David H

I was thinking Roy's Secret Sauce for the wheel wells and door interiors, enamels or oils for the panel line washes and something like Paynes Grey and Burnt Umber for oil breather vents and carbon streaks (if the Victor evidenced those) coming from the generator cooling outlets. Obviously one needs some good photos of the underside, to know exactly where to put them... -d-

Ooooooo, those look great!!

Whose seats are you gonna use, Brian?

I like it! Maybe try a test run of air defence command grey for a panel line wash? Leaks, streaks and "schmutz" on the undersurfaces will help too.

Not too B-A-A-A-D....

I have the kit myself. It's one of those offerings you wish Tamiya shrank down to 72 scale, like the Skyray. While i haven't started mine, this posting, along with the arrival of Ginter volume 99 encouraged me to glue the tailplanes on my 72nd scale AD (drying right now, while i go out for curry...). -d-

Thanks Bro.

Couple of observations on Corsairs: Don't take this to mean you should go back and change anything, just useful knowledge to apply to the next one. 1) The original Tamiya 48th scale Corsair from 1996 was researched and tooled in something of a vacuum without outside input from the manufacturer (Vought, a division of Northrop-Grumman). 2) Tamiya reached out to N-G when they did their 32nd scale Corsair and it represents an entirely new, from the ground up design and tooling effort. As a result there are detail differences between the 48th and 32nd scale offerings. 3) Tamiya originally depicted the wingtip lights too small on the 48th scale kit, which made changing them out more difficult than it needed to be. the 32nd scale wingtip lights are proportionally bigger, and opening out the wingtip notches to their 48th scale equivalent on the old Tamiya kit makes things easier. 4) The recessed circle seen on the upper wing, forward of the wing spar, is supposed to be the fuel filler cap for the 63 gallon wing tanks (found on the F4U-1 and -1A variants only). The fuel filler cap needs to be re located to an equivalent position on the forward wing section one rib inboard. 5) It seems keeping the machine gun muzzles covered with tape on Corsairs was a thing, so personally i don't see much to be gained by re-engineering the blast tubes much, but it depends on what you're trying to show off. I find covering the muzzles with tape is so much easier. 6) Birdcage Corsairs did not carry the centerline drop tank (except during testing) so there should be no notch in the intercooler flap and no bomb shackle hook immediately aft of the cowling flaps. Just passing this info along, in hopes that it makes future Corsair builds go more smoothly.

kind of hard to argue with that.

Ahoy there, Lads! An update from the Admiralty. Ejection seats are finally painted and installed. The paint work belies the detail on the seats. I went back with the wash at least three times in an effort to clean things up. Were i to do the seats again, i would prime them with Nato Black, and then drybrush them with German Grey, in order to see all the facets and details integrated into the seat. I brush painted the grey lower frame this time and combined with several washes tends to make the detail look a little softer than it is. Here's some closeups of the finished seats. I was squeamish about using the resin printed ejection curtain handles, but actually once installed and painted i like em better than the Eduard handles i used on ill-fated Buccaneer Numero Uno. That white fleck that you see on the upper strap is i think some dried Testors Dullcoat. i have since scraped it away. And here they are in the cockpit. Since this photo was taken, the aft leaning "ironing board" in the rear cockpit has been removed. Not in the original configuration. Here's some final photos showing you (maybe?) the Eduard ZOOM set i used in the cockpit... And finally a starboard beam view. Mostly. So, what's next? Well, the canopy is done. I need to build up 4 bombs for the weapons bay, the pitot boom needs to go on, and there are two blade antennae that go on the spine. I installed a red anticollision beacon on the spine (after i catapulted the first beacon into another dimension), and the wind deflector for the Navigator is on now. I need to make some small black disks to put in the backs of the rocket pods.... but i think that will be it. Not long now, lads. Thanks for checking in.

Nice model, Chris! I suspect the pilots of Torpedo Squadron 8 were expecting more vigorous and aggressive fighter cover. TBDs had a decent showing at Coral Sea and it was probably expected by the pilots to do just as well or better. at Midway. I don't think any of em were expecting the meat grinder that they flew into.

"Bar Code", LOL. Nice choice of markings. I always thought the early Air France scheme looked good on that plane. -d-

i Bought the 72 scale Aerocraft ejection seats for the Buccaneer, so this does not surprise me at all.

Jack Broughton likes this.

Looking forward to seeing some photos with The White Stuff. (see what i did there?)

"Honey, i shrunk the Norseman..." Beautiful build. I mean it.

I saw it over on FB, but i still love it! I'd like to do one of the U-2s loaned to the Navy /Office of Naval Research for Project WHALE TALE, testing the plane aboard KITTY HAWK..... -d-

So, at this stage in the game we are at the most difficult, hairy masking job on the VC10 build: The empennage. The tailplanes, not so bad. The fin "Bullet" per se, by itself is no big deal. But masking off the blue is a real chore. Underside view, where the hard part is.... This time around, we used Tamiya Royal Blue, straight from the jar with no white added for scale effect... And then, as is customary for me.... i always think of "Thus Sprach Zarathustra" from "2001", when i remove the masking... Thankfully, the overspray was minimal and most of it cleaned up with a cotton bud and some Novus No. 2 polish. The tail is now what i call "Blocked in". There are some repairs needing to be done here and there, but now that all the colours are on the tail, its a lot easier to mask off the areas in order to repair them. I guess i need to get back to work on those wing fences. So, until next time...

