Is the Airfix Avro Vulcan really that bad?

[Michael51]

Thanks James

Michael

[canberra kid]

wrong thing sorry

John

Edited June 25, 2016 by canberra kid

[aircooled]

In the interest of keeping valuable information all together, I'll bump this thread to the top instead of starting a new one...

 

I've got a "new" 1/72 MPC Vulcan in the mail recently. This is a early reboxing of the Airfix Vulcan, 1983 to be exact. I've seen a lot of builds of the Vulcan here but what is the definitive Britmodeller Vulcan build? If I'm going to steal some build ideas I'd like to steal the best!

[bentwaters81tfw]

If you have an early boxing ( I have 2) you should have no problem. The intake seam takes a little patience to fill and sand out. Add some tabs to support the bombdoors, and take your time, and you get a good model. Avoid the urge to scribe any panel lines, it has a smooth finish, and the kit as produced is far better than one that has had a tractor and six-furrow plough dragged across it.

[Trenton guy]

Built the Contrails vacuform back in the 1970’s. Came out pretty nice but I ended up in the hospital emergency room with chest pains.. thought it might be heart trouble. Ticker was fine. Turns out the problem was the weeks worth of contortions involved in cutting , filling and sanding that big delta. Strained my sternum.

 

Happened again years later when I finished brass railing a 1/350 battleship New Jersey. Was able to skip the emergency room that time. I have stuck to smaller planes ever since, better for the health. Ticker’s still fine.

[PhantomBigStu]

It’s not that bad, mine was a horror but that was biggest I was a moron forgetting to put the intake fans in and then deciding to remove the upper fuselage wing assembley (that’s a vital trick, do not put the wings halves together, attach them to their respective fuselage halves) which went badly wrong. Aside from that it would have been fairly easy

[aircooled]

8 hours ago, Trenton guy said:

Built the Contrails vacuform back in the 1970’s. Came out pretty nice but I ended up in the hospital emergency room with chest pains.. thought it might be heart trouble. Ticker was fine. Turns out the problem was the weeks worth of contortions involved in cutting , filling and sanding that big delta. Strained my sternum.

 

Happened again years later when I finished brass railing a 1/350 battleship New Jersey. Was able to skip the emergency room that time. I have stuck to smaller planes ever since, better for the health. Ticker’s still fine.

Trenton guy, sorry about your hospital visit but that's a pretty funny story! Absolutely no offense meant. It must be a great relief for your family to know you aren't dying, just suffering from "over-modeling", or maybe just a case of "extreme modeling".

 

bentwaters81tfw & PhantomBigStu: Thanks for your replies. I was pleasantly surprised to see how sharp and crisp all the parts were. I think the crew suffered from the most flash and I think they might have been a little amorphous looking to begin with. 

 

I did go to the link mentioned earlier in the thread (http://nabe3saviation.web.fc2.com/modelVul.html) and that build is an inspiration.

 

[e8n2]

As I said in my much earlier post to this thread, my next Vulcan will have aftermarket intakes, solving the biggest headache a lot of us have had with it.  I just checked the Sprue Brothers web site and they still have the aftermarket intakes that I bought in stock.  Here is the link for the Wolfpack Designs intake set:

 

http://store.spruebrothers.com/product_p/wpd72048.htm

 

Check with some of your favorite places to get kits and supplies in case you don't reside in the States and want to pay out a lot in shipping. 

Later,

Dave

[ChrisL]

I built an early boxing of the Airfix Vulcan a few years ago. I am not a great modeller and was able to produce something decent. It took me a while but that's par for the course for me.

 

The main awkward bits as I remember are as others have said the intakes (I think I used Milliput to smooth out the joins there and the joins between the fuselage and the wings. The gaps in those joins were large enough that they were packed out with thin plasticard to reduce the amount of filler they'd take. It definitely sounds like joining the wing uppers to the upper fuselage and doing the same with the lower parts would be worth trying out. I also recall that quite a lot of test fitting and trimming was necessary to get the tail fin and fuselage end to fit right. I used the exhausts from a Flightpath detail set, which sidestepped the hollow plane effect you'd get from using the kit's exhausts.