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Airfix 1/72 Vulcan XL360


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Hey guys,

 

So I'm giving the submarine spree a rest and in the words of John Cleese, now for something completely different.

I've always liked the Vulcan, and I live relatively close to a dispersal airfield of the Vulcan up at the former RAE Bedford. It's an iconic aircraft and so in the traditional fashion I've decided to plunge into the hole of the classic Airfix Vulcan, turning 35 years old this year! With it I've got hold of Wolfpack Models landing gear and update set, as well as Flightpath's photoetch set.

 

I'm deciding against working too much on the cockpit because I've seen a few Vulcans made up and to be fair apart from the access hatch and maybe a glint of a few things inside you don't see much detail. I'll still be drilling through the two portholes though but the interiors black so nothing'll really be seen.

 

Work so far has been minimal, and I've been looking at a few schemes. The idea I'm going with is one of the Anti-flash white ones from 617Sqn. Something about the three lightning strikes on the tail fin just makes the Vulcan look right, and the paled out scheme just encompasses all of the 1950s-60s Nuclear Fission fun! I chose XL360 because she's in preservation at the Midland Air Museum and tbf its a nice round number.

 

p1178384791-3.jpg

 

I've begun by doing the simple-ish bits of the build and I've clamped the air intakes together with enough force to implode a small planet. The fit is relatively poor along the seams as the two ends meet at slight angles creating a slight V-Shape, but that shouldn't be too hard to fill (those wolfpack intakes are looking pretty good right now..) and I've primed a trunk already just to see where I'm at with it.

 

IMG_0046.jpg

 

I worked at it by squeezing humbrol filler into an (expendable) pallet and using an (also knackered) flat brush to thin it down to the consistency of plaster. I then painted it along the gaps and sanded it back again. for this I used a thick paint brush handle wrapped in sandpaper. I'm getting there slowly with it but I still need to bridge the gap between the two halves of the intake on the divide, where, right at the front there's still a slight indent.

 

IMG_0047.jpg

 

Meanwhile I've been working with the front undercarriage bay. It's simply just 4 pieces, but the detail is sublime. Painting it Humbrol 34 (White) I then picked out various pieces with black paint and coated it in smoke. It looks a little dark in the images but that's just the poor light.

 

IMG_0033.jpg

 

Finishing the bay off, I left the majority of it white because most of the wire trunking was painted over and so were much of the lesser replaced through maintainence areas. One striking thing I did note from the reference photos however (XL360 specific thank you very much, the highlights of building a preserved Vulcan!) was a bundle of wires travelling from the rear wall of the bay from what looks to be a format of junction box. I replicated this through using a small gauge black wire :hypnotised:. The holes were funnily enough there but there wasn't any instructions to include the wires.

 

IMG_0040.jpg

 

Finally, I've been working on the cockpit, as said I'm not really putting too many hours into this as 1. It's all black and 2. No windows or access hatches are big enough to get a full view of the inside. Thus I'm just simply going to spruce up the entrance hatch. The cockpit thus far has been the simplest bit!

 

Enough of me waffling!

 

Thanks for looking


Sam  :thumbsup:

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Just a small update so far,

 

began to remove the nose undercarriage bay which needs to be completely removed in order to seat the new resin piece. The new part fitted well and was clamped into place and superglued in with what would be considered somewhat excessive, yet if bringing in the factors that the whole tail cone is resin as well as the engine exhausts i'm probably going to have to add a bit more nose weight so making sure the nose bay is anchored in properly is paramount.

 

IMG_0050.jpg

 

Once seated there's no competition really, considering the kit part is simply a box with some holes for the undercarriage leg. Next I began to work a little bit on the cockpit. It's just a simple plastic rhomboid with two boxes on top on which the basic seats sit. As said, when buttoned up you don't see anything really through the crew hatch and all the windows are really too small to appreciate the cockpit so this is just a worthwhile time-saving process for me.

