Search the Community

Hello Britmodeller, In April 2015 I decided to find out what would happen to a model if it was weathered naturally. So I set to converting an old table into a runway, took one of my lesser models and mounted it, then left it out in a garden for just over seven months through a British spring and summer. In that time it experienced all the weathers that one would expect in this climate and a few unexpected ones. Having no real idea of what would happen it seemed a worthwhile experiment. I chose this.. This is my model of XM655 as it appeared on the day the experiment began. All in all it is not a very good Vulcan but I was very new to modelling when I built it so I thought it would be an ideal test subject. Each month or so I visited and took some pictures, if you missed that then here's the link below. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234979698-vulcan-xm655-a-natural-weathering-experiment-with-completed/?hl=xm655 The original idea was to leave it outside for a year or perhaps more, but I decided to end the experiment a little early due to concerns over it passing from weathered to destroyed. Yesterday it was brought back home, or rescued if you like and some photos were taken. Looking at the above images I wouldn't blame you for wondering if I was mistaken that it was passing from weathered to destroyed, but as we look closer you will see where my concerns came from. My main concern was the paint work, the peeling in places was starting to get quite bad. Below you can see some of the smaller problems areas... All of these on their own aren't so bad, but there were areas suffering a little more... Here you can see where the roundel used to be it is peeling quite badly.. And on the left airbrake. But all over the Vulcan it can be seen that the Humbrol Matt-Cote has made it very spotty and in places it is letting go altogether... Here on the nose, patches missing. Around and above the intake.. The wing leading edges. The tail cone.. A curious pattern just near to one of the antennas All over the top... As you've seen from these images, not many of the decals have survived on the upper surfaces but on the belly it's a different story. No decals have been lost from the underside at all. But still the same pattern of deterioration in the Matt-Cote can be seen (plus the brown varnish which the whole thing was covered in at it's build time). Since this paint is light aircraft grey and it's quite dirty it's not completely clear, so below you can see some shots deliberately underexposed with a strategically placed light source.. It isn't as extensive as the upper surfaces, just happening a little slower I suspect. So the underside could have survived a year for sure, maybe more. One thing I was hoping for was paint fade but this didn't really occur, but one thing I did notice when taking these pictures - In one place the tone has changed slightly... Have a look at the green paint on the tail and compare. The tone seems a little warmer compared to the upper wing surfaces. Finally some points of interest... Dirt has made it all the way into the intakes. ..And all the way under (or above) the ECM plates.. Also in one intake, a non-scale web... All in all a successful first test I think. When I began this experiment I did rush it a little. I decided to re-coat the Vulcan in Matt-Cote before I sent it to the garden but I didn't give it enough time to fully dry or cure. On top of that I later found out the the materials added to it to make it a Matt finish are actually porous. This probably accounts for why it deteriorated so quickly. I had hoped that it would make it to a year at least, for the first month or so it went quite well. Now this Vulcan will sit with pride rather than being a poorly finished early attempt of mine and will be protected from nature. I may at some point attempt a replacement of the wing roundel decals, but other than that I won't be doing anything further. Since this experiment was ended early I've decided that another Vulcan will take the weathering test, and so when I removed this one from its mount I put another one in its place but this time with a gloss finish, properly dried. Look out for that in the Work In Progress section soon. In the meantime, thanks for looking.. Adam

Hello Britmodeller, It's been a while since I posted a WIP and this will not be a typical WIP, but it is something I hope will interest some of you out there. Weathering; It's something that I plan to do in the future, but for now it got me thinking about something. Yes, you can weather a model with washes or power or any other method that one might try. But what would happen to a model if you weathered it naturally? This is my model of XM655, looking glorious in the morning sun. Back in the early days I didn't plan much ahead, I just wanted to build Vulcan's. Originally this was to be XM594 but due to some technical errors on my part I flipped and made it XM655. Technically it's neither really. This model is just a bit above crude, there's minimal sanding, no filler, panel gaps and the paint job is questionable. But it's still pretty, after all it's a Vulcan. Anyhoo, it's now time to replace it with a more accurate Vulcan from the same period but what to do with this one? It represents quite a few hours of stress and pleasure and I don't have the heart to do with it as the RAF did with all their Vulcan's they no longer wanted (i.e. Bulldozer). Experiment time! Which I shall call, Natural Weathering Part 1. Over a year after completion, XM655 is back on the bench for some modifications... Still wet with fresh Varnish... When I originally built this model I wasn't really aware of the importance of Varnish and basically I just threw it on, taking little or no care to make sure it was well spread, in fact you can see areas of brown on the belly where evidence of my ignorance can be seen. On top of that, the Varnish was never applied to the Decals. For this experiment, I have re-coated the whole thing with Humbrol Matt Cote, with an additional extra layer on the topside. I have to say the Matt Cote is much better than the brown Humbrol stuff I've used previously on this model, it's completely changed the finish for the better. Natural weathering means outside, obviously.. So I need to stop the thing from blowing away. Since this is a wheels down Vulcan I've used the U/C bays as a mounting point. Three holes, three nuts and some superglue. As unpredictable as British weather is, we can be certain that there will be wind and some of it quite strong. With the amount of surface area on the Vulcan it will almost certainly blow off the table so it needs to be secured. Putting the nuts in place did create a new problem, the centre of mass is too far aft, or more so I should say - It will sit on it's wheels but only just. To solve this little problem I've dropped many brass stand-offs, usually used when putting a PC together, into the nose. Aside from these mod's, that's all I plan to do with this Vulcan for the experiment. Since my garden doesn't get much sun, I am borrowing some space in my Nan's garden. As far as she is concerned she is getting a new garden ornament as she has much love for the Vulcan. She also kindly let me borrow/destroy an old table. So props to Nan! So now the mount. A table was the obvious choice but just a table would look a little out of place, so.... ...A makeshift runway (not to scale, sadly). As you can see the mount points are drilled for the Vulcan in the centre. I have to admit, I wish I'd spent a little more time on the table, the lines aren't as good as they could have been but that's what happens when you try to get it all done in a day. On the plus side, the excessive amount of black I seem to have used does give the runway a wet look. Let see what she looks like... As you can see the jet pipes are covered, I don't want creepy crawly's making a nest in there. So, some protection from the birds etc... You may have noticed from an earlier picture that the table has four holes, one in each corner.. Here you see four canes in the holes, the idea being some netting will be attached to protect the Vulcan from birds and other wildlife that might damage it. I thought it best to give sink the table into the ground a little to help stop it blowing over in high wind, although the table is quite heavy anyway it wouldn't hurt. Now that the table has (literally) been hammered into the ground and the four canes are in place for netting, it's time to screw the Vulcan down. Screwed into the nut in all the U/C bays and nearly up to the top of the model, it is also secured by two more nuts one on top of and the other underneath the table. All the wheels are raised about 1mm up from the table/runway surface so whatever weather gets thrown at it the bolts will take all the strain rather than the wheels, which are a bit marginal. So here the experiment begins; For at least one year this Vulcan's wheels will not touch ground and will be exposed to every form of British weather. This is how she looks on Day 1 (05-04-2015). Predictions: Since the model is made of plastic I don't expect the standard weathering that a real Vulcan would experience, but what I do hope to achieve is some paint fade and I would imagine a layer of dirt build-up should be expected. These are the two things I expect but what else might happen? I'm not entirely sure. I plan to visit and take a new picture or two each month and I will post on this WIP. For now, this is how I leave her... Do you have any predictions? Post below. I'm curious as to how this will turn out. Stay Tuned! p.s. Expect some night shoots to appear.

