Vulcan XH558 - Airfix 1/72

[CedB]

Thanks Håkan  a 1/32 Vulcan would be BIG!

 

Thanks WV908   Got it now thanks. As you say there are some nice shots in the walk around so I'll use those as a reference. I looked up your serial by the way - Sea Hawk eh? Very nice.

 

Thanks Liney  It's great to see this sort of detail. I'm far too aware from the 'Bristol experience' that if you don't get this stuff while it's in people's heads, it's gone.

 

Thanks Tony. "… intakes becoming outtakes …"  

Nice webpage too - amazing what those guys put together... I was fooled!

 

 

So the TFR pod (oooh, get me) has to go:

 

 

Can you see the nose profile with that removed? No, me neither. It's going to have to be a 'Michael Angelo' - chip away the bits that aren't Vulcan nose.

 

Before I start making a mess I'd better close up the canopy. Masking eh? Should have bought a mask set. I don't mind doing this on well defined frames but this one is, er, vague. After some fettling with a #15 I'd done the main windows as best I could and then looked for some masks for the side windows. Canopy Rescue set? Nah (there's a surprise, I always look but rarely find anything suitable in that). Aha!

 

CX367 fits by Ced Bufton, on Flickr

 

Some wheel masks from the Airfix Mk.III Lancaster set - knew they'd 'come in'.

 

A bit sanded off the back and a bit off the front and it's on with Gator's Grip, brush in to the gaps and used to blend:

 

 

I'll let that dry over lunch.

[Hamden]

 

Closed up already be finished by tea time and in the circuit by supper!...............................................................................................................................

Very nice work coming together well

 

    Roger

[WV908]

1 hour ago, CedB said:

Thanks WV908   Got it now thanks. As you say there are some nice shots in the walk around so I'll use those as a reference. I looked up your serial by the way - Sea Hawk eh? Very nice.

 

So the TFR pod (oooh, get me) has to go:

 

 

Can you see the nose profile with that removed? No, me neither.

Aye the Sea Hawk is a very nice little Naval bird indeed. I’ve seen Newark’s multiple times and bagged at the ones at Yeovilton, but I’ve only seen WV908 once and was lucky enough to see it fly at Waddington. Instantly became my favourite aircraft and I have the Classic Airframes kit waiting in the stash with a mish mash of decals to make her. Anyway back to the Vulcan - when I modded mine I chopped the TFR bullet off at the top of the collar and used sanding sticks. There’s plenty of plastic to work with, so you shouldn’t go through. Now I can be a plank and tell you about the most crucial bit of the build that has been in the back of my mind but just couldn’t quite place. You’ll need some Olympus 202 exhausts from freightdog for this particular bird.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

Edited June 14, 2018 by WV908

[CedB]

Thanks Roger  Not quite finished by tea time, not today anyway... there's a ton of filling to do.

Thanks WV  OOB this one... tempted though I may be. Did Airfix get it wrong or just not bother do you think?

 

 

Tailcone. Hmmm. Where would you like your gap Sir, here:

 

 

… or here:

 

 

As the top will be part covered by the fin I chose to level the join on the bottom (fnaar!).

Lots of flash on the fin of course:

 

 

 

Soon cleaned up. 

TFR pod off with a contour saw and the sihrsc stroked over the nub, keeping it level and turning the model around under my arm (the only place it fits):

 

 

 

Happy with this:

 

 

Humbrol filler applied to the gaps in the intakes ready for a filing session later:

 

[giemme]

Quick and steady progress, Ced!  great job with the sihrsc

 

Ciao

[hendie]

20 hours ago, CedB said:

Thanks Hendie - good to know  I guess that's why the new tool Airfix are far better?

 

there's absolutely no reason why the old kits cannot be as good (in terms of molding) than the new kits.  They might be lacking  in detail,  but the molding quality should not differ - provided the molder knows what they are doing.

I was thinking of doing a molding 101 in the chat section a while back to dispel some of the myths that seem to get propagated around these forums but held back as it could get long and boring for most folks.

 

20 hours ago, CedB said:

Of course it was in the last place I looked:

 

Start backwards next time.

 

 

Nice update.  The intakes might be a pain but all the effort will be worth it in the end I'm sure.   

[Martian]

Nice work and great to see the intakes where they belong. Incidentally, I have to congratulate you on the increase in the quality of the famous Ced double entendres, (Eat your heart out Finbar Saunders).