 

IMG_0052.jpg

 

Next its a combination of finessing the intakes and working towards fitting the blanking plate for the bomb bay in order to mount the Blue Steel stand-off nuclear deterrent. More Soon!

 

Thanks For Looking

 

Sam

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Great subject! I'm building exactly the same but in 83 sqn colours.

 

Remember to remove the various little bumps & X-band jammers from underneath. Have you got the 201 series jetpipes for her?

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1 hour ago, Lord Riot said:

Great subject! I'm building exactly the same but in 83 sqn colours.

 

Remember to remove the various little bumps & X-band jammers from underneath. Have you got the 201 series jetpipes for her?

The Wolfpack designs Vulcan B.2 update set has an updated set of jet pipes which are 201s. They’re really very nice and come with detail on the interior. 

 

Im thinking of getting the airframe together in order to remove the appropriate bits and bobs. Especially the ground scanning radar because it’ll just be easier to shape the nose if it’s in 1 bit instead of 2!

 

thanks for the interest! :thumbsup:

 

Sam

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Regarding the Wolfpack update set, personally I found the tail cone to not be a great fit, about as good as the kit part. 

I could suggest taking a drill to it to reduce its weight a little but I didn’t do this myself. I was going to but I was getting so frustrated with the fit that I just wanted the bloody thing on. 

Vulcan2

 

Vulcan2

 

The dropped flaps have also been troublesome. The top wing is ok but after I’d cut the lower wing flap out, I was left with a large gap, no matter which angle they are set at. I’ve had to cut rough fillets out of the kit parts that I can now blend back in. These are not finished as I’ve only glued them on today

 

 

Vulcan2

 

Vulcan2

 

The other problem with the flaps is I’m yet to find a picture of a Vulcan with them dropped in this configuration. I’ve seen them split with the inner half dropped but not the full section so don’t know if it’s accurate to do this. It’s done now so not much I can do now

 

The fin cap replacement part is ok but the replacement rudder on mine was too small. Luckily I sourced a whole replacement kit vertical fin so I’ve discarded the ‘upgrade parts’

 

Nose weight? I’ve got around 150grams in the nose and it only just tips forward from the main gear points

 

These points are my personal opinion. The set is good quality but they’re not ‘drop in’ 

Of course you might not experience the problems I’ve had but at least you have a heads up ;)

 

Good luck with your build

Cheers

Chris

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Thanks for the comments guys and thanks for the heads up @chrisrope I might drill out that tail cone actually, sounds like a good plan :hmmm:

 

So a bit of a chunky update today because I've been cracking on with the less time consuming aspects of the build. I've fitted the blanking plate or fairing or.. i don't even know what it's called, that is the adaptor for the Blue Steel. Unfortunately the part only really fitted where it touched against four tiny triangular sections in each corner. Not a strong start. Getting my butchers hat on I began to hack up some plastic card to reinforce various sections from the inside. Yet unfortunately due to the beautifully natural shape of the aircraft (nice one Chadwick!) I had to mitigate how much I put in and so I ended up with a stronger but not bomb proof (excuse the pun) join.

 

IMG_0053.jpg

 

Next I found that there was a rather large gap around the edge of the join between the underside of the aircraft and the part.

 

IMG_0054.jpg

 

Now unfortunately this is where the dilemma unfolds. Even though I'm re inscribing the aircraft I still need the raised panel lines as reference and if I fill and sand the gap, I'm going to lose that reference. My solution? Masking Tape! I know I could of just filled it after re-inscribing the aircraft but I would of run a risk of filling in my nice new panel lines so I thought I would of got it over and done with.

