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Notice in the photos above that Classic Plane provides the two radiators that Fokker F.IIs had, circular and "car" style (Grülich). In the instructions they tell you -nonchalantly- that you could use the more rectangular one and fill the resulting disparity. Oh my. That rectangularish radiator is mostly associated with a more rectilinear window arrangement. Needless to say, research your project thoroughly before gluing anything.

Ciao, Massimo, Yasou, Christos, and woof! chocolate labs. We continue: Here an image of the parts you do not like to use, under any circumstances. Their only mission is to provide the size for their replacements: The parts were given a modicum of sanding and truing. I hate going to the gym, so I sand kits: Notice to the right that I have already started to rumage my supplies to get accessories: Obtain thin trailing edges, so your model doesn't look clunky, one of the commons pitfalls of vacs when not done quite properly: This is how a part looks after some flat-sanding on the internal side: Remove the pips caused by the suction during the fabrication process. Some will leave a pinhole, don't worry about it now: Pinholes exposed by the removal of the pips. Good vac kits do not present this inconvenience, or not to this degree: You may have noticed that I have chosen a vac quite low on the quality range, on purpose, to hopefully show how to deal with some shortcomings and boo-boos.

Meanwhile, more samples of kits I have built from vacs, and one I just got in the mail courtesy of a friend from Volkania, Sönke Schulz: This is a Broplan one, they are ok, let's say almost affluent middle-class: I have a soft spot (pun not intended) for these vacs. They have taught me a lot, and were my bridge to scratch-building. One thing I can say with absolute certainty after building hundreds of kits of many types: vacs are not more difficult than any other media. But they require a somewhat different technique that you have to learn, in the same way that if you know how to cook a stew you may need to adapt your technique to cook a pie. And vacs are surely a part of our modeling universe, as oil paint is part of the art world. Yes, you could use acrylics, developed later, but both are valid, and oh that feeling :-)

Well, John as it happens, I just found information on this very same site, here: This link to another page in Britmodeller I posted before was marred. So I re-posted it to see if it works now. It showed "no permission to see it", which is very strange. I think this is a good start, but nothing, ever, replaces hands on experience. If you love your vac kit, or it's irreplaceable, get a very simple "practice" one at low cost. I found many kits for 1 or 2 dollars in boxes at shows and hobby shops. I use sometimes different approaches and solutions than the ones suggested in the pasted link, but each of us finds what one feels comfortable with eventually. Hope this helps.

Hi John Thanks, you are very kind, but I have seen more able modelers created true jewels. I just have fun, and aim to a decent result. You made me think a bit. I have posted complete step-by-step builds of several vacs somewhere else, but can't post the links here. Even a brief list of suggestions or tips would be surely not a short one. But I'll try to seat down today or tomorrow and put together a few bullet-points of hopefully useful advice. Cheers

Thanks Ian. They really do have a je ne sais quoi ;-)

Corsairfox: Once you had undergone the Shaolin training and learned to control matter, you will be able to build vacs. "There is no spoon"