Cool!

Wow. Just splendid. Hasegawa did a great job , capturing the shape of the B-24.

Beautiful job, Hubert!! I too had issues with the exhaust inserts, not playing well with the rear fuselage, on the undersides. How difficult was it, to drill a mounting hole in the Airfix boom, to take the Master probe tip?

That is the wackiest, most obscure, off-the-wall FS595A reference i've heard since..... well since ever actually. 🤣 But, if it works..... The story about the wife of a Fairey Director choosing the colour, is just icing on the cake.

Well if there is any kind of silver lining to thick clear parts, it is that they will stand up to sanding , rather than cracking when you're trying to apply enough pressure. So, there's that. -d-

Hello, and welcome to my latest installment of this protracted, drawn-out (some might call it a screen saver) build of the second Super VC10. Today, we sort of come full circle, and return to a "issue" that affected my first VC10 build. Namely, the pointed tips on the flying surfaces. For those just tuning in, when Roden designed their VC10 kit, they broke the empennage down into a stand-alone vertical fin and incorporated left- and right-hand stabilizers that plugged into the sides of the vertical fin. From a model building standpoint, this is a...... controversial engineering decision. It definitely resulted in thin trailing edges, but it added a lot of extra work. In particular, it mandated rework/clean-up in a rather delicate location on the model- the trailing edge tips. For some engineering and historical context, the real VC10 tailplane was assembled as a single unit, bolted together at the centreline, and covered with some sort of metal/fibreglass/composite aerodynamic fairing. Unlike the Boeing 727 and the DC-9 where the stab pivoted around the rear spar and passed through a fixed cap on the vertical fin.... the VC10 stab pivot point was much further forward, and the aerodynamic fairing "rode along" on the top of the stabilizer. In 1964 when Airfix designed their original standard VC10 kit they engineered the stab as a more or less single piece, like the aircraft. Authentic Airliners followed suit. From an assembly standpoint, this is much more desirable as the stab can be left off until very late in construction and painted and installed during the "End Game". It also eliminates alignment problems compared to having to install left and right hand stabs into a slot, which may or may not be in exactly the right place. Oh well. We accept the situation as it is; not as we would like it to be. With that out of the way....The pointy tips on the wings and stabilizers are beautiful to look at, but they are extremely thin and brittle. Those of you that remember my first VC10 build recall that some repair work was required on those trailing edges. I thought this time around i found a better solution, using a composite of brass sheet and CA/Dental resin, laminated onto the remaining lower stabilizer surface... Well, in the end...it just did not work. It was brittle, yet flexible at the same time and the composite just wouldn't stay attached to the upper stabilizer. So, acknowledging defeat, we went back to "Plan B"....The Old Way. I notched out a big enough chunk of the elevator with a UMM Razor saw (boy those things are handy!), squared it up with sanding sticks and a little bit of carving, and CA-ed a plank of .040 thick Evergreen styrene plate. When you're convinced that its hardened up, you take a saw again and carefully cut away *most* of the excess material. I've tried using a cutter in the past, but they can impose unpredictable flexing/shear loads that can crack apart the glue joint. What i've found works best, it to start sanding the upper and lower surfaces first until they match the aerofoil cross sectional thickness. When that's done, round off the tip at the outboard end to conform to the planform, and finally finish by filing down the trailing edge until it matches the rest of the trailing edge of the elevator. If there is paint or primer already there, one advantage is it can sort of serve as a guide to show you how close you are getting to achieving the proper thickness. I think they call that "contour sanding" or something like that. The grey paint you see here, is AK Acrylic Lacquer, FS16440. I thought it would be thick enough to hide sanding scratches and my surface prep was adequate. I was wrong. Next time round i'm applying a primer (Tamiya mix) before i put the grey over it. I mean, Vickers-Armstrongs in Weybridge did the same thing..... so why shouldn't i? Most of what you see here was accomplished using rigid backed sanding sticks, starting with 240 grit for initial bulk removal, 400 grit to round off the outboard end and work out the sanding scratches on the upper and lower parts, and then finally a 600 stick to true up the trailing edge. There was a little bit of fine sanding with 1000 Tamiya sanding sponges and the GodHand 1500 sanding strips, but that was mainly to work out sanding scratches. You have to be careful "cradling" the model while you sand on it (if you have to make a repair like this with the tail glued onto the model) to avoid putting flexing loads on the joint where it plugs into the vertical fin, and because the tip is so pointy you need to watch carefully how the sanding tools contact the surface so you don't carelessly bang into the tip and bend or break it off. And since these tips *are* so delicate, i chose to use protection. A couple overlapping strips of Tamiya tape. Hopefully, this is the only wingtip i will need to do this on. I realize this is sort of going into the realm of OCD, but it's a very useful technique that i encourage you to try for repairing a damaged wingtip (ask me how i know this!) and it can come in handy for vacform models, where wings are always a right pain in the backside when it comes to the trailing edges. It's not particularly difficult; it just requires the right tools, plenty of sanding water, good lighting and some patience. It did not take particularly ling to do. Until next time, when i discover the next engineering challenge, lying in wait...I already know how the Undercarriage is gonna play out.

Considering you started in November, this has actually been wicked fast progress.