Viking

Beautiful. Grey jet or not the Vicky ten always looks fabulous! Cheers, John

ooohhh lovely. Stunning job! Cheers, John

Bugger! I knew it, as soon as I do an AA 767, cobbling together decals asnd painting the cheatlines, a sheet comes out! Not to mention building a vac 1-11 and then an injection kit being promised. So guys, whats on your wishlist?, I'll start scratchbuilding it and sure enough there will be a Tamigawa kit out as soon as I finish. The question now is, should I get another Zvezda 767 and the twosix sheet and start again. John

Very nice job Phil, its not the easiest kit, and it cant help having to work in student accomodation! Cheers, John

Having bought a set of Lima November SAS DC-7c decals at Telford, it reminded me that I had somewhere some old pictures of a SAS DC-6. Rooting around, I found them and thought they might be of interest. The story behind them is that my mother was leaving Norway to emigrate to Canada, joining my father who was already there. It was about 1954, departing Oslo Fornebu to Idlewild New York. At that time you could get really close to the aircraft. In fact my Grandfather insisted on boarding the aircraft to ensure his daughter was safely on board! Here they are; Its OY-KMU 'Grom Viking' Thats Garndad leaving the aircraft scratching his head! Cheers, John

Wow, top class job there. 10 out of 10 for the young lady! John

Flippin 'eck that is gorgeous with bells on. Cheers, John

I'm a bit wary of widebody airliners because of the storage space. But I'm going to be seriously tempted by one of these, Zvezda kits are the mutts nuts and this is sure to be a stunner. John

Thats going to look great Paul. Some of mine have taken years! Cheers, John

Lovely work Jordy, Keep 'em coming I like the 1-11 best, I bet not many people know KLM had one. Cheers, John

Oops! Sorry Rich. I also saw it, put it down and went off to think about it. Manx is a nice scheme but I would have preferred a BA one. It was either this or one of the KLM Viscounts, this was still there when I went back. Price was good, the Viscounts were mainly resin so this won! I havn't got any other Welsh vac's in the stash and fancied doing another after the 1-11. I'll try and do it justice. Cheers, John

Having done the Welsh models 1-11 500, there were a few people asking if they were difficult to build, so the best way to answer this is to build another one & take some pictures & explain it. Hopefully it will show that anyone can have a go. It isn't difficult, but needs a bit of practice and you will improve as you go. I found this at Telford for a bargain price this weekend, nice decal sheet. Main sheet of components; Smaller parts; The way I cut them out is to lightly run a scalpel blade around the part making a 'track' for subsequent passes of the knife. Then go around it again 3 or 4 times to make sure it is scored, don't try to cut all the way through unless you really have to. Also it is important to run each cut right to the edge of the sheet. The next thing is to pop the part away from the sheet. It takes a bit of nerve, but just bend the backing sheet until is snaps along where you have scored the sheet. Then the fuselage needs to be sanded down to the right depth on a flat surface on a sheet of 120 grit wet & dry paper. I don't bother with pencil lines etc, you can see when the part has been sanded enough when a 'hair' appears to break away. Keep checking as you sand, and it isn't too difficult to sand a small fuselage like this. Cutting out and sanding both these only took 40 minutes from start to finish. I don't use transverse circular bulkheads and tabs along the joining seam, it way too complex and fiddly. It is far simpler to use a longitudinal 'keel'. Not only is it easy, it makes a far stonger joint. Just draw around a fuselage half on to 20 thou plasticard. I don't run the keel into the nose and tail areas. Cut it out to the inside of the drawn lines. Test fit repeatedly, sand it until it just fits nicely in one half. Then make another one by using it as a pattern to cut around. I weight the front end with nails to prevent tail sitting. All the bits are now ready. I also made a little nose wheel bay and cut out the nose area for it. Araldite is best for gluing in the nails, plastic cement would just melt the fuselage. The 2 keels are the glued into each fuselage half, flush with the centreline. Taped together for test fitting; I won't glue the 2 halves together until I can test fit them properly on the wing. So I cut the lower wing out, but fully removed the area around the wing fillets first as they would probably be damaged when tryong to bend and pop the wing out. And it fits ok; I hope this shows that vac forms are nothing to be afraid of, and that you should have a go. I'll update this as progress is made, Cheers, John

