Revell HP Victor B1 conversion. Yikes!

[Timmas]

I’ve been a BM member for about a year now and this is my first WIP.

 

I feel slightly apprehensive about this because: (a) I’m a comparative novice. having only just come back to the hobby last year after an absence of half a century; (b) I’m assembling a kit under the critical gaze of fellow Britmodellers many of whom are extraordinarily talented and experienced and; (c) carrying out the conversion is going to be complex.

 

I bought the Revell Victor before the Airfix one came out as it was the only one available, and I wanted it to accompany the Airfix Vulcan which was my ‘first’ build last year (and blimey that was challenging). I've since added a couple of the new Airfix Victors to my modest stash, but they're B2 and K2 variants, so I decided to convert the Revell one into a B1 as I think it's the most 'pure' in shape and form.

 

I have no idea how long this will take but I hope I’m up to the task. Please do give advice, point out errors and comment generally!

 

So, here goes:

 

I started with the cockpit. The Flightpath set contains some nice photo-etch for the instrument panel but as there is nothing for the rear crew’s panel I thought I’d make one. It’s not based on reality but I’m fairly pleased with the way it turned out, even if it is a touch over-scale. I made a mistake on the crews’ seats. I’ve seen the Airfix model features swivel seats but the Revell one doesn’t, so I decided to add interest into the rear of the cockpit by showing them turned. I then discovered that this wasn’t a feature on the early Victors because the seats were fixed. But having cut and glued them in place I decided to leave them as they were.

 

 

 

My initial plan was to include the three crew members, so I decided not to paint the seat pads, just the backs and sides. I also made a table for the rear crew.

 

Crikey, the camera doesn’t lie does it. They look terrible...

 

 

I’ve dry-fitted the cockpit into the fuselage halves to see how it fits, and how much is likely to be visible. No-one is ever going to see anything of the crew other than the pilot and co pilot...

 

 

At this point I thought I’d dry fit the resin intakes to see how they fit. They’re really very nice and hopefully won’t need too much filler (at least on the top). The underside is going to need a bit of filler though...

 

 

 

They don’t seem to quite fill the slots in the fuselage on either side...

 

 

 

 

Having done that I set about chopping the kit’s wings. Gulp. Not having done this before, I measured once, twice and three times before cutting but they didn’t fit the resin particularly well (and I didn’t take a photo). So I cut again, but this time along the wrong panel line and with a dry fit look as though they will go together quite nicely. I'm hoping no-one will notice that they're roughly 1.5mm shorter than they should be!..

 

 

I’m puzzled by the shallowness of the rear jet exhaust ends though. They have very little depth, so I’ve decided to deepen them a bit. I’m scared stiff of wrecking the resin parts so I’ve been really careful, and held the drill bits in my fingers and turned by hand.It’s going to be a slow job. This is where I am with that so far...

 

 

As a diversion from drilling resin I thought I’d take a look at the wing assemblies and slice some carrots. What bothered me was glueing the sections together so that they all joined at the correct angle. So I enlisted the help of a couple of flexible steel rules to act like spllnts...

 

 

 

That seemed to work. I’ve also added the metal wingtips...

 

 

At this point I thought I’d attend to the pilot and co pilot. I have no idea why I’ve turned both their heads slightly towards port, but I have.

I’ve added some very simple detailing with strips of masking tape to their seats, and added the photo-etched pull handles...

 

 

They’re now sitting in the cockpit. Incidentally the blunt nose pitot thngy was broken in the box. I'll be replacing it eventually...

 

 

And so far she looks like this. Still dry-fitted apart from the cockpit and the plastic parts of the wings. I've filled the joints with plasticard and a touch of filler.

 

 

There's still an awful long way to go. I might have it finished by Christmas 2019 !

 

All comments welcome.

 

 

Edited October 10, 2018 by Timmas
Correct typo

[perdu]

You're off to a fine start Timmas

I will be honoured to follow you, if I may

 

Large size models are not in my future, being 'space limited' here so enjoying yours is a good as it gets for me

 

Go Timmas, I'm in

[Timmas]

1 hour ago, perdu said:

You're off to a fine start Timmas

I will be honoured to follow you, if I may

 

Large size models are not in my future, being 'space limited' here so enjoying yours is a good as it gets for me

 

Go Timmas, I'm in

Thanks Perdu. You're the first follower of my first-ever WIP.  🙂 If you spot any blunders don't hesitate to let me know!

I'm not hugely blessd with space either tbh, but initially this will hang from the ceiling of my workroom until I can find a better space for it.

 

 

 

 

[wavodavo]

I must say well done on doing this conversion.

This is mine I did a few years ago. 

 

[Procopius]

Very cool to see this! I have the same kit and conversion set, but so far have lacked courage equal to desire.

[Lord Riot]

This is going to be brilliant! My absolute favourite aircraft of all time, and you're now attempting a conversion I'd like to do one day but don't really have the skill to carry out. Great stuff.

