As my wife is going into surgery in a few weeks I figured I would start one of my long term projects that Ive been looking forward to for a long time.I plan on doing my first complete re scribe.I have a few more tools arriving over next few days so I will start then.Posting pictures along the way trying to be descriptive with the process.
I will be adding as much detail as I can because lets face it this is one sexy bird.


I will be using the new after burner decal sheet reviewed here by are very own LITESPEED Afterburner SR-71 Decals part 1
more to come hope you enjoy

I'll be with you through this one Keeper, looking forward to watching your work (as always). Best of luck with it mate !

Cheers, D

Excellent Justin, will be watching. Looks like there is a bit of fuel spillage from refuelling on the Habu. Very, very sexy beastie the SR-71.
All the best.
tim

I'll be following this one because I've seen your work and I have the finished kit at home and I'm not satisfied with how it came out.When I bought the kit it arrived without directions or decals.The manufacturer e-mailed me the directions and I ended up going to afterburner for the decals.I haven't applied the decals because I had decided that I was going to break this thing down and make it better someday.Your build came at just the right time. I'm on board for this one. Acktwice

Great project Justin!

Maybe Paul Fisher's (Fisher Models) resin upgrade sets that he has announced for this kit will be out soon and allow you to 'gild the lilly' with this model?

Watching with interest and every success with the build!
Best regards

Wow I have an audience thanks for the kind words and watching.
Most of my tools arrived today just a few things I wanted to try and feel it out with.Lets face it im mostly use to fixing my oops's

#1-1/48 verlinden scribing template #0281
#2-squadron seam scraper #10203
#3-flicka ma jiggy van houusen what

Ok really its a pc.of dowel rod with a needle that I swindled from my wife
But it sounded cool

More to come thanks for watching

P.S.-I will check on those resin sets sounds good primarily I will be looking for resin gear bays and engines.I plan on closing the canopy why?because it looks completely sinister just sitting there

almost forgot and this is right up aussies ally I ordered a P-61 today.full rescribe on that one day.Auss just puts to much temptation there to not get one

In the immortal words or Monty Burns "Exxxxxxxxxxcellennnnnt !"

So progress since my last post.I have been spending some time gathering photos for references from walkarounds and other photos and I feel I have enough now.One thing that surprised me was the fact that I could not find one picture where someone shows you the correct panel lines as the Testors kit has a few flaws that I have found so far and quite a few people have re scribed this kit.Normally this would not be an issue to me but since I feel like I'm basically creating my own kit i felt I might as well fix it.So I started wit part#19 why because it was the biggest part i grabbed a hold of first.

You can see the left side is re scribed the right side is not.First I took my scribing template laid it on top of the line I wanted to scribe and then drew my hobby knife with a sharp blade turned backwards across 5 times as this plastic is really soft and I didn't want to go to deep.Second I took my needle and drew it through my scribed line to open it up.Third I started sanding with a 280 grit sanding stick to remove the raised panel lines and raised parts from scribing.
I then went over this with a 600 grit sanding stick followed by a wet sand with 2000 grit.I then ran my needle through everything again to remove all of the sanding particles.
Forth I took a tooth pick and ran back over all the lines as this makes them smooth and more life like.I continued this process for the remainder of the pc.
Before:

After:And through photo references I noticed there was visible rivet detail on the tail section so I added these in with my trumpeter rivet wheel.

I then moved forward where things under went some changes...

The spots I marked are incorrect and should be removed.
And it should look like this:

All of this should be removed as well:

The center panel line on the top does not run the entire length of the plane.It only runs to about a foot in front of the parachute doors with testors didn't bother to mold into the top of the fuselage so I scribed one.Also My kit was way of center so I had to measure and fix all the lines on the top so they were where they should be.I used a pc.of tape to show you how far its off.

Here is the finished pc.corrected and washed and put up so that I can start the next one.

More later thanks for watching

This has "Labour of Love" written all over it as a project and I just sense it will be superb when finished.

Keep going Justin!

Gary

Under sir this whole time while I'm doing this in the back of my mind I'm thinking about paint,wheel bays etc.in my head it's my greatest model yet. Hope it comes out that way

Thanks for watching

Beautiful work so far Justin, this will be a great thread to follow.

I have been collecting a pile of AM goodies to give one of my (many) Monogram P-61 kits a similar treatment, and it looks like I'd best invest in some scribing templates as well !

Keep it up Keeper, I'm loving this !

Cheers, D

latest Work:I began by adding some vents to the sides of Part#19 that were left out.and cut out the elevon's as these will be in the down position on my build..


I then re scribed part#18 and added a panel line to the center that was missing again I cut out the elevon's and the tape shows you how far off the bottom is before I fixed it....


more soon

Will be keeping an eye on this one. I have a set of Cutting Edge engines/burner cans for this one, along with a True Detail cockpit and wheel set. Damn you for inspiring me to get started.... lol Looking good so far Justin. "Q"

Lol thanks red I have to order the cans and wheels and maybe some other things.going closed canopy I won't need the pit.
Thanks for watching

Just realized cutting edge isn't in business any more so I will be detailing the kit cans

Justin, I'm in total awe at your meticulous attention to detail.I know just from what you've done so far that my bird will not even look close to to what it was before I broke it down.

Justin,

Looking great! I'll keep watch on this one.

Thanks for watching guys I just wanted to mention that the buldge in the bottom of part#18 is totally incorrect but to fix this is going to be a major overhaul and I hav'nt figured out just how far I want to go yet

I did a dry fit of parts 18 and 19 through lots of pics of the real bird compared to built pics that I've looked at you really can't tell so I'm leaving mine

Working on the nacciles now and it's taking a little while lots of detail missing hopefully I will post this weekend.also wanted mention this is my first time using tamiya extra thin and I will never use another glue again.....this stuff is the bee's knee's

Can't wait to see how you tackle the next stage - an excellent build article and some real MODELLING skills on show here. Great stuff Justin!

Gary

Thank you for your kind commits sir

update time began work on the engine nacelles that's all I have to say about that.Ive been on one ever since my last update
These are the big nasty's....

this is the large gap that runs all the way from the air intake to the elevon.....

filling in said gap with stretched sprue.......

sanded result......

removal of the elevon again planning to have these in the down position.....

after multiple priming and sanding sessions and a few of these I managed to almost sand through the nacelle replaced it with plastic card and all was well....

that part was nasty.
here is the finished product added multiple seams and rivet detail ......




I took what I learned on the this one and I'm applying it to the other side which is gluing behind me and the seams have a much better join.hopefully not as much work.
Thanks for watching

Wow, that's almost a masochistic undertaking. You like torturing yourself?

Excellent job, sir. You have waaay more patience than I and I salute you for it.