Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Unable to decide if the lack of WIP threads featuring the new Aifix Victor is a bad sign or not, I decided to take the plunge and start my own. I don't normally do build threads due to a lack of time (or rather a large number of demands on my time), but having recently rediscovered my mojo, acquired this kit and begun a 9 day break from work, the planets are all aligned for this to begin. I acquired the kit on Friday and started work almost immediately. The kit compares very well to other recent Airfix efforts. The mouldings are crisp and sharp and actually remind me of certainTrumpeter kits (and I mean this as a compliment). 

 

I've started the cockpit and the nose gear bay, as well as a few other structures which I have not yet photographed. The cockpit is almost there - it just needs a coat of varnish and a wash of thinned enamel to help the detail pop out. I'm not superdetailing this area as I imagine it won't be that visible once it has been sealed inside the fuselage.

 

victor_001.jpg

 

The nose gear bay has been primed and sprayed with alclad. An enamel wash awaits in order to help the detail stand out.

 

victor_002.jpg

  • Like 22
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good start Paul, as far as the build goes there are a few things to watch out for namely the fit of the top of the one piece wing section to the fuselage, there's a nasty step that needs to be dealt with, (I thinned the interior of the upper section which did the trick). The fit of the air brake assembly isn't brilliant, if you want them extended you will need to sand down the edges of the bulkheads for a good fuselage fit and the bomb bay doors are about 2mm too short for some reason, (same goes for the Blue Steel section), I shimmed the front end rather than rear as it shows less.

 

Look forward to progress. if you have any questions please feel free.

 

Cheers 

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks both :)

 

Andy - I picked up on the issue with the fit of the upper wing section from a quick dry fit. I'm busy filing away bits of plastic ready for that stage of the build! I think that might be the most nerve wracking part of the whole thing!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Paul,
  Lovely work on your Victor so far. Mine has stalled as I don't currently have a workbench and I'm performing a B1 conversion, which is proving to be quite tricky, especially in the structural department as I intend on fitting the bomb bay too, which facilitates a lot of hacking about. I did originally intend on just using the intakes from the huge resin block, but the work on the B.2 wings was just too much, so all I'll be using from the B.2 wing in the engine area is the jet pipes and flaps. Whilst I can't currently work on mine, I'll certainly be watching yours with interest!

Cheers,
  WV908

 

IMG_1551_zpszpcnzttz.jpg

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That looks really good Paul and the images are so clear!  :clap2:  I have a 1:144 kit that is waiting on the 'to be built' shelf and I may just watch your WiP for inspiration on some little enhancing here and there. :popcorn:

 

Mike

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Paul, the step is easily dealt with if you just take it in small bite sized chunks. The front end is a little more work than the back. The best way to get it to fit is to remove some plastic from the bottom of the front piece of the hinge fairing that sticks out, sand the inside walls until the top curved section sits flat then sand back the edges of the panels where they mate to the fuselage so that the sides sit squarely. The small stub wing sections then need to be thinned down in the same way. Sounds a bit complicated but it only took 30 minutes or so.

 

In this image the rear has been fettled into place but you can see the raised areas at the front which need the above attention, this is just dry fitted hence the gap along the right wing root, once all is glued in place everything fits nicely, I only used a smear of liquid putty along the seams.

 

Oh and as I pointed out in my RFI thread I would suggest fitting  the instrument panel and coaming into one fuselage half  before gluing them together. Airfix would have you slide it in after but this proved to be a huge faff and could badly damage the seat detail as the fit is rather tight !

 

 

DSC_4167_zpsokiad3or.jpg

 

Hope this helps

 

 

 

 

Edited by general melchett
  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, WV908 said:

Hi Paul,
  Lovely work on your Victor so far. Mine has stalled as I don't currently have a workbench and I'm performing a B1 conversion, which is proving to be quite tricky, especially in the structural department as I intend on fitting the bomb bay too, which facilitates a lot of hacking about. I did originally intend on just using the intakes from the huge resin block, but the work on the B.2 wings was just too much, so all I'll be using from the B.2 wing in the engine area is the jet pipes and flaps. Whilst I can't currently work on mine, I'll certainly be watching yours with interest!

Cheers,
  WV908

 

That is brave! Looks like it's coming on well though :)

 

Things are progressing well here. Aside from thinning down the mating surfaces to enable a better fit between the wing and fuselage, I've been working on the cockpit (nearly finished), nose gear bay (finished and fitted) and the horizontal tail (also finished):

 

victor_003.jpg

 

Excuse the dust!

 

victor_004.jpg

 

This image shows the position of the flight deck and nose gear bay inside the fuselage. Also fixed in place is the roof of the bomb bay and both bulkheads. 

 

victor_005.jpg

 

A quick tape up of the fuselage with the cockpit and nose gear bay sealed inside. The addition of the interior parts improves the strength and stiffness of the model but not at the expense of fit, which is very good.

 

victor_006.jpg

 

Here you can see that some plastic has been removed to aid the fit of the top wing. As Andy has mentioned, it's not particularly difficult, but will take some time and test fitting to make sure everything is lined up properly.