 

It's a good start too, that cockpit looks superb. Where did you get all the resin B.1 parts? I assume, however, that amount of resin must have cost almost as much as an Airfix Victor!?

[Martian]

I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

 

Martian 👽

[BritJet]

Off to a good start, don't worry about any 'critical gaze' I'm sure you'll only get positive, helpful comments. Don't spend too much time on the cockpit as you won't see much of it....

 

I would advise drilling into both resin wing roots and the fuselage to take some metal rods as there will be the tendency for the resin to pull away from the fuselage if there is any force on it, such as the model being picked up by a wing. It will also help to make sure the wings don't droop once the angles are right. Also for some of the large gaps, I would add some plastic card shims to bridge the gaps before filling. You might find it useful to have a look through some of the builds in the Non-injected Group Build from a couple of years ago.

 

I've got two of these conversions and plan to do one as a B1 and the other as the prototype so will be following your build all the way. Just ask if you're unsure of anything as there are plenty of people willing and able to help.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Steve

[Timmas]

2 hours ago, wavodavo said:

I must say well done on doing this conversion.

This is mine I did a few years ago. 

 

That looks very nice, especially in silver. I love the workmanship, especially the canopy fit which looks flawless. If mine comes out anywhere near as good as that I'll be extremely happy 🙂

[Timmas]

1 hour ago, Procopius said:

Very cool to see this! I have the same kit and conversion set, but so far have lacked courage equal to desire.

It's taken me a while to pluck up the courage to do it, but in the end I thought I'd jump in and give it a go. I'm hoping the modelling gods, ergo the BM community, will help me get it over the finish line without any major mishaps !

[Timmas]

1 hour ago, Lord Riot said:

This is going to be brilliant! My absolute favourite aircraft of all time, and you're now attempting a conversion I'd like to do one day but don't really have the skill to carry out. Great stuff.

 

It's a good start too, that cockpit looks superb. Where did you get all the resin B.1 parts? I assume, however, that amount of resin must have cost almost as much as an Airfix Victor!?

Thanks for having faith ! I'm not sure if I have the skills to carry it off either tbh but hey ho, I'm up for it.

I bought the Flightpath conversion set from David J Parkins https://www.djparkins.com/product.php?productid=17948&cat=283&page=1 It costs a shade over £30 (but the kit was only about £12 I think) and contains the resin intakes, some metal wingtips, pitot tubes and a nose pitot as well as Photoetch...

 

[Martian]

From what I have seen thus far, you will be fine with the build and should you run into problems, this is most likely the best place to be to find a solution. We are blessed with a particularly informed massive and some even know what they are doing!

 

Martian 👽

[perdu]

Some

 

Remember our dear alien said SOME

 

Many of us have problems locating (and separating) our elbows and nether regions, let alone identifying said anatomicals

 

There are many very helpful folks here, it is the right place to lose cherries at the WIP game

[Lord Riot]

29 minutes ago, Timmas said:

Thanks for having faith ! I'm not sure if I have the skills to carry it off either tbh but hey ho, I'm up for it.

I bought the Flightpath conversion set from David J Parkins https://www.djparkins.com/product.php?productid=17948&cat=283&page=1 It costs a shade over £30 (but the kit was only about £12 I think) and contains the resin intakes, some metal wingtips, pitot tubes and a nose pitot as well as Photoetch...

 

I have a Revell K.2 in my stash, an ebay bargain from ages ago. This is very tempting!

[Timmas]

52 minutes ago, Martian Hale said:

From what I have seen thus far, you will be fine with the build and should you run into problems, this is most likely the best place to be to find a solution. We are blessed with a particularly informed massive and some even know what they are doing!

 

Martian 👽

Thanks Martian. There's a long way to go yet and I have a feeling that I'll be leaning on a lot of you over the coming weeks, months, years ...

[Timmas]

30 minutes ago, Lord Riot said:

I have a Revell K.2 in my stash, an ebay bargain from ages ago. This is very tempting!

Go on...you know you want to. We could do a double-header 

[Timmas]

46 minutes ago, perdu said:

Some

 

Remember our dear alien said SOME

 

Many of us have problems locating (and separating) our elbows and nether regions, let alone identifying said anatomicals

 

There are many very helpful folks here, it is the right place to lose cherries at the WIP game

Hmmm. If knowing how to separate armpits from elbows is an issue here, I'm in the right club. 🙃

[amblypygid]

Cracking project, and a marvellous start. I'd have no inkling of where to start, and not the nerve to try, this sort of conversion, so I'm learning.

[Timmas]

4 minutes ago, amblypygid said:

Cracking project, and a marvellous start. I'd have no inkling of where to start, and not the nerve to try, this sort of conversion, so I'm learning.

That's very kind of you, thanks.  I'm learning too...'on the job' so to speak !

[Ratch]

Interesting to see how you're going about this.

I did a similar conversion earlier this year.

 

[Timmas]

32 minutes ago, Ratch said:

Interesting to see how you're going about this.