 

Martian 👽

[Liney]

Another snippet of useless info for you..I think the pod would have been removed when 558 went to maritime reconnaissance , 27 squadron I think which would have been about mid 70’s? Please don’t take this as gospel, the ole memory ain’t what it used to be! Anyway, looking good as far as I’m concerned and it’s certainly stretching my memory muscle. 

[CedB]

2 hours ago, giemme said:

Quick and steady progress, Ced!  great job with the sihrsc

 

Ciao

Thanks Giorgio  It was quite easily actually, keeping the file parallel to the nose shape and just stroking the pod away. Great tool, I love it!

 

1 hour ago, hendie said:

there's absolutely no reason why the old kits cannot be as good (in terms of molding) than the new kits.  They might be lacking  in detail,  but the molding quality should not differ - provided the molder knows what they are doing.

I was thinking of doing a molding 101 in the chat section a while back to dispel some of the myths that seem to get propagated around these forums but held back as it could get long and boring for most folks.

 

Start backwards next time.

 

Nice update.  The intakes might be a pain but all the effort will be worth it in the end I'm sure.   

Thanks Hendie  I for one would be interested in 'molding 101' - always good for an old dog like me to learn new tricks stuff.

 

1 hour ago, Martian Hale said:

Nice work and great to see the intakes where they belong. Incidentally, I have to congratulate you on the increase in the quality of the famous Ced double entendres, (Eat your heart out Finbar Saunders).

 

Martian 👽

Thanks Martian  Yes, they're much better fitted than on the bench. Thanks too for the congratulations, although you know what they say, 'Never mind the quality, feel the width' - fnaar!  

 

17 minutes ago, Liney said:

Another snippet of useless info for you..I think the pod would have been removed when 558 went to maritime reconnaissance , 27 squadron I think which would have been about mid 70’s? Please don’t take this as gospel, the ole memory ain’t what it used to be! Anyway, looking good as far as I’m concerned and it’s certainly stretching my memory muscle. 

Thanks Liney, great info  

 

More kit bashing...

Remember WV's quote over the page?

21 hours ago, WV908 said:

the photo of XH558 you’ve provided from the walk around section shows the blank in it’s place clear as day

I had a look at that again and decided to flatten the tip of the nose a bit:

 

 

 

Possibly a bit too much - oops.

 

What to do while I'm waiting for things to dry properly... Wings! PBS warned about the step so I tried a dry fit:

 

 

Looks like I got lucky, both sides (phew). With that confidence I've glued the wing halves together using the Touch-N-Flow:

 

 

Almost out of pegs and certainly out of bench space. 

Drying overnight.

[giemme]

18 minutes ago, CedB said:

I for one would be interested in 'molding 101' - always good for an old dog like me to learn new tricks stuff.

Same here.

 

Ciao

[Lord Riot]

On 13/06/2018 at 18:20, DaveyGair said:

PHWOOAAR! A Vulcan!  I should really buy one of these but I'm waiting for a new tool from Airfix… cough!

 

I started building one when first issued, I got as far as rubbing down joins and a bit of white with my Humbrol Modellers Airbrush, but never finished it. Think I gave it to one of my younger cousins or something. Was gonna be a White one with Blue Steel as well 🙁

 

Go on, inspire me again Ced.

 

Davey. 

Like this one? ...

 

 

[bigbadbadge]

Blimey Ced you're knocking them out quickly !!! I have only been away for a few days and you're onto another one.   Missed the first page too. 

Good luck with the build.  Good work so far. 

All the best 

Chris 

[CedB]

Thanks Giorgio - another vote for a @hendie molding 101  

Nice Vulcans Lord - lovely pair  

Thanks Chris - this one's going particularly quickly... once all the flash is removed there aren't that many parts to stick together  

 

 

Talking of flash:

 

 

You can see that the wing root and the wings both have a LOT of flash down the join BUT that the two location tabs and the wheel bay lump should locate things nicely.

Sadly, when the flash is removed (the #9 is particularly good for this; running it down the join shaves off any excess) there's something that causes a gap in the wing join:

 

 

… and it rocks. Not in a good way, in a wobbly way. Holding it up to the light shows that the front tab seems to be a problem:

 

 

… and the wings don't seem to be aligned at the root join, despite all the locating pins. I'm shaving bits off in the hope of reducing the gap and wobble:

 

 

That's just one side's bits. Slow work but hopefully worth it.

[Courageous]

Lots of building going on, impressively big and that will take up some ceiling space...I think I'll stick to my 1/72 fighters though.

 

Stuart

[TheBaron]

13 hours ago, giemme said:

Same here

And here!

 

Handsome wing-work Ced.