Hello all, So here we have my completed Vulcan B.2 XM600, number 5 in a series of (undecided). Aside from the usual clean ups and sanding that one has to do with an Airfix kit, I have also done the following to this kit. Scribed detail Reshaped air splitters Curved tail fin Removed Skybolt missile mountings Removed X-Band jammer from ECM on tail cone Removed raised bar behind starboard undercarriage (Doppler Radar?) Created gaps between smaller elevons port and starboard wings Created gaps between large elevons and fuselage Created fuselage windows (drilled, covered with plastic) Drilled and installed exhaust for rover turbine Naturally a lot of sanding and filling involved as always. This was my first attempt at scribing and overall this Vulcan took almost two months to complete. The paint job is DSG / Dark green and a white belly, a rare scheme. As far as I know it was only done to two Vulcan's as a test to see if it was more effective than MSG/DG. XM600 didn't carry this scheme for long and sadly in 1977 she crashed at Spilsby after performing a test on the Ram Air Turbine which was a bit faulty and it caused ignition of the fuel (crew escaped). It's not perfect, but considering I am still fairly new to modelling, I consider it to be acceptable and is certainly better than any other Vulcan I have built to date. Looking back I wished I used a darker shade of green, but this was photographed in the unforgiving daylight. Decals are Airfix, Fundekals and Fantasy print shop. Thanks for looking.. Let me know what you think.

Hello Britmoddeller people, Having spoken with the Vulcan Master (aka robvulcan) he suggested I might get a WIP going for my latest Vulcan. I'm am man of the digital age so never really played with this kinda thing before, but I've been practicing now for about a year, on the 5th model and the 5th Vulcan. This will be the XM600, A Vulcan that met with a fiery demise in the 1970's, but it was one of the few Vulcan's to be given a DSG Cammo and white underneath.. I didn't really take any snaps until the build was well underway... As you can see, scribing is almost complete (1st attempt ever) and behind the starboard U/C bay I have drilled and installed an exhaust, which I noticed when wandering under a Vulcan one day, guessing its something to do with the air starter, I'm sure the master will correct me Annoyingly, I got the port exhausts wrong again! Closer look at the scribing on the wing, also as you can see I have separated the elevon's. Most of it glued and filled now, just a few tweaks left. Air splitters reshaped slightly, I made a few more "trims" after this image and of course the fuselage windows were done before gluing. Time to paint! Scheme will be DSG cammo on the upper surface and a white lower. Brush is my preferred method, I plan to spray one day, guess I'm building up to that. The elevons stand out much more once separated, I am quite pleased with that (not that there isn't room for improvement). Cammo on! DSG cammo is rare on only the upper side, sadly since this was done on few Vulcans I didn't have a picture to follow (which I need at this stage). So this is an attempt to merge the original RAF cammo pattern and the later full wrap DSG paint scheme. (Cap of the tail will be painted black, once I'm happy with the other cammo) Quick update: Just painted tail cap and Jet-pipe ends At this moment I am debating whether to do anything more with the cammo. Since I am still relatively new to this I try not to improve too many things at once, I tend just focus on one element at a time, and right now I am developing the actual construction.

Our latest newsletter is now available to view on the website. This weeks newsletter New arrivals include the 1:144th scale Vulcan Bomber and the 1:48th Black Widow from Great Wall Hobby. The Hobbyboss 1:32nd scale Black Widow and the 1:16th scale Tiger I have also arrived but the Tiger I is already 90% sold. We have around 50 left and expect to sell out within the week. Our 100 weekly specials are also still proving popular with upto 45% discount available. Specials run each week until friday night.