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RNZAF Vampire


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Good evening folks - so I have this: 

 

b72xT9k.jpg

 

After nutting out how to use Alclad paints on my last build, (the P-47) I’m going on with another nmf with this one - this has been sitting in the stash for quite a while and now is the time. 😎

 

I love the vampire- I first saw it as a young boy at an air show in Ireland scorching across the sky. I remember thinking how jealous I was of the pilot - he was clearly having so much fun. That was an Irish Air Force one but this will be a vamp of my adopted home - the RNZAF. At our local Air Force museum they had this hanging off the roof in the foyer:  

 

Vampire mk 5

 

So I’ll be having a crack at building this particular aircraft. 

 

I’ve got these to help:

 

ce5r18U.jpg

 

Some eduard pe cockpit details, some canopy masks and some decals from a local supplier here in nz who specialises in RNZAF... 

 

A look at the sprues:

 

62EDz6m.jpg

p6a0H29.jpg

 

They don’t look too bad considering the age of the kit. I’m planning to rivet the wings to add more texture - technically not necessary as these were hardly visible but I think they’ll add to the finish. 

 

The whole kit is just 2 sprues plus these clear parts

 

NwK1S3E.jpg

 

and this is the old girl in the glory days:

 

uOuJ4kZ.jpg

 

I got a better pic somewhere but you can hopefully make out the colours and tones - I won’t be going crazy with weathering on this one but I do want to portray a working airplane - not the museum piece she later became. So references will come from old vampire photos supplemented by the refurbished version images from the museum. 

 

She will start out shiny and I’ll work back to a duller silver. That’s the plan. Work on the cockpit will start soon!

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

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Look forward to this. Had the pleasure of visiting Wigram back in February.  Had a very happy few hours roving around the collection and back lot tour. 

 

Bear in mind that Vampire fuselage pods were wood and that the overall high speed silver finish was even in colour so should not have multi toned bare metal panels.... then again, you probably knew all this anyway.

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Thanks Paul - I'm planning to paint most of the fuselage in one colour - with some post shading to simulate the light reflecting off different panels as opposed to painting different colours on different panels. I'll properly paint the nose a different shade as seen in the reference photo above. 

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12 hours ago, Kitchen Modeller said:

They don’t look too bad considering the age of the kit.

Hi John, I'm keen to see this built, anything RNZAF gets my attention. From your above comment, you may be mistaking this for the old Heller kit that Revell reboxed for so long, one that I've recently finished in the Sharkmouth GB, this one is a fairly recent tooling, & as such should go together OK.

Steve.

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I will be following your build.  I just bought a Hobbycraft 1/48 kit to make one. However, it will take a lot of work to correct all the kit's problems.

One of which is the wings are moulded up side down and to far back on the fuselage.  It will be quite a challenge. 

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22 hours ago, stevehnz said:

this one is a fairly recent tooling, & as such should go together OK.

Thanks for that Steve - you're correct of course however I don't think this kit is without problems - I have a feeling I've spoilt myself recently with all of the Tamiya kits I've done - I think my filling and sanding chops will get a good workout on this one. 

 

@clive_t, @Greg Law, @phildagreekThanks for looking in guys - hope you enjoy this one :)

 

I have made a start, though a slow one so far. 

 

After breaking some parts of the sprue - I gave them a clean and primed them with Tamiya Fine Surface Primer 

 

Mmlip0I.jpg

 

This was followed with coats of Tamiya Semi gloss black for the aluminium sections and rubber black mixed with a little semi gloss black for the parts that would remain black. The rubber black wasn't quite black enough :)

 

You can probably make out the difference here... 

 

a7Ajie4.jpg

 

j8MTUVh.jpg

 

The aluminum bits will get some alclad aluminium once this has finished curing. 

 

I'm not 100% on the colours I'm going to use on this bird so thought I'd do a quick experiment - I've primed and given these milk bottle tops a coat of Alclad Black gloss base: 

 

pvUgros.jpg

 

I've used these as although they have a relatively smooth surface they don't have a mirror like surface - more akin to what you find on a model than say, plastic spoons. I'm going to spray these with Alclad Airframe Aluminium and the other with Dull Aluminium - this should give me a good idea of what to expect when I start painting... 

