SR-71 Blackbird 1/72 Italeri

[BeebleBrox]

I am in an aircraft frenzy and got this Blackbird on the bench. Old (1985?) kit.



Smooth finish, took a while to learn how to use the Air Brush.




The horror after putting a clear coat on it for the decals. Was planning to wheather it with oils. Tried some but it looked awful. Wiped it of and Sealed the whole thing with matt varnish and used pigments for wheatering instead.


The smoothness is back and the pigments makes soft transitions.


Just assembled the landing gears. Will put matt varnish and pigments on lower hull next

 

[Quaralane]

Excellent Blackbird there. Nice work with the old kit

 

[BeebleBrox]

Thanks Q!

 

[BeebleBrox]

Varnish and pigments

 

[urumomo]

you gonna set those decals with MicroSol or something ? Tamiya MarkFit super angry ?
How deep are those grooves where they're sitting ?

 

[BeebleBrox]

Psychotic amount of microsol. The grooves are 1 mm maybe. Might try cutting with scalpel and microsol some more.

 

[BeebleBrox]

some whitish paint tomorrow.
Should have stencils and air brush markings like that.

 

[RayRay39.rs]

Great job, Blackbird came out very nice.

 

[henrysan15]

Excellent work...

 

[Hagoth]

Great job on this! One of my favorite planes.

 

[stevethefish]

Several years ago, I built the Italeri Blackbird for my dad since he helped work on it. He wasn't a part of Skunkworks, but worked with Air Force satellite photography, map making, etc. He'll never tell me what exactly he did. I assumed with his photography background that he had worked on cameras for the Blackbird, but he said he was involved with electronics. This Italeri kit has little windows on the bottom of the fuselage that the Hasegawa version does not. I asked him if those windows were for cameras, and he said he was unaware of any windows, or cameras on the bottom for that matter. I asked that since it's a spy plane, wouldn't there be cameras on the bottom? All he said is that the Blackbird's systems didn't really work the way people would assume they did, and left it at that. He said he also didn't know anything about the drone thing, so I didn't build it with it attached.

 

[BeebleBrox]

Several years ago, I built the Italeri Blackbird for my dad since he helped work on it. He wasn't a part of Skunkworks, but worked with Air Force satellite photography, map making, etc. He'll never tell me what exactly he did. I assumed with his photography background that he had worked on cameras for the Blackbird, but he said he was involved with electronics. This Italeri kit has little windows on the bottom of the fuselage that the Hasegawa version does not. I asked him if those windows were for cameras, and he said he was unaware of any windows, or cameras on the bottom for that matter. I asked that since it's a spy plane, wouldn't there be cameras on the bottom? All he said is that the Blackbird's systems didn't really work the way people would assume they did, and left it at that. He said he also didn't know anything about the drone thing, so I didn't build it with it attached.

Interesting story, I also presume they are for cameras and thats was what the plane did. Photograph ground.

Those windows on the Italeri are not that precise by the way. Will try to get that Hasegawa kit.

 

[BeebleBrox]

Great job on this! One of my favorite planes.

Yeah, good looking and great engineering.

 

[BeebleBrox]

Done

Could have done a better job with the decals on the grooved wings.