 Those are gert big bits of Toblerone and no mistake!

[huvut76g7gbbui7]

14 hours ago, Liney said:

Please don’t take this as gospel, the ole memory ain’t what it used to be!

You are correct and because we all love a Vulcan picture,I'm sure @CedBwill excuse the slight drift.

 

[WV908]

Nice pic Scimitar - it goes some way to confirming my theory that XH558 never had a TFR bullet, and that the tail intake was removed during the K.2 conversion.

 

Ced,

  the engine exhausts supplied with the kit are poor representations of the fat and short 300 series nozzles - the 200 series nozzles are very different; longer, slimmer and with a deflection in the outboard pipes. I’ll post a photo tonight of my WIP ‘558 with the WIP XM655, both long term rebuilds. I know you want to build it OOB, but it’s about the single biggest improvement you can make to the kit, ignoring of course the stupidly expensive seamless intakes. 

 

Cheers,

  WV908

Edited June 15, 2018 by WV908

[CedB]

Thanks Stuart and Tony - she is a big bird but there's a space reserved for her on the ceiling!  

Thanks Scimitar for the lovely picture - I've no problem with thread drifts so no need to apologise and feel free to add more  

Thanks WV  You have me pondering now. I'll have a look at some other builds and see if it's not too late to change the exhausts...

 

 

Scrape, scrape, sand, sand, dry fit, repeat. The wheel bays had a tiny amount of bulge on them and after removing that and all the other lumps I got this:

 

 

Happy enough with that, it'll close up more with some grunt and lots of (melt the plastic) cement. Dry fit just for some relaxation:

 

 

Next job is to file / sand the filler on the intakes and sort the fuselage seam. To be honest I've had enough of that for a while so...

 

I've started another WiP on a Cessna 150 that I flew during my PPL training.

 

I don't usually start another build before I finish one but I need to ponder the exhausts and have a rest from dust generation for a while.

Off to look for other builds using the AM exhausts...

[stevehnz]

Impressive progress in a short time Ced. I'm not so much late to the party but dodging this one mainly, 1/72 Vulcans too much of a good thing to my mind, I may just peek over the hedge & see what you & the Vulcan tifosi are getting up to occasionally though.

Steve.

[CedB]

Thanks Steve  

 

I have succumbed... Sam (cathasatail) used them here and it looks like a simple saw and glue job.

Order placed on Hannants for the Freightdog Exhausts and, while I'm there, the really nice Master Refueling Probe Boom. Both should make a better model... I hope!

 

I've paid for 'First Class' post so early next week? In the meantime there will be...

 

 

[Lord Riot]

1 hour ago, WV908 said:

Nice pic Scimitar - it goes some way to confirming my theory that XH558 never had a TFR bullet, and that the tail intake was removed during the K.2 conversion.

 

Ced,

  the engine exhausts supplied with the kit are poor representations of the fat and short 300 series nozzles - the 200 series nozzles are very different; longer, slimmer and with a deflection in the outboard pipes. I’ll post a photo tonight of my WIP ‘558 with the WIP XM655, both long term rebuilds. I know you want to build it OOB, but it’s about the single biggest improvement you can make to the kit, ignoring of course the stupidly expensive seamless intakes. 

 

Cheers,

  WV908

 

According to Craig Bulman's 'Vulcan B2 from a different angle' book, XH558 did have TFR fitted, but it would have been removed when she was converted to the MR role with 27 Sqn. Only the Vulcans in this list were never equipped with TFR:

 

[WV908]

51 minutes ago, Lord Riot said:

 

According to Craig Bulman's 'Vulcan B2 from a different angle' book, XH558 did have TFR fitted, but it would have been removed when she was converted to the MR role with 27 Sqn. Only the Vulcans in this list were never equipped with TFR:

 

Cheers for the clarification - I probably should have checked my own copy of that book that I forgot I had. Not like i’d forget something that was signed by Craig in front of the bleedin’ thing at Waddington years back....

[AdrianMF]

Made it on page 3 (just!). Looks fab. And props for doing seamless intakes the “proper” way...

 

And @hendie I wouldn’t find a discourse on plastic moulding 101 long or boring.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Azgaron]

Nice work with the wing joints! Looks a lot better!

 

Håkan

 

[huvut76g7gbbui7]

5 hours ago, CedB said:

I don't usually start another build before I finish one

Good plan.

Good luck though 

 

Some day I might actually finish one of the current production line.

Meanwhile,back to Vulcans:

http://www.avrovulcan.org.uk/index.html