 

Thanks it for now... See you back here very soon :)

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

 

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38 minutes ago, Andwil said:

Surely the Vampire was single engined? :S

Yes indeed & not only that to my eye, the engine front looks nothing like photos I've seen of these engines. I think they've tried to portray what they think people want to see. A weakness in this kits design imho.

Steve.

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45 minutes ago, Andwil said:

Looking at the sprue shots I can see what looks like two turbine faces.  Surely the Vampire was single engined? :S

 

AW

 

You where not the only one to make this notice on an for most parts rather nice engineered 1/72 scale Vampire kit.

 I almost wanted to build one as an Swedish Vampire. Does the Airfix Vampire Trainer have any parts concerning this?

 

Cheers / André

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3 hours ago, Andwil said:

Looking at the sprue shots I can see what looks like two turbine faces.  Surely the Vampire was single engined? :S

 

AW

 

Its not the best rendition obviously-  however this part is going to be quite well hidden so I guess the kit designer didn’t think it needed to be too accurate. It’s probably not as far off as you think looking at this photo 

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52 minutes ago, Kitchen Modeller said:

 

Its not the best rendition obviously-  however this part is going to be quite well hidden so I guess the kit designer didn’t think it needed to be too accurate. It’s probably not as far off as you think looking at this photo 

Funny, that photo is for an Goblin engine fitted to an Swedish J-21R from the Swedish Flygvapen Museum. One can se the J-21R behind the engine. I think there is also an engine at Svedino's car and aircraft museum in Halland, Sweden.

 

I also found some pictures (one taken from the front) of the Goblin engine. It made me thinking of the Airfix Hawker Harrier kit with the engine fan...

http://www.sa-transport.co.za/aircraft/de_havilland/vampire.html

 

Cheers / André

 

 

Edited by Andre B
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45 minutes ago, Andre B said:

I also found some pictures (one taken from the front) of the Goblin engine. It made me thinking of the Airfix Hawker Harrier kit with the engine fan...

http://www.sa-transport.co.za/aircraft/de_havilland/vampire.html

 

I have those bookmarked & they are what I was thinking of. As a representation of what is visible in the Vampire inlets the kit parts probably suffice, though could easily have been made better, I guess something got lost in translation somewhere. :)

Carry on John, don't let us busy bodies put you off your game. :D 

Steve.

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1 minute ago, stevehnz said:

I have those bookmarked & they are what I was thinking of. As a representation of what is visible in the Vampire inlets the kit parts probably suffice, though could easily have been made better, I guess something got lost in translation somewhere. :)

Carry on John, don't let us busy bodies put you off your game. :D 

Steve.

Thanks Steve - as nice and reasonably priced as that engine that Andre found, I'd imagine that it would it would still take while to reach New Zealand - The fuselage is getting closed this week dammit lol Yes, I have a schedule! :)

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53 minutes ago, Andre B said:

 

Funny, that photo is for an Goblin engine fitted to an Swedish J-21R from the Swedish Flygvapen Museum. One can se the J-21R behind the engine. I think there is also an engine at Svedino's car and aircraft museum in Halland, Sweden.

 

I also found some pictures (one taken from the front) of the Goblin engine. It made me thinking of the Airfix Hawker Harrier kit with the engine fan...

http://www.sa-transport.co.za/aircraft/de_havilland/vampire.html

 

Cheers / André

 

 

Thanks for posting that link Andre - some really nice shots there that be be very useful :)

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Maybe it's just about cutting those two moulded "Revell Goblin Fans" away and put a picture of a single fan just behind the engine front that can be seen thru the opened holes?

 

Cheers / André

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Hi All - an update at last - I've been moving pretty slowly on this so far - work commitments are impeding my modelling which is a pain but I have made a little progress. 