I didn'y get anything too spectacular but was pleased with what I came away with, mostly at good prices; Welsh Models ATP manx airlines £8.99, Roden DC-7 £11 so I got a set of Lima November SAS decals for it, £5. Other than that a Revell 737-800 KLM 'cos it was only £7, and the A321 Austrian for £9.99 because I haven't got an A321. The rest was WW1 stuff and paints etc. John

Useful pictures Kev, makes me notice that I haven't done the thrust reversers on the engine cowls. I'll get that seen to, Cheers, John

I like that! Looks great in that scheme, Cheers, John

Beautiful! Cheers, John

Wow, youre doing a great job Chris, looking good. I was tempted by this kit once but heard bad things about it. I'll follow this with interest, John

Superb! Can't fault you choice of subjects! Cheers, John

Now that is really nice. Great colour scheme! Cheers, John

Lovely! Great theme to model, I love the way it tells a story of development. Cheers, John

Hi Epeeman, I have built this kit without any noticeble fit problems that I can recall. Mine didn't have the cover that went over the cylinder heads which is what I assume you are trying to fit? (Parts C4 or C6), so I can't comment on it. However, a quick look in my Windsock datafile on the Oeffag D.III has a picture on page 25 of 153.181 with 'full cowling for winter service'. So it looks like it was a seasonal fitting that you could justifiably leave off, assuming your subject was in service before/after winter. Anyone able to confirm or refute this? Cheers, John

Thanks for the positive feedback guys! I would say that they are a little more challenging than regular injection moulded kits. I look on them as being 'a kit to make a kit with', but well within the scope of most modellers who have the basic skills. I tend to work on them as a second build whilst doing a 'normal' kit, as progress can be slow. Takle each sub assembly on its own before cutting too much out, i.e. cut and sand the fuselage halves and don't move on until they are done. Then do the wings, and then the fiddly bits. take your time, sand and check, sand and check regularly. Fuselage halves like the 111 shouldn't take more than an hour to cut out and prepare. Its not a disaster if you oversand a bit as you can always shim things back out, but obviously its better if you can avoid it. In fact the 1-11 is probably a good first vacform. If I had known that there would be interest in this I would have done a few more photos and Work in Progress shots! I haven't got any more airliner vacforms left but maybe if I find one at Telford I'll do a proper stage by stage WIP on the airliner forum if anyone is interested. I have a number of simple techniques developed over the years to make for a pretty straighforward build. (Hmm, what should I look for at Telford? I wouldn't mind another 1-11 & some TwoSix Court line decals ). Cheers, John

Finished at last! I've posted more pictures on RFI, but here are a couple; Cheers, John

I started this about 10 years ago intending to finish it in BEA Speedjack colours. After cutting out the fueselage halves I lost interest as I couldn't find any decals for it, so it went back into the stash. Then a couple of months ago, this very decal sheet appeared on the TwoSix website as a new release, so the project was revived again. It is the Vacform Welsh Models 1-11 500 issue, with Dan-Air decals and Huskitted Spey engines. Huskits are not appropriate for a BEA machine but I was able to swap them with richellis for a set of Airfix ones from the 1-11 200 kit. The Decals sheet gives you registrations for all the BEA 1-11's, I chose G-AVMS as I remember flying in it on the Heathrow - Manchester shuttle when I was kid. Hope you like it, Cheers, John

Ooooh simply gorgeous Jonners. I hope to get to Telford next week, I'll stop by Rowans stand and say hello if I make it, and have a good look at your Albi. Its bloody lovely. Cheers, John