1/48th X-1 and X-1B Beauty & the Beast

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T Bolt

Colonel
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Mar 24, 2010
Chicago, Illinois
I was watching The Right Stuff the other day and realized that I have both an X-1 and an X-1B in my stash so I decided to build them both.

The reason I called this Beauty & the Beast is that the X-1 is a real nice Eduard kit and the X-1B is a Glencoe ex Strombecker kit that dates back to 1958.

They are both simple kits. The Eduard X-1 nicely detailed but without a large number of parts, The Glencoe/Stormbecker X-1B, childishly so with only 20 parts and 2 of them are the old Stormbecker base. It more than makes up for the low part count with all the work I'll have to put in to it to get a decent looking finish out of it.
 


Let's start with a look at The Eduard X-1 First



Only 2 spurs with some nice looking parts on them. Fine recessed panel lines, a nice clear canopy and some nice looking decals


 
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Now onto the Beast. The molds on this kit are half a decade older than me



There is not much holding this plethora of parts together




You get the original stylish Stormbecker base



Here's the highly detailed pilot figure in his detailed cockpit. The fuselage is covered with raised rivets like all Mach 2 aircraft should be, and a spur attachment point that will give me some practice with my Xacto saw.



The instructions look to be a copy of the originals with some extra comments added



The kit The decals and decal placement sheet do look very nice though and are what made me think there was some hope for this kit

 
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I decided to start with the X-1B

The molded over cockpit and pilot head had to go so I outlined the canopy and started cutting away



Now I had to come up with an interior. The decal sheet comes with a control panel for just this but that's it. The canopy is pretty thick so not much will be able to be seen so my thought is that making up a seat will give the impression that the rest of the cockpit is there too

Here's the real thing from the Air Force Museums website. The color will guarantee it will be seen



The control panel decal mounted on some plastic card and the bulkhead and seat frame



A couple of shots of the almost complete seat



Lastly I glued up the fuselage after adding a bit of nose weight and some added plastic to the inside of the dorsal bulge aft of the wings (more on that later).

 
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X-1B

I've started putting a little picture at the beginning of each post to show which X-1 is involved in that post.

The basic outline of this old kit looks pretty good to me with one exception. The dorsal hump that goes from the cockpit to the tail fin is supposed to taper from behind the trailing edge of the wings from having a rounded top to a sharp top before the tail fin. The kits dorsal is rounded all the way back and is way too wide at the tail. I tried to catch this in photo below.


When I glued the fuselage halves together I glued in some pieces of sprue into this area because I intended to file it down and I knew that even though the plastic was very thick that I would break through and I wanted something in there as I backer for my filler.
After many many hours of filing and sanding this is the result. Not quite as thin as I would have liked but about as far as I could go. Here are the results as well as the files I had to use to get there.


Also spent a lot of time removing the rivets and working on the seams.


Lastly I painted the seat and bulkhead (the dust from the days of re-sculpting the dorsal bulge and rivet removal). I still need to do a wash on it and decide to put in a harness or not. There is not one in the picture of the real seat so I'd be guessing at what it looked like.
 
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X-1B

I installed the control panel and the seat/bulkhead assembly than put on the canopy. I think the seat has more than enough detail seen through the closed canopy


The fit of the canopy was pretty good


I put on the wings and horizontal tail surfaces and after I mask the canopy it will be ready for paint
 

X-1

Just about finished painting the cockpit. I added an oxygen hose and the red handled lever on the right fuselage side that Yeager had to use a broom handle to close because he broke some ribs before the supersonic flight.
 
I think it's quite funny that the X-1B decal sheet had an instrument panel, but originally nowhere to put it!
 
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