model by the canopy because it’s too thin. Hope this removes all questions about using white glue to attach canopies!! It works and I used it exclusive for my vacuform canopies!
Decals are from Xtradecal, #48077. (The blue in the star & bars looks just fine inside but too light in the bright sunlight.)
Tamiya gloss black was used overall and a real pain to get right; I’ll do better next time!! LOL!! (Ever said that before?)
The kit is okay, but NOT up to the standards of Tamigawa. The pilot figures are closer to 72nd scale and were NOT used. True Details 48th seats for the B-57 are likewise too small so I modified kit seats.
I did use a technique that I’ve never used before. I built, filled seams, painted and decaled the wings, fuselage all separately. After decaling each component, I assembled it all together. I used a lot of white glue to fill the wing-to-fuselage and tail plane-to fuselage seams!! A lot!! But a wet finger can smooth it all out W/O sanding!! Touch up with gloss black paint and you’re done!! Wish these joints were Tamigawa quality!! Oh well, it’s black and that’ll have to do.
Fun build.
