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Hello all. A little while ago, I was given an Airfix VC-10 K2 by a very kind member of my Model Club, and I thought it was time to build it. All the parts were there, but there were no markings in the box. I had a tootle around Mr Google and found some markings by RAM Decals, but they were for the C.Mk.1K; now, I have to admit to being a bit of a numpty when it comes to recognising various marks of aircraft, with the possible exception of the EE Lightning. I asked for help in the Cold War section for aircraft on this fine Forum and was given some wonderful advice by @Archer_VC10, @Brizeman, and @Ossington among others, so a big THANK YOU to each of them for that help. In general, they gave me guidance on how to modify the Airfix kit to RAM Decal subject specifications. This includes things like wing fences being different, wing leading edges inboard of the outer fence, engines being Super Conways instead of just mere Conways, not to mention different angles of engine alignment and various other bits. I have considered long and hard since just how to do this, and I have come to a financial conclusion that it will have to be a C.Mk.1K (ish) when it is complete. I am having to be a little careful on costs at the moment, so will not splash out the £18 + post for the accessories, having already spent £13 on the markings. I hope you do not mind this way of thinking, but, needs must. I have decided to do some improvements to the kit though, so it is not a total write-off! Anyway, this is what I was given: Very inspiring design on the box (not), but what a beauty of an aircraft! I have always loved the VC-10, ever since I saw them out in Singapore in the 1960's and flew home in one instead of the good ol' Britannia that I had flown out in. Both beauties really, and I do have a kit of the Brit too! It obviously was not a tanker VC-10 we came back in. These are the transfers (being a '50's child they will always be transfers) that I bought: A fine selection of markings, but I will go for the second one down, as it is probably the one that would get built less often because of the lack of tail art. As the marking sheet had cabin windows as part of the artwork, and the configuration was different to the K2, it was a case of having to fill the windows. I added some strips of plastic card behind the openings and glued them in, then used milliput to fill the windows the following day. I had forgotten how good milliput is to use when it is damp, and soon had a fairly good result. I needed a little bit of extra filler afterwards as I had caused some dips in the milliput when I was smoothing it off. I also made up a couple more bulkheads using the single supplied one as a template and marked off where I was to fit them later on. I found yesterday that back in 2012 Britmodeller had a Group Build for the VC-10, and have read through those and found that it will be a good idea to add some plastic card tabs to the fuselage to aid alignment when it comes to putting them together. One of the major things I will amend on this are the wing fences. There is one missing inboard on the wings, and the one which is present outboard is full span, but only needs to go back to the back of the slats. I marked to wings as to where the inboard fences should fit: There is a re-fueling station below the rear fuselage which needs to go too as it was not on the C.Mk.1K, so I filled that with milliput when I did the cabin windows. I hope it will act as a key when I remove the plastic area and allow me to reshape the underside a little better (I will put a plastic 'capper' over it before I close the fuselage up): Then it was time for another leap of faith - do I keep the raised panel lines or do I try to rescribe? I have only rescribed once before and that was a long time ago when I used a needle. Now I am the proud owner of a real, proper scriber. I resolved to try on something that would not be seen first, so I did some scribing on the wing interior and used Dymo tape, tape for curves, and masking tape to find out which helped guide the scriber. Dymo. Then I did the tailplane underside (still working on the theory that it would not be seen!). Hmm, not too bad. You can see the 'straight' line has wandered a little at the top left. Firstly, I must say that any rescribing on this will only be straight lines, and nothing complicated like all the wiggly bits on the wings and tailplanes, and that also I would only be replacing raised for scribed unless the new line was easy. So there you know... Having done that, I was up for trying the wing lower surfaces. This time, after reading one of the VC-10 articles on here, I tried holding a 6" steel rule in place and that was so much better! I did not make any errors where the scribing tool wandered off course. On the underside, Airfix put representations of inspection hatches access panels, but they are only on the top wings in the plans I have got, so I sanded them off. All in all, a bit of an improvement, I think: I have given the wings a good sanding down and used an old toothbrush with lots of water to get the swarf out of the panel lines. I am glad I keep things 'because they will come in handy!' As you can see, I still have to tidy up the trailing edge of the wings, and judging by the GB I will have to thin them and the wing tips to get the profile a bit slimmer. The next 'heart-in-mouth' moment was getting rid of the outer wing fence. I popped some masking tape either side and used some sanding blocks supplied as a free gift by SAMI magazine a year or two ago, and soon had a fenceless wing! I took the whole fence off so when I fit the new inboard one, I can do the outboard mini-fence with the same plastic stock. The rescribing was then done and it went a lot easier this time. I ran the scribing tool along the lines three times for each line, so if they turn out to be too deep, at least they will be consistently deep. Anyway, that is where I am at at the moment, I am sorry I will not be doing this with the upgrade parts, but it will probably only ever be seen in my model room or my model club. I am happy with the plan, especially after a fortnight or two with it playing on my mind. Take care all, any advice or tips will be very much appreciated, Ray

Hello all. Sometime ago, I was given the Airfix 1/144 Vickers VC-10 K2 by a friend at my model club. It had no markings so I had a look around to see what was around. I found a sheet by RAM Decals for a series of four anniversary schemes for the C.Mk1.K. I asked on here for information on what I would need to do to modify the kit to this standard, and found out the answer was 'quite a lot!' I found I could not go to the expense of getting Braz replacement leading edges and the 'Super Conway' engines, so the '-ish' build was born. Basically, I modified what I could, and left the rest working on the basis that this would never be a competition model, nor would it even end up in the model club (well, maybe) and would only be on display in my home. I did remove the refuelling point under the fuselage, added the wing fences inboard, modified the outboard ones, filled all the cabin windows with Milliput, and re-scribed the majority of the panel lines. The RAM Decals were pretty good, once I found out how to add them. I found that using neat Klear/Pledge was the best way; they had silvered quite a lot using diluted Klear or the Micro Set/Sol system. I had two issues though. The tail logos were too big in comparison to the online images, and I could not get the wing walkways to follow their correct path, but that might have been me misinterpreting the guides. If you are of a sensitive disposition regarding VC-10s, please look away now! For the rest of you, here is my interpretation of VC-10 XV102, from 101 Squadron, RAF Brize Norton in 2007, which was 'Celebrating 1000 Years of Oxfordshire': I originally sprayed it with Tamiya Light Grey Primer and then brush painted it with Colourcoats Medium Sea Grey (as recommended in the RAM Decal instructions), but was told it was Barley/Camouflage Grey. I ummed and arred a bit, then resprayed it (very carefully) with the primer, and only got a little 'crazy paving' when it reacted with the enamel, but that soon sanded down and a quick respray afterwards and I was happy. If anybody wants to see how I did this, the build thread is here: There is a host of very useful information there and it is well worth a look for that alone, even if you skip my notes! I thoroughly enjoyed building this, I love getting the old kits and trying to improve them, even if there are things that I will not do during the modifications for various reasons. Thanks for looking, all the best, Ray