Vintage Pair's Vampire T11 XH304

[Cheshiretaurus]

On evening of the 25th May 1986 my dad called me into the living room, the news was on he said the vintage pair had crashed. As a keen young 15 year old aviation enthusiast I was well aware of the vintage pair and had seen them at airshows on many occasions. It was shortly after that I decided to build models of both the vintage pair XH304 & WA669. The only mainstream injection moulded Vampires in those days was the Heller & Novo ones, both single seaters, I did obtain both Merlin & ID models T11s, but were well beyond my skills and never got built. So the project stalled and my modelling then was put on a back burner with to post school teenage life.

Now Airfix has released the T11 the project has been re-awakened. I have also the Pavla and Eduard enhancement sets, I did originally plan to just use just the Pavla stuff but nearly all pics of parked T11s show the flaps down so I decided to build it flaps down too, So the Eduard set was ordered for that, I will also use Eduard instrument panel. There is also plenty of other detail on the Eduard set but I'm not too sure about their inspection panel covers think adding PE ones would make them stand too proud of the surface.

Took a trip to Newark last week to get some pics of the T11 there, and also took a colour sample card to match the Grays and yellows. So plan is Xtracolor X15 for the grey and Humbrol HU69 for the yellow, they seemed the best match.

From pic I've found of XH304 the inside of the flaps were grey, does anyone know if the inside of the flap bays was grey too?

Standard obligatory kit shot:-

Thanks for looking

Mark

Edit 16th Sept 2014 Meteor WA669 build started here

Edited September 16, 2014 by Cheshiretaurus

[Martian]

Great project! Do be aware though, that others have found the main parts of the Pavla cockpit set next to impossible to fit to the kit. It might be a plan to just use the small detail parts from it and add them to the kit parts.

Martin

[Cheshiretaurus]

Great project! Do be aware though, that others have found the main parts of the Pavla cockpit set next to impossible to fit to the kit. It might be a plan to just use the small detail parts from it and add them to the kit parts.

Martin

Thanks for the heads up on that one Martin, Did a bit of a search and came up with this *@*%$* Pavla.... So have done some dry fitting and found the Pavla floor is a bit of a poor fit particularly if the side panels are fitted to the floor first as depicted in the instructions, the floor also doesnt follow the locating lines on the airfix kit and interferes with the fuselage half locating pin aft of the cockpit. I decided to make a sort of cut n shut of the floor from the airfix & pavla parts at the point where curved meets the base of the seats.

The side panels seem a good fit with the fuselage half rather than the floor. Then having removed all the airfix detail I noticed the sills are a bit thick. Did I do something wrong here and need to cut more into the airfix part?

All might not be lost though as I have a second T11 in the stash so could use the fuselage halves from that and the Eduard side parts instead.

Have intentions of converting one to this some time in the future so this fuselage is ideal for butchering/cutting up for that project.

Now its time for beers and BBQs

Mark

Edited May 18, 2014 by Cheshiretaurus

[Cheshiretaurus]

Came up with the solution yesterday after a few beers n burgers, I'll use the Pavla side panels but cut the top sill off them. They seemed to fit very well and the fuselage will close up with the Pavla floor in place so the sides were CA'd into place.

The instrument panel structure is the Airfix one but with the Pavla centre console & Eduard rudder pedals, This is the first time Ive used Eduard PE and I'm most impressed with it especially the instrument panel, The instrument glasses were filled from behind with Humbrol gloss cote, once set the two halves were CA'd together.

Rest of the parts were given a prime of rattle can Halford grey and then a spray of Humbrol 33 matt black from the airbrush

I think if I was to start again with hind sight I'd just get the Eduard set and just the Pavla ejection seats.

Detailing tomorrow, and will try to get the fuselage together, Did I not mention I got the booms glued together too!

Mark

[Fritag]

Got me hooked. Didn't know you could do that with gloss cote. Like it.....

[Cheshiretaurus]

Got me hooked. Didn't know you could do that with gloss cote. Like it.....

I found it best if its thinned a little with white spirit and is wiped over the back with a cocktail stick so it just drops into the holes but goes no further due to surface tension. Something I learned with the Cherokee 140 build, Probably works with other clear products too.