The mysterious but fascinating realm of vacuum-formed kits (abbreviatedly called "vacuformed" or "vacs") provides us, off the beaten path modelers, with subjects that tend not to be favored by their injected or resin geographical neighbors. I am fond of them, and through the years I have built a somewhat large number. As with other media, quality varies, and you have samples of all levels in the trade. The subject that today occupies our attention is from Classic Plane, somewhat down in the quality spectrum (examples of good quality are, to mention just two, the late Gordon Stevens' Rare Planes range and Khee-Kha Art Products from Alaska). Here are some of the vacs I have built: This kit is a rendition of a much beloved plane that had a very important role in aviation history, providing early passenger transport and starting a family of well-known designs, the Fokker F.II. To call this kit simple would be an understatement. There are no resin or metal parts that many times accompany the molded styrene sheet, nor decals and somewhat succinct instructions. The detail parts, provided in the sheet, are better discarded, since their worth is highly questionable to say the least. This nice Fokker was gifted to me by fellow modeler Luis Santos, the friend that long ago also gifted his vac kit rendition of an Argentinian plane, the Bombi (that in spite its name ended up as a cropduster). Thanks to Luis for his kindness. Work begins patching things up a bit, since this kit has seen some years of handling, and some areas were a bit squashed and had cracked. Nothing that a piece of styrene won't cure. Next, replacement accessories need to be found, not a problem for a scratchbuilder or a modeller of some vintage: props, wheels, cockpit items, engine and struts are needed. I have gathered -and many friends contributed to (thanks Armando Gil and Jim Schubert) a now sadly diminishing stock of aftermarket items, mainly from the -now apparently in stasis- Aercoclub range. I can -and I many times do- carve my own laminated wood props, though. The cabin interior (not provided with this kit) is easy to scratch, and the decals...well, depending on the complexity of your chosen marks, you may somehow scrounge them or cobble together from defunct kits, print them yourself, or commission them. The struts will be coming from Strutz airfolied brass stock (thanks, Andrew Nickeas!). Why, ask somke of my friends, I launch myself into fixing a somewhat not very enticing kit prospect instead of scratchbuilding the desired subject? well, firstly, to honor the gift, and secondly to redeem an object that otherwise will slowly drift into oblivion. And thirdly, needless to say, because of the challenge. You get two half wheels. With like you could glue them together and get one whole wheel: Small bits better left for the erosion of eons.... The detail is there...somewhat: Kit had surely went thorough some stressful situations: Parts come easily off (not a science): Cracked areas are reinforced internally: All major parts out, the rest better leave it where it is:

Doubt stroke me, so I went to rummage through the boxes in the dungeons, driving away Igor with the pitchfork, and sure enough, I had bought the ARII kit with the J-BAAI registration. So I have three Ki-15 Is. This boxing even includes both regs: J-BAAI and BAAL. So I don't have to worry about the decals. Neat!

Following now with yet more Mitsubishi Ki-15 (this time the I variant, externally differentiated by its Townend ring instead of the full cowl of the II). Still to be determined is if I will go for the mostly seen variant of J-BAAI, or the twin J-BAAL. Or may be both? In any case, in the previous post I used for the II variant the LS/ARII kit. Now I will be using the Mania release later on re-issued by Hasegawa. There is one difference between the Mania and Hasegawa kits. in the Mania sprues the fuselage side windows are flashed over, whilst in the Hasegawa release three windows are opened and the fourth is flashed over. The instructions and decal sets are different too. Both instruction sheets are much better than many contemporary examples. Comparing this kit with the ARII one: I like very much both kits, and again, they are both much better than a bunch of currently released kits. The panel lines are gorgeous, neither trenches nor faint suggestions. The detail on the interior of the Mania/Hasegawa kit is quite better, but alas, the wheel is one piece with the pant, which I find childish and more difficult to paint, whilst on the ARII kit the wheels are separated from the pant. The recent reissue of ARII has two canopies, which is good, since the masking is laborious and can lead to mistakes. And while we are on the subject, I find strange that no aftermarket vendor has come up with masks for these two kits. which are good, have a fair price and are easily obtainable. Mysteries of the kit industry. Somewhat vintage Mania kit: Decals and instructions: Nice canopy: A nice interior: Good surface detail: Fused wheel/pant, a bit of a let down: Again nice surface detail: A prop that will have its spinner: A somewhat credible engine with its exhaust plumbing: The fuselage inside: Bulkhead detail: The more modern Hasegawa issue of the same molds: Same mold, windows flashed over (Mania) and not (Hasegawa): Very nice Yahu Models aftermarket inst. panel: Parts separation a breeze, thanks to sprue gates that don't have the size of a finger: Fine locating pins and holes, a delicate touch: Started interior assembly: Decisions, decisions...to separate those elevators? to get rid of those childish pants-cum-wheel parts?

