1/48 Scale Lindberg XF-91 Jet/Rocket Experimental Fighter
Lindberg made an excellent starter kit for the "Advanced" modeler like me, so I went full-bore on the project by scratch-building just about everything.
All 3 landing gears were made out of aluminum and styrene. I cut in the wheel wells and built in what I thought would look like the real aircraft as I had no drawings and/or photos.
All the other revisions followed in the same direction by just thinking what the air inlet/outlet looked like, including the four rocket exhaust ports.
The cockpit was another major operation as there was none in the kit. The partial "molded in" pilot was tossed into my spare box.
I vac-u-formed a new windscreen and canopy, then made the extension bars and placed the canopy in its' open position.
My paint was by Tamiya and I used insignia decals from my decal stash. I may have made the "Republic XF-91" decal.
For some screw-ball reason I kept a daily record of my hours of labor and when I finished the photography I accumulated 1,600 hours. I calculated that my time was worth USD$10.00 per hour, so USDA$16,000.00 is a fair selling price.
I took the model to a few local IPMS/USA contest and to the national show in Miami, Florida. It went first place...what more can I say, except a story and photo's were published in a model magazine.
A fellow modeler wanted to buy it but said that $16K was way too much money, so I said take off one "0" and make it USD$1,600.00.
It was never sold, so I still have it here at home. It is one of my favorite models out of the 288 models that I have.
I would certainly recommend this model to build.
Enjoy! RJW
Nice to see this masterpiece again. I remember when I saw it for the first time on another website. Read the article pretty much with my jaw on the floor.
Very cool project. Amazing transformation.
This is an amazing transformation... Your scratch building skills and flawless paint work have brought it to life. It looks so realistic... and I especially like the flawless natural metal colored paint work. There are two colors that will show any imperfections... silver, and black.
Thanks for sharing this one with us, and the back story makes it even better.
REMEMBER...IF I CAN DO IT...SO CAN YOU!
I have some real good scratch-building photo's to send soon.
Did any of you ever go to http://www.p-40 warhawk.com and see my drawings and model build up?
I think it was also posted on LSP: (www.largescaleplanes.com) 10 to 15 years ago.
That is some paint job and the rest is also quite impressive.
Takes me back many, many years Rodney. I remember Lindberg so well; well enough to appreciate all the (very) hard work you've put in here for such an impressive result.
Remembering what dogmeat this kit was, what you have done with it is truly amazing.
One or Republics oddities, Excellent work.
Hey guy's...at least some companies tried to make nice kits. I would have never tried to scratch-build the kit. I never knew the rocket-jet existed as I was a Corsair man.
Again..thanks!