 

victor_007.jpg

  • Like 17
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have also assembled the tail and the Blue Steel. The latter is out of sequence, but I wanted to see what it looked like :) 

 

victor_008.jpg

 

victor_009.jpg

 

The instructions suggest assembling the main landing gear legs next. I will probably build and paint the legs, but I'm waiting on our review copy of Eduard's new resin wheel set before finishing these parts off. The detail on the kit's wheels looks a bit (uncharacteristically) soft, so the resin items should be a big improvement. I will also assemble and paint the engine intakes, compressor blades and exhausts before reporting back :) 

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good progress Paul, talking of wheels I ended up using the Flightpath PE hubs  which made painting a lot easier and had far better detail. One strange thing Airfix did with the Blue Steel was to leave the Stentor exhaust nozzles open..they should have circular covers over them which were blown off on ignition. I also noticed that the rear end of the tail plane should be extended and not flush with the 'elevators', (it contained an anti icing exhaust, later on the K2 an RWR was fitted here). One more small error to watch out for are the two HDU lights either side of the 'tail wheel', these should be removed for the B2, (Sorry to point these things out as it's your thread but I'm a bona fide, dyed in the wool Victor nut and just hope it will help).

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

More progress... I decided not to bother with the main landing gear legs for now as they will have to be set aside until the end of the build, which in my house means they'll get broken/lost/shoved into the back of a toy bin lorry. Instead, I've been working on the complex engine air intakes, as well as the exhausts.

 

victor_010.jpg

 

This image shows the general arrangement of parts inside the upper surface of the wing. You can see the engine air intakes have been assembled. These are pretty well engineered as you can glue the top and bottom halves together and then drop the intake guide vanes in from the top. I decided to tape mine shut and then fit the vanes, so I could remove the top part in case any cleaning up is required. Gaps aren't massive, but they are visible. If that bothers you, you will probably need to spend quite some time filling and sanding. 

 

victor_011.jpg

 

This shows the starboard intake (remember the wing is inverted in this picture) which shows the postition of the vanes inside the intake. As you can see, there are some gaps. It wouldn't be a colossal amount of work to fix these, but you could probably achieve a good compromise finish by running a little PVA into the gaps and then repainting. This is probably what I'll do.

 

victor_012.jpg

 

By far the most noticeable gap is on the inner wall of the intake. This will definitely need filling and sanding, so most of that lovely paint work will be removed :( 

  • Like 14
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for highlighting some of the issues with the intakes Paul. It looks like some tricky filling looms n my future! Still, if I can scratch a pair of intakes for the old Lindberg 1/96 kit, I should be able to cope with these. The fact that my build will be in overall anti-flash white should help as well.

 

Martian

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That will help massively Martin, as you can fill and sand knowing that it'll all be covered up by the paint work. I must admit while assembling the intakes, I briefly considered switching to the white scheme!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sod it... after deliberating over whether to switch to the overall anti-flash white scheme, I decided to escalate the matter to Mrs Paul A H. She's excellent at pretending to be interested in what I'm building and she said the white scheme looks nicer. So white it will be :)

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mrs Paul is clearly a woman of taste! Ever since I was scared half to death at the age of three and a half by a white Vulcan at an RAF Abingdon Battle of Britain display, V Bombers have been overall anti-flash white in Martian world. This of course means that with the Airfix Victor, Vulcan and Valiant to build along with some more TSR 2s in various scales and a Buccaneer S1 in the offing, I should be taking out shares in Halfords, given the copious quantities of Appliance White I will be needing!

 

Martian

 

Edit: The being scared bit got better once it occurred to someone to explain to me what was going on!

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

More progress... since the last update, I've assembled and fitted the instrument panel/centre console and the complete flight deck. Andy is bob on when he says ignore Airfix's instructions - which would have you install the instrument panel after the fuselage halves have been joined - and install it prior to inserting the flight deck. If you follow Airfix's suggested sequence, it will be a pig to shoe horn in there without breaking the pilot and co-pilot's seats. The only alternative would be to leave those seats out as well, and then install the lot once the fuselage halves have been joined. Still, it's all in now and some nose weight has been added and fixed in place with PVA glue.

 

victor_013.jpg

 

This picture shows the general arrangement of parts inside the fuselage. I decided to heed Andy's warning about the airbrake bay and fit it with the airbrakes closed to avoid the fit issues. The good news is that none of the internal structures get in the way when it comes to joining the fuselage halve together. The fit is really good and clean up time should be minimal. 

 

victor_014.jpg

 

Not too much more to show at this stage, other than the underwing tanks and Küchemann carrots which I assembled during an idle moment. These need to be cleaned up prior to being primed and fitted in place.

 

victor_015.jpg

 

The major next step will be to join the fuselage halves together and clean up the resulting seams. The fit appears to be very good, so I'm not anticipating any issues will arise at that point. The I can add the rudder and elevators before moving onto the wings. There will be a fair amount of work involved in cleaning up the intakes, fitting the wings to the fuselage (watching out for the already notable fit issue) and then fitting the inner lower wing surfaces, cleaning up the seams and finishing the outer wing structures. 

 

 

 

  • Like 11
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...