Thanks David. I mixed my own gray-green, using Model Master RLM 76 and just an extremely small hint of Willow green Model Master FS 14187. A base coat was mixed with a hint of a darker grey, Model Master Kure Naval Arsenal IJN SG, and the top coat with a lighter gray, RLM 63. I built this model in roughly two stretches, with work out of town in between. I had prepared graded samples of paint with some notes, but, in leaving town for work, I cleaned -as I always do when traveling- the workbench. Upon returning I realized that I had, of course, put the samples with the rest of the workbench trash. So I reconstructed from memory. I do not recommend this approach to coloring ;-)

Thanks Spitfire31 and Tom. A simple but good little kit that builds nicely, this is.

Thanks Corsairfox! It was an uneventful, pleasant build. I have three more of these, that I plan to build between more challenging projects, as J-BAAI and twin machine,

This is one of the several civil versions of the Ki-15 (I and II) that flew for Japanese newspapers in the late 30s, in this case for Domei News. This somewhat old kit now re-released by Arii is very nice and only needs a few touches to render a nice model. As explained in the building article (posted here as work in progress): there used to be aftermarket decals for this one, but are now OOP, so I had to make my own, helped by the fact that the images needed are very simple and black. The hinomaru were taken from a kit´s stock decal sheet. This worked out as a relatively easy assembly with very few touches as a break from more complex and demanding endeavors, also showing how easy is to take a nice, affordable, available old kit and turn it into something not often seen on shelves and much less in model shows or meetings, where military types tend to be predominant. I found some of the info regarding this build some time ago on the Arawasi website: http://arawasi-wildeagles.blogspot.com/2013/01/mitsubishi-ki-15-ii-domei.html Enjoy this 30s nice civil plane:

The replacement exhaust tubes are given a wash while inserted into a toothpick to facilitate handling: Decals still wet: Taking shape: Too late for a good photo, but: Now waiting for everything to set and pick up some details:

Landing gear legs on, masks off, half engine inside cowl (to put prop on and lock it on), small window openings filled with window maker: And the "Oh, I am about to finish the model" syndrome strikes again. I printed the decals at the wrong size, a fact of course I realized only after cutting the individual subjects of and start to apply them to the model:

The model is given a second, lighter color coat of paint. The prop is given the white/red tip bands:

An aftermarket product you can use with this (and other Ki-15) kits, Yahu models instrument panels, a very nice product with an attractive price:

Thanks for the confirmation, John. Here a couple more images previous to the one above. I managed to find how to post Flickr images without them appearing on my photostream (that has its own thematic line)

Hum. I messed up big time trying to get the photos I post on Flickr to appear here but not in my photostream. I apparently managed to brake all links to my photos posted here in all the builds I shared (so now blank squares show). I can't manage to restore the photos since reverting them to public setting did not restore the links, making me think that Flickr generates new links every time you change the status of a photo. Long story. Never mind, Flickr annoys me once again. I will try something here, to see if it works: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4701/28211620009_1e9e59aac0_b.jpg

Decals printed today. The Hinomaru will be stock decals :

Hi David Thanks for the added information. I know Kiwikitbasher, we correspond frequently, nice chap! I am also beginning to build the two existing kit versions of the Ki-15 I (Hasegawa and Arii), as J-BAAI and J-BAAI. Posted on a different place, though, and can't post the link here (goes to a blog). All these are fun, and look smart. No canopy masks exist for these models, which is strange. Not terribly difficult to mask those greenhouses, but aftermarket masks always are a great help. Cheers P/S: what is FWYW and RFI? Hey, speak Spanish ;-)

First coat of primer. The prop was painted with a base of gloss black:

Thanks, Martin. OK, I gave in to temptation. I replaced the plastic exhausts which lacked depth (although you could just drill them) with alu tube cut in angle and thinned:

Does anyone among this distinguished membership know if any of the mask companies (Eduard, Montex and such) makes canopy masks for the Mitsubishi Ki-15 II (aka Babs)? I couldn't find any on the Net. Thanks in advance for any information on this point.