[Cheshiretaurus]

Ive done some dry brushing with white & aluminium paint to pick out the details, I must say I'm most impressed with the Pavla seats they are little models in their own right lots of detail,

Showed one to the SWMBO and the response was 'very nice buts whats the point if its not going to be seen once its built.' 'But it is going to be seen as I'm going to do it with the canopy open and besides............' My analogy would not be appropriate on this forum

Few spots of red yellow and gun metal here and there, the Pavla control columns are being brush painted as I forgot to do them when I airbrushed the rest, they will get a dry brushing too before fitting. The instrument panel fitted perfectly, glad to see Eduard made sure their parts fit! Had to cut a little detail away from the left sidewall to get the IP to fit though.

One last issue, I have a bad habit of using some little squares of clear sheet to put a blob of CA on while I'm using it, As you can appreciate something clear does not have a high score on conspicuous, So I ended up carelessly putting the left fuselage half down into it, Managed to sand it off but its done a very good job of filling some scribe lines under the intake and wing, #bitofascribingjobtodothen

[Cheshiretaurus]

Control columns were CA'd into place yesterday and 9g of lead squeezed into the nose, Instructions say 7g but I thought I'd be cautious as some kits still tail sit even with the specified weight. Not sure if 7g really is good for this kit, anyone know? Its generally only something you find out once its complete then too late.

Fuselage was closed up last night and this morning spent smoothing the seam with Mr Surfacer 500 & 1000, I acquired them at Cosford last month and this is the first time I've used them, so far so good. Stubborn gaps were filled with CA. The process did create a few more areas for re scribing as well as result of the CA incident on the left fuselage.

This afternoon was spent recribing those areas, with aid blue 3M tape and a sewing machine needle all learnt from that master of scribing Fritag!

Thanks for looking

Mark

[Andrew.S]

Very nice modelling!

[mekon]

Lovely work, you've made a great job of salvaging the Pavla cockpit. Scribing has also been carried out finely as well.

[Cheshiretaurus]

Bit more progress, Spent a bit of time last night studying the Eduard instructions and cutting out the flaps where necessary on the wing, I hadn't realised at first but the PE outer flap box will form the upper surface of the wing, looks like a job for Milliput when I get to that stage to blend it in. Inboard flap simply goes into the cut out under in the upper wing.

Ive also glued the tail this morning and spent quite a bit of time making sure its spot on, the booms are sitting flat on the perspex base the horizontal tail is perfectly parallel to the base, the wing is not glued but is just there to set the spacing of the booms and the tails are as vertical as I can get them by eye with a set square even took a pic to make sure, the red lines are exactly 0° & 90° If the tail is off later then I know the problem will be in the wing joint.

Mark

[mmaker]

Good job in the cockpit!

Ive got to build another one,maybe Swedish...

[Tomoshenko]

Stunning work on the cockpit and scribing. I have one of these in my stash and am now tempted by the aftermarket stuff. Although you show that aftermarket products alone won't build into a good model without skill and patience.

[Cheshiretaurus]

Today's progress has been making the intake, more chiselling, cutting & filing on the wing in preparation for the PE flaps to fit, getting the upper wing on and making a landing light.

Not much to the intake apart from 3 parts gave them a coat of Alclad white aluminium before assembly and fitting, intake mouths were next. All very well located into place.

Several dry assemblies were needed to make sure the PE flaps were going to fit.

Once I was happy with it I glued the top wing half in place, this needs some work on the two round fuselage mounts especially the front one otherwise the wing sits too high by half a millimetre or so.

With all the handling going on the pitot head came off the tail and was taken by the carpet monster, I checked all it lairs but it had hidden this one very well, probably eaten as a light snack! Airfix have moulded a few delicate probes n stuff onto some substantial part that will be handled a lot during assembly, bad planning by Airfix or poor care by me, probably both.

I had a cunning plan this afternoon, I'm going to make a landing light. The landing light on the Vampire is in the outboard left wing and folds down for use, Here it is:-

There is engraved shape in the Airfix wing and a similar part on the Eduard PE set, but they are both solid shapes with no holes for the light.

Drilling a PE part was going to be difficult and would likely split, so I decided I would file It out, I started by piercing the part with the needle I use for scribing then pushing the needle through. Then took a round needle file and opened up the hole before moving on to a bigger needle file. A slightly larger hole was drilled into the wing and I used a punch set to cut a 2.5mm disc from 0.25mm PETG sheet. After making sure the disc would fit in the hole it the wing the PE part was CA'd into place and the disk pushed into the hole in the wing from behind until it rested on the slightly smaller PE part.

Next came a 2.5mm little lenses light and that was pushed into the hole to sit behind the disc, the back of the light settled slightly proud of the surface inside the wing. as this was the mating surface for the upper surface I had to chisel out a bit of the inside of the upper wing for it to go into. Just need to make a slight repair to the wingtip

Not a bad result, Must not forget to mask it!

