The COMBAT MODELS
Flying Wing kits are basically all the same, whether you get the prop- or
jet-driven version; just the scale drawings differ as near as I can tell. This
'conversion' was done from their XB-49 issue. I think I used a total of less
than a dozen(!) parts from the actual kit, since the shapes were so rough.
Beyond the upper & lower wing half parts, everything was kitbashed or
scratchbuilt.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The main landing gear
struts were scratchbuilt from brass & aluminum tube stock. The main
landing gear tires, engine exhausts and nacelle engine faces were resin
cast from my own molds - tires being done from re-mastered vac kit wheel
halves, and engine exhaust and inlet faces being modified from Revell F-89
parts. All of the cockpit glass was vacuformed from scratchbuilt molds
because all of the kit clear parts were pure junk.
The finished product wasn't
a show winner, but I was happy with it. Sadly, the kit is no more - its
demise sounds like something straight from a 50's science
fiction movie. Picture an invasion of giant (scale) insects: actually, an
infestation of carpenter ants made their home inside darkness of the wing
itself. I first noticed them when I looked in my display case one day and
noticed something moving in the cockpit. I had to remove the model from
the case and ended up destroying it, saving as much as I could of my work
for its next incarnation: the original XB-35 with contra-props. The moral
of the story (which I learned from a professional pest control friend) is
to keep a No-Pest strip in your display case and change it out every
three months.
Gerald
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