Back in the Saddle

Bother - I’ve only just bought mine, thinking it would be useful... Fortunately I work with balsa/ply too, building models that fly, so I can hopefully still put it to good use. I might even be able to use it on plastic, as long as I’m more careful!

No worries! TBH, there hasn’t been a lot to follow recently! I returned to the bench last night for the first time in about a week and attempted to polish the nose light cover using a cotton bud in a Dremel. Who would have thought that such a small polish could cause so much friction and plastic meltage...! Next time I’ll add water and toothpaste to the cotton bud and practice on a scrap piece of plastic first... BTW, your new man cave is looking rather good, as is your 262 mottling!

It's not the biggest update, but I've done some work on the equipment bay hatch. I diligently filled the hole on the triangular aluminium bracket, assuming it was a sink mark. It turns out this hole was intentional and represents a cut out in the bracket, so some remedial scratch building was required! The yellow blob on the nose is a piece of baked play dough. It will be shaped and painted to represent the light in the nose. I was tempted to use milliput for this but thought it would be fun to try out the play dough instead, which worked a treat - it is easy to file after baking. The picture below from the walkaround section on BM shows what I'm trying to achieve:

I might just try that!

Fuselage is now glued together: I'm now working on the hatch for the avionics bay and also the wings, which should be attached soon. I'm thoroughly enjoying this build, which goes together beautifully. I'm also scratch-building a few items along the way, which will hopefully add to the finished model.

You’ve made a cracking job on that, it looks great. Must get mine out of the stash, but will attempt the day glow version instead. I might regret that decision though, I hear those decals are a nightmare...

Thanks for the advice. I suspect it was slightly damp, so might try to remedy it as suggested above and see if it improves.

Thanks for the advice with this, I shall try that next time Of course, masking more carefully and not rushing to finish the GB would have helped... One other question. Any idea why the satin varnish produced a slightly opaque finish in some areas? That was my other major bugbear with this model and I’m not sure why it occurred. Thanks!

The insert for the equipment bay is now painted, using various images found on t'net for reference: I have returned to the fuselage assembly again, gluing the intake ducting into place. This is before it was glued: And again, once in place, showing the integral splitter plate: Like the real aircraft, everything fits together quite snugly. The view from above, before gluing the bits in: And afterwards, showing the equipment bay and ducting in place: Just enough room for the cockpit tub!

Fantastic build. I have this in the stash, so thanks for the tips!

RFI posted on the main forum with more pictures

I've been beavering away on the KUTA XII GB for the past three months, finishing off the Airfix Avro Vulcan kit I started a few years ago. It was essentially built, but needed finishing and was the first model I have painted using an airbrush. The thread for this build is here: It was finished (in a bit of a hurry!) last night, 90 minutes before the deadline for the GB closed. Here a few images showing Avro's finest in all its glory: Plenty of mistakes along the way, but overall I'm happy with this model. Two minor annoyances though - I accidentally ripped two decals off the fin, which I thought were sealed behind a layer of varnish - they weren't! Also, regarding varnish, I was not happy with the finish in some areas. For example, the undercarriage door where the registration decal is placed - the finish is opaque, not clear. Not too sure why that happened? Please be gentle, this is my first RFI!

It’s a challenging kit...! Looks like you’re beating it into submission. I had a similar problem with the nose weight on mine becoming dislodged, but was able to re-attach it via the crew entrance hole and epoxy it onto the top of the nose bay.

Oh, alright then... A few annoyances along the way (!) and much room for improvement, but still better than any previous kits I’ve built. Particularly happy with the windscreen masking and camouflage in the intakes. Not happy with the clarity of the screens, the general quality of the paint/varnish finish and the accidental damage of the fin decals - that was careless and due to me rushing to get it finished today... Lots of lessons learnt for the next kit

Finally in the gallery!