As the X-Plane display install night approaches, here are some photos of my newly completed X-24s for your amusement. The X-24A, a.k.a. the “finned potato”, is for the imminent display.(I built the X-24B, highly modified from the “A” version, to complete my lifting body collection. Bill Glinski is loaning his “B” to the display.) This was a Mach 2 twin kit – 2 complete experiences of limited run, brittle, misshapen, styrene goodness. Schedule constraints forced some shortcuts but I did add a proper ejection seat, and detail to add interest to the XLR11 cluster* at the business end of each bird. I had hoped to substitute the nice and clear Wings 72 canopies for the kit pieces, but the fit was just too much surgery for the available time. The Mach 2 kit canopies required extensive sanding and polishing, using grits I’ve never dared apply to clear styrene, to get to a modestly passable state; the scale thickness is still excessive. Another misjudgment was to use the kit gear doors, which are too thick and nearly interfere with the main gear. I plan to eventually replace them all with the Wings 72 vacuform kit gear doors, much thinner and easier to pose. Mach 2 decals were unusable but fortunately the Wings 72 set was marginally acceptable, and 2 rounds of Solvaset got them to nearly lay down.
Mach 2 got the shape of the “B” pretty close, but the “A” is too oval in cross-section, missing the pronounced flat bottom. Significant time was spent getting the axle lengths and gear stance of the 2 ships to match references. All the online photos I’ve seen of these Mach 2 kits seem to show out of the box gear installation, which yields very goofy-looking results.
Until such time as Tamiya releases the X-24, this will have to do…
See you on Thursday – we have some X-Planin’ to do!
Cheers,
Tim Nelson
*A word applicable to many aspects of these builds…
OMG!!!!!!! The world’s greatest Master Modeler of X-Planes has written a great article. Tim – great article. It’s either my eyes have gone bonkers- or the pictures look ‘stretched’ when I read the blog. Will have to get John K to look and see if the Grand Exalted Webmaster has the same eye problem. C U Soon!! Oh- when I used Firefox- they looked normal…….computers….ggggrrrrrr……
I dunno, John – they look perfect to me. For me they all retain their proportions, and look fine in comparison to the products in the background (Future, Perfect Plastic Putty, etc).
I’ll post one of the originals at 1/4 of its original size – maybe it’s an issue with sizing for display on the blog
Attached image:
Hi John(s),
The photos were taken at fairly close range with my phone, which is probably not a recipe for optical accuracy. I think they’re posted as my camera saw them.
Cheers,
Tim