 

IMG_0055.jpg

 

IMG_0056.jpg

 

IMG_0057.jpg

 

My next dilemma was the wings. I've seen that you can get the completed wings butted nicely to the completed fuselage but I found that it is easy to create a rather large gap between the wings and fuselage, so much so it wouldn't look out of place to find Luke and Darth Vader going at it down there in search of an exhaust port. Now, I nicked this technique from another build I saw, instead of following the instructions (excuse my stereotypical manliness) I joined the the upper wing straight onto the upper fuselage and plan to do that with the lower fuselage and wing also. After a lot of clamping I actually came out with good results. It may be a slight issue to get the uppers and lowers together but I figured it'll be easier to clean up gaps on the leading and trailing edges rather than between the fuselage and wings.

 

IMG_0059.jpg

 

IMG_0064.jpg

 

The pictures may be slightly dodgy here, and you may not see the join line. But isn't that a good thing?

 

Thanks for looking guys!

 

Sam  :thumbsup:

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 22/02/2018 at 18:16, The_Lancaster said:

Thanks for the comments guys and thanks for the heads up @chrisrope I might drill out that tail cone actually, sounds like a good plan :hmmm:

 

So a bit of a chunky update today because I've been cracking on with the less time consuming aspects of the build. I've fitted the blanking plate or fairing or.. i don't even know what it's called, that is the adaptor for the Blue Steel. Unfortunately the part only really fitted where it touched against four tiny triangular sections in each corner. Not a strong start. Getting my butchers hat on I began to hack up some plastic card to reinforce various sections from the inside. Yet unfortunately due to the beautifully natural shape of the aircraft (nice one Chadwick!) I had to mitigate how much I put in and so I ended up with a stronger but not bomb proof (excuse the pun) join.

 

IMG_0053.jpg

 

Next I found that there was a rather large gap around the edge of the join between the underside of the aircraft and the part.

 

IMG_0054.jpg

 

Now unfortunately this is where the dilemma unfolds. Even though I'm re inscribing the aircraft I still need the raised panel lines as reference and if I fill and sand the gap, I'm going to lose that reference. My solution? Masking Tape! I know I could of just filled it after re-inscribing the aircraft but I would of run a risk of filling in my nice new panel lines so I thought I would of got it over and done with.

 

IMG_0055.jpg

 

IMG_0056.jpg

 

IMG_0057.jpg

 

My next dilemma was the wings. I've seen that you can get the completed wings butted nicely to the completed fuselage but I found that it is easy to create a rather large gap between the wings and fuselage, so much so it wouldn't look out of place to find Luke and Darth Vader going at it down there in search of an exhaust port. Now, I nicked this technique from another build I saw, instead of following the instructions (excuse my stereotypical manliness) I joined the the upper wing straight onto the upper fuselage and plan to do that with the lower fuselage and wing also. After a lot of clamping I actually came out with good results. It may be a slight issue to get the uppers and lowers together but I figured it'll be easier to clean up gaps on the leading and trailing edges rather than between the fuselage and wings.

 

IMG_0059.jpg

 

IMG_0064.jpg

 

The pictures may be slightly dodgy here, and you may not see the join line. But isn't that a good thing?

 

Thanks for looking guys!

 

Sam  :thumbsup:

 

I used this method in my build a couple of years ago. Worked a treat. The two halves will still need a bit of work, but then everything does with this kit. 

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So a small update today,

 

Unfortunately the minor inconvenience of the build up to A-levels has meant that I've been picking out each individual hour I can get to myself to work on the Vulcan. So far, however, i've been hacking up some more resin to make this time the main undercarriage bays. They're a relatively simple affair but the detail is utterly splendid. However, weirdly the things are all-white and don't actually have that many details painted so I've just washed them over in smoke and tbf I'm not 100% convinced at the moment.

 

IMG_0082.jpg

 

IMG_0086.jpg

 

Meanwhile, yet not photographed, I've been working on the main fairing that receives the Blue Steel. I've removed the masking tape and to be fair the plan worked well, with only minor work required to smooth it out. One primer coat later and I may have that bit in the bag!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Sam :thumbsup:

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