Rockwell X-31

Maciej Bellos
Following!

Burkhard D
Cool!😎

Łukasz Gliński
Me 3, very cool. Hopefully Modelsvit will keep their promise and release this one, as Sharkit is barely available.

Burkhard D
If Modelsvit does that I'll put up a photo walkaround.

Mirko Römer
Great contribution to this forum. Thanks for showing it!

Marcel Klemmer
Yes, realy cool

Łukasz Gliński
Brilliant finish! 👍

Guy Rump
great paint job 🙂

Maciej Bellos
It turned out great! Well done Dave!

John Thomas
Very nice

Dave Burgess
Well, that completes the collection of X-Planes I have in my stash, but I still have a few more ordered and coming.

Mike Fuller
Cool!

Dave Burgess
This little bugger fought me all the way!

First, in the process of decalling, I inadvertently knocked the model on the floor with my elbow. Fortunately, none of the fiddly bits were on yet, so no damage. Not so lucky with my left hand. In trying to grab the plane on the way down, I caught instead, my exacto knife, blade down (nice sharp #11, of course!) in the middle of my palm. Good thing I was wearing my latex gloves. The knife buried itself about 1/4" and nicked a major vein in my hand. In the 30s it took me to get to the bathrom for a bandage, I had a glove-full of blood. I had to take off the glove to put on a bandage. I got it off, and put on a compression bandange. Then I surveryed the bathroom. It looked like a scene from Midsomer Murders - blood everywhere!

The next day, while handling the bird to glue the canopy on, I nudged the front gear (very gently), and broke the nose wheel off the lg strut (it was molded as one piece) The resin gear are very brittle an break easily, but I'll take the blame for this one. In an effort to add abit more realism, I had drilled out the space between the scissor mechanism which joins the two halves of the lg strut. That little bit of extra resin would have made the gear a little stronger.

After successfully gluing the wheel back on and strengthening the joint as much as I could, I decided to put it aside for the superglue to fully cure. I rested it in a plastic yoghut tub to keep the weight off the lg, and went to move it over to my spare table. I was concentrating so much on the model, I didn't notice the chair and tripped. The tub left my hand and the X-31 went for its inaugural flight, promptly deconstructing itself on the floor, separating itslelf from the canopy, all three lg, and the thrust vanes. After a little cry, I put it aside for a day.

Finally I re-attached the broken gear, re-inforcing the joints with a SECOND coat of superglue, re-attached the canopy and thrust vanes, and set it aside to cure. Only then, I realized that the ejecttion seat had ejected itself in the crash (thank goodness SOMETHING was working right! At least the pilot was safe). At this point, I'm not touching it again. If you look carefully at the canopy, you'll see there's nowhere for the pilot to sit, but it's not so noticeable in my display case.

Łukasz Gliński
Many thanks for sharing the story. I used to think that's only me being so clumsy😉

Skyhiker
They don't call it blood, sweat and tears for nothing. Great to see that you persevered. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who has to fight for a model to come out. Nice to hear I'm not alone. Keep up the great work.

Usman Ansari
Trials and tribulations aside I think you did a brilliant job Dave. You got some nice lines on the wings too for what is a tricky paint job.

Robert Podkoński
Fantastic work, Dave! I do not know how I could have missed that (I am so fond of X-planes and prototypes like you 😉 ) Nevertheless, I will wait for the styrene kit of this plane 😉

Gordon Sørensen
Final results look great, Dave! Sometimes you just need to put a kit on the shelf to let the gremlins work there way out of it….