I did a similar conversion earlier this year.

 

Thanks Ratch. That's a fine looking build you've done there. I see you've modelled your's on a particular aircraft. I haven't given that  side of it a thought yet. Perhaps I should, as I think @general melchett of this manor has said that no two early Victors were exactly the same. 

[Ratch]

Cheers, I wanted one that flew from Wittering and found the Handley Page VICTOR WARPAINT SERIES No. 36 very useful

[general melchett]

Great to see you on this Tim, to be honest as far as large conversions go it's not a particularly difficult job, (I've also recently acquired another set to convert the Airfix kit when I find a bit of time to squeeze it in). 

Good job on the wings, that's probably the hardest bit! I wouldn't worry too much about the rear seats, besides not being able to see them the early B1s had fixed ones, the swivel style only coming along later in its career.

 

 

A couple of things to note about the B1, the ailerons extend to the ends of the wingtips unlike the later B.2 so remember to scribe the lines, I replaced the ailerons with scratch built resin items. The artificial feel intake on the nose is a single tube type, not twin tube as with the later Mk.2s, (retrofit B2's and SR.2, the larger one above was for the ILS system). I think a white metal item was included in some Flightpath boxings, but not all. The Matchbox/Revell offering is way oversized anyway and best binned.

 

I know I've shown these a few times now but I'll post them again anyway, hopefully, they'll give you an idea as to what it'll look like when assembled.....unfortunately, mine's looked like this for 4 years now! The replacement tailplanes came from my friend Terry Grey and the more pointed Orange Putter tailcone was scratched from a piece of scrap resin.

 

I didn't use any strengthening tubes when fixing the wings to the fuselage as the intakes go back quite some way, as do the exhaust pipes once they've been drilled out... but I did use Two-Part Epoxy, the thing's as solid as a rock.

 

Anything you need to know, just ask away...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Timmas]

 

23 hours ago, BritJet said:

Off to a good start, don't worry about any 'critical gaze' I'm sure you'll only get positive, helpful comments. Don't spend too much time on the cockpit as you won't see much of it....

 

I would advise drilling into both resin wing roots and the fuselage to take some metal rods as there will be the tendency for the resin to pull away from the fuselage if there is any force on it, such as the model being picked up by a wing. It will also help to make sure the wings don't droop once the angles are right. Also for some of the large gaps, I would add some plastic card shims to bridge the gaps before filling. You might find it useful to have a look through some of the builds in the Non-injected Group Build from a couple of years ago.

 

I've got two of these conversions and plan to do one as a B1 and the other as the prototype so will be following your build all the way. Just ask if you're unsure of anything as there are plenty of people willing and able to help.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Steve

Thanks for the tips Steve. They help a lot. I had thought about drilling and fixing the resin to the fuselage due to its heaviness against the plastic's comparative flimsiness. I've also used as much plasticard as possible so far because I hate filler. I'll go take a look at the link you posted too.

 

[Timmas]

9 hours ago, general melchett said:

Great to see you on this Tim, to be honest as far as large conversions go it's not a particularly difficult job, (I've also recently acquired another set to convert the Airfix kit when I find a bit of time to squeeze it in). 

Good job on the wings, that's probably the hardest bit! I wouldn't worry too much about the rear seats, besides not being able to see them the early B1s had fixed ones, the swivel style only coming along later in its career.

 

 

A couple of things to note about the B1, the ailerons extend to the ends of the wingtips unlike the later B.2 so remember to scribe the lines, I replaced the ailerons with scratch built resin items. The artificial feel intake on the nose is a single tube type, not twin tube as with the later Mk.2s, (retrofit B2's and SR.2, the larger one above was for the ILS system). I think a white metal item was included in some Flightpath boxings, but not all. The Matchbox/Revell offering is way oversized anyway and best binned.

 

I know I've shown these a few times now but I'll post them again anyway, hopefully, they'll give you an idea as to what it'll look like when assembled.....unfortunately, mine's looked like this for 4 years now! The replacement tailplanes came from my friend Terry Grey and the more pointed Orange Putter tailcone was scratched from a piece of scrap resin.

 

I didn't use any strengthening tubes when fixing the wings to the fuselage as the intakes go back quite some way, as do the exhaust pipes once they've been drilled out... but I did use Two-Part Epoxy, the thing's as solid as a rock.

 

Anything you need to know, just ask away...

Hi Andy, thanks for the comments...they're much appreciated. I had you in my mind when I started this because I remember telling you about it and how nervous I was about having a crack at it ! I've bitten the bullet now and there's no going back.

 

You're right about the rear seats etc...they'll be completely obscured when the canopy is on fortunately and as everything else back there will be too, I'll save the three crew members fr something else. I've taken note of your tip re the ailerons and will rescribe when I get to that point. Thanks for heads up! As for the nose pitot, I think this is the type?...

 

 

I'm bound to have loads of questions as I work through this, so I'll be asking for help and advice regularly I imagine