**** DONE: 1/72 Revell SR-71 Blackbird 17978, Playboy Bunny

[Airframes]

Nice progress Dirk.

 

[B-17engineer]

Glenn!

Nice Work Dirk!!!

 

[Crimea_River]

Good progress

 

[Catch22]

Looks good!

 

[vikingBerserker]

Looking great!

Thanks for that info Sweb!

 

[dirkpitt289]

ok last night I started to fill the endless seams. Tonight I applied a second round of filler.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

A story from an SR-71 Pilot

We trained for a year, flying out of Beale AFB in California, Kadena Airbase in Okinawa, and RAF Mildenhall in England. On a typical training mission, we would take off near Sacramento, refuel over Nevada, accelerate into Montana, obtain high Mach over Colorado, turn right over New Mexico, speed across the Los Angeles Basin, run up the West Coast, turn right at Seattle, then return to Beale. Total flight time: two hours and 40 minutes.
One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below is. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed.
"Ninety knots," ATC replied.
A twin Bonanza soon made the same request.
"One-twenty on the ground," was the reply.
To our surprise, a Navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was.
"Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground," ATC responded.
The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter's mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace.
In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, "Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground." We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.

I believe this story came from Brian Shul's book, "Why I Fly"

It's also in Slead Drivers to I believe. And the Bird is looking GREAT!!

 

[T Bolt]

Dirk, that does not look look an easy seam to deal with. I wonder why they designed it there instead of at the sharp edge. I for-see a lot of sanding and polishing in your future! Good luck!

 

[Airframes]

I agree there, having seen the trials and tribulations of Matt's build! Looking good so far though, and the Dak in the background looks interesting - added internal structure I see.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

I don't envy you that job Dirk, but I know you'll make a good job of it.

 

[magnu]

Good progress Dirk.
All power to your elbow mate, you're gonna, need it sanding those seams.

 

[dirkpitt289]

After reading Matt's build thread and seeing what he went through I figured there had to be a better way. As I described a few posts ago I filled the seems with Mr Surface 500 (Two applications). Then after it dried instead of sanding till my arm and the detail fell off I decided to go the acetone route. This is what's left after working on the seems of the SR-71. No surface detail was harmed during the removal of the filler. Woo Hoo

At this time I don't have any presentable photos to show but the seems are just as acceptable to me if not better then if I sanded them. The only issue I had is at one point I spilled some of the acetone and it got on my thumb. I then imprinted my finger print into the top of the model. Not that big a deal as I already sanded it out. Removal time of all the filler was close to 2 hours. I wanted to be sure I got all the filler and not melt the plastic. After I was done I went over the seams with some fine (pink paper from the Testors pack) grit sandpaper to soften it all up. Its now smooth as a baby's bottom

 

[T Bolt]

 

[Airframes]

Sound good Dirk. When I saw the pic after reading what you'd said about 'all that's left', I thought the whole model had dissolved!!

 

[vikingBerserker]

Nice!

 

[dirkpitt289]

Sound good Dirk. When I saw the pic after reading what you'd said about 'all that's left', I thought the whole model had dissolved!!

that would be funny... Who am I kidding that would suck...

 

[Crimea_River]

FYI, the acetone (I use Cutex nail polish remover) works with Squadron putty too but you do need to use it sparingly as it does soften plastic.

 

[dirkpitt289]

FYI, the acetone (I use Cutex nail polish remover) works with Squadron putty too but you do need to use it sparingly as it does soften plastic.

I was wondering if it would work on the Squadron stuff but it was way to thick for this application. Not to mention it gets everywhere my filler of choice has been the Mr Surface products.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Sounds like things went well for you Dirk...................acetone, now there's food for thought removing dried filler. I wonder how it effects resin.

 

[dirkpitt289]

You know I don't know but I have some spare resin parts I could test it on and see what happens