Classic Airframes' 1/48 scale
B-57B Canberra

by Tory Mucaro

Classic Airframes' 1/48 scale B-57B Canberra is available online from Squadron

For a detailed examination of the contents of Classic Airframes' 1/48 scale Canberra, see the in-box review elsewhere on HyperScale.

Classic Airframes 1/48 B-57B Night Intruder

This tale begins back in the fall of 2006 when my local hobby shop, Jersey Shore Hobbies, got in a batch of Classic Airframes B-57B kits. The B-57B has always been one of my favorite aircraft, especially the gloss black Night Intruder version. Maybe it goes back to my fixation of the old Batman TV series with its wonderful Batmobile, resplendent in a striking gloss black and red pinstriped paint scheme. So when I saw that one of my favorite aircraft was now available in my favorite scale, I knew I would have to have one. However, the $69.00 price of admission was a little beyond my means at the time. So I whined a little to Tom, the shop owner, and left the store empty handed.

Well, unbeknownst to me, my wife and kids went back to the hobby shop and purchased one for me for Christmas. Now I have been married for 23 years, and never in all those years has my wife purchased a model kit for me, so I was completely bowled over when I opened my present Christmas morning. I must have acted like a little kid who finally got what he wanted for Christmas, because my wife just rolled her eyes and went about preparing for the company we were expecting later in the day while I just sat there, examining the parts and imagining all the happy hours we were going to spend together, me and my plastic “grail”!

Let me tell you that having never built a Classic Airframes kit before, I really didn’t know what to expect. But this kit, while by no means a click together kit, was an absolute pleasure to build. It soon became obvious that it was designed and engineered by a company that knows what it is doing. The resin parts fit together as if by design, a rare occurrence from my experience with resin details. The plastic parts too went together with surprisingly little filler. All in all, everything was well done and made perfect sense. I only deviated from the stock kit in a few places. I decided I would build this aircraft on the ground and with the crew in place as if it were preparing for a mission. The rudder and elevators were cut off and repositioned for a more candid look. The crew was “borrowed” from a Revell EA-6A kit. And instead of the clunky looking 750 pound bombs, I decided to go with some much cooler looking 5 inch HVAR rockets (generously supplied by my buddy Pat Hawkey from his apparently endless stockpile of spare parts!).

The forward fuselage halves were glued to the rear halves prior to assembling the left and right fuselages together, and again, very little filling or sanding was required to make them look as though they were always one piece. I pressed some Super Sculpy into the nose area to create a form for the nose weight, then poured a RTV mold and cast low temperature melting point Cero Bend metal into it for the weight. It fits perfectly into the nose and keeps the model firmly planted on it nose gear. Another plus with this kit is that the cockpit can be left out of the model until after the fuselage halves are glued together and seems sanded. I found it can be carefully slipped in over the gear well and glued in place flush with the top of the cockpit opening, as per that actual aircraft. The cockpit itself is adequately detailed as far as I’m concerned, and the borrowed crewman needed very little modification to fit in the seats. I did glue the control column to the pilots hand before gluing him in place, as it is far easier to line things up that way.

The model was painted overall Tamiya Gloss Black lacquer from the spray can. The excellent kit supplied decals were applied, and then everything was over coated with automotive two part clear urethane.

The leading edges were painted Polly Scale Night Black to represent the rubberized coating on the real aircraft. The rest of the model was painted with various Model Master, Floquil and Polly Scale colors.

The wing tip lights were drilled out from behind with Tamiya clear red and green painted into the recess, and the wing tip tanks had stretched clear plastic lights added to the fronts, also over coated with Tamiya clear red and green.

I finished the model 9:00 pm the night before MosquitoCon where it was very well received and wound up finishing second in the very competitive 1/48 Jet Category. It now resides in a place of honor above my computer desk. In addition to being a nice model of one of my favorite aircraft, it holds a very special place in my heart as the one and only model kit my wife has ever bought for me. With gratitude, I dedicate this build to her, my long suffering spouse.

Thanks Lisa!

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Model, Images & Text Copyright © 2007 by Tory Mucaro
Page Created 16 April, 2007
Last Updated 24 December, 2007

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