[Fritag]

Great work with the PE landing light Mark. Gotta love little lenses. I don't have much experience of PE - and I find it pretty unforgiving stuff. I'll be interested to see how easy it is to get the top of the outer flap box to blend into the wing....

BTW. I like the idea of using the perspex base as a true flat surface for jigging etc. Might have to acquire a bit

This build looks fun.

[Cheshiretaurus]

Great work with the PE landing light Mark. Gotta love little lenses. I don't have much experience of PE - and I find it pretty unforgiving stuff. I'll be interested to see how easy it is to get the top of the outer flap box to blend into the wing....

BTW. I like the idea of using the perspex base as a true flat surface for jigging etc. Might have to acquire a bit

This build looks fun.

Yes its unforgiving stuff the landing light bezel got bent several times during filing, the flap box roofs are no longer truly flat, but not far off, The blending is going to be a little concerning, I have remembered that Milliput does not adhere to brass very well, CA & Bi carb might be the answer here.

Good thing about the perspex base is once your part is setting on it, it can be picked up and moved out of the way without disturbing it.

[Martian]

Just caught back up with this thread, there is some classy work going on here.

Martin

[Cheshiretaurus]

Not much time spent on the build today, cleaned up all the joints on the tail boom assembly, Quite like this Mr Surfacer stuff, finding it very useful. Booms were fitted to the top wing this evening. Have it resting in a Lego jig to make sure it all remains straight. Hope to get the lower wings on tonight.

[Deon]

pretty awesome build - pro! really useful having all the tips in the WIP great to help DIY challenged people like me.

[Cheshiretaurus]

Got the lower wings on last night, needed a bit of filler and sanding, around the intakes and fuselage join, I glued the intake mouths in earlier as per the Airfix instructions and they are ever so slightly misaligned with the wing only a fraction of a mm though, think the way to do them might be just to dry fit them when the wing halves are glued then once thats set then run some liquid glue into the intake join. That way they can be set correctly. Anyway bit filling n sanding and spray of primer to show up any more bits that need work. Ive marked those areas with arrows. a little scribing need too. Looking like a T11 now

I've been asking the question If anyone ever had any close up experience of XH304, Was the inside of the flap bays grey like the inside of the flaps or aluminium like the inside of the undercarriage bays?

Looking more like a T11 now!

Edited May 24, 2014 by Cheshiretaurus

[Cheshiretaurus]

I'll be interested to see how easy it is to get the top of the outer flap box to blend into the wing....

So would I, Right here we go then, Right outer flap first

1st thing was to tape a flat surface to the upper surface of the wing, a steel rule will do.

Taping it on wasnt firm enough, so a clamp was employed.

A little CA was smeared on the forward join only then the flap box slid into place and pushed into place along the front edge and flush against the boom,

Next the ruler was removed and the inner trailing edge of the PE aligned with the trailing edge of the boom to wing join and CA'd into place. The outer edge needed a 0.25mm slither of plasticard to fill a small gap once trimmed the outer edge of the PE was aligned with its trailing edge and CA'd into place.

The top surface was filled with CA & Bi-carb and sanded flush with a sanding stick.

Bit of primer....

Needs just a bit more filling and re-scribing

Mark

Edited May 25, 2014 by Cheshiretaurus

[Cheshiretaurus]

Have got all the flap boxes/bays on this afternoon, and got both wing upper surfaces nicely smoothed out. The Eduard parts have a pin on each these all unintentionally got bent but they can stay that way for the moment as they are out of harms way. Some more scribing to to on the upper wing.

Yes I know that rib on the inner flap is in the wrong place, I've since corrected it.

Thanks for looking

Mark

[Cheshiretaurus]

Thought I'd add the nav lights, done the usual way as described in several builds on the internet. First time I've tried it for myself,

Bit of clear sprue was part drilled with a 0.35mm bit and coloured paint added to the drilled hole. Cut out in the wing was lined with kitchen foil to hopefully create a reflective background and the clear sprue was CA'd into place. Once set it was filed & sanded to shape, then given a polish with increasing grades of Micromesh finishing with 12,000 grade. Enough for today red one next!

[Cheshiretaurus]

Left nav light done, Improvement or just more bits to mask. Some PE to go in the undercarriage bays & canopy next I think.

[Fritag]

Improvement and just one more bit to mask Gonna try the same on my JP5.