 

On closer examination of the PE fret I purchased, it seems it wasn't designed for this kit - it was designed for the heller version - so some of the bits were too small or too big - I could still use some parts but I planned on using the kit instrument panel - however I stupidly lost this when I was painting the cockpit parts - I could still use the PE IP however but some modification was required. I basically needed something to hold the IP in place - so cut out some plastic styrene card to the right shape... 

 

RE1HzxX.jpg

 

You can see how much smaller the PE IP is relative to the kit version - but hopefully I could make this work... 

 

X35wikP.jpg

 

I trimmed off the excess plastic and tidied this up a little - not perfect but hopefully this will do the job... 

 

dL0flOg.jpg

 

Another issue I had was the exhaust nozzle - this is what the kit version looks like: 

 

EdQZln9.jpg

 

Compared to the actual version: 

 

Vampire mk 5

 

I thought I could improve on this - even with my limited skill set :)

 

I cut off the kit nozzle: 

 

BQmhaOw.jpg

 

I sanded down the stub to remove that step you can see... I then got some evergreen plastic tubing - 6.7 mm - cut off a little and sanded it down to reduce the diameter. 

 

bR4yLxb.jpg

 

Then a quick dry fit: 

 

n9ZBWr2.jpg

 

It still needs some tidying up but I think this will work. And a decent improvement I think :)

 

The cock pit seat got some cushions - made from milliput... 

 

Oa3wJqf.jpg

 

Which was allowed to cure and then painted up...

 

WRR4X5b.jpg

 

Some of the PE was added to the cockpit walls: 

 

RVd0UBC.jpg

 

KqtntYS.jpg

 

It might be for a another kit, but these bits certainly work fine here. 

 

Just a wee note on the engine block - I did a dry fit to see what level of visibility you'll have of the engine block after it's been installed... 

 

WWVVeDk.jpg

 

This is with light pointed directly into the intake - Basically zero visibility - you might be able to make something out but I'm not going to worry too much about it - I'd rather concentrate efforts on details are are actually visible :)

 

That's it for now - there's a few things that need sorting out before I can get this fuselage closed (I'm well behind schedule:))  Get the cockpit finished - finish work on the engine nozzle and also sort out some counter weight - otherwise this will be a tail sitter - I have some ideas on that so hopefully that will work out. 

 

One thing I could do with some help with is the radio box behind the pilots seat - if anyone has a decent reference photo of this I'd love to see it - I haven't had much luck looking on the interweb. 

 

Thanks for looking in... 

 

John

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On 9/21/2019 at 8:34 PM, Andwil said:

Your scratched exhaust nozzle is a great improvement over the kit offering.

 

AW

Thanks AW - it was a pretty simple modification in the end and easy to do. 

 

I did get some modelling time over the weekend (in between watching the rugby) so have a little progress to show... 

 

I was able to start the process of closing the fuselage - so I added those wildly inaccurate engines :)

 

n0Lrbco.jpg

I gave the engines and cockpit floor a wash of Tamiya panel line - brown and black... 

 

The cockpit bulk head and seat were added: 

 

ec1CVTM.jpg

The seat belts were added - as you can see they are slightly undersized but I think I'll get away with it - I gave these a coat of panel line wash, just to add some dirt. 

 

I then had to think about how I was going to front load the model with some weight to avoid ending up with a tail sitter. I bought these fishing line weights ages ago...

 

n1QEJ88.jpg

 

I think they're made from lead - as they are, they were just a little too big to fit anywhere useful - however I was able to put them into my vicegrips and gave them a squeeze... 

 

aOejYUX.jpg

 

I was even able to break them into little pieces so with that I superglued some of these into the fuselage, making sure they were all positioned to the front of the back landing gear. 

 

OsHRq5A.jpg

 

1r8pgTs.jpg

 

I had to file down one of them to get a clean fit of the upper fuselage - after the control column was added I could close this baby up... 

 

nkAB8j3.jpg

 

PNE1CAw.jpg

 

I added the nose section... 

 

StNqmwh.jpg

 

AvtGJOx.jpg

 

3s9qsM3.jpg

 

A little filler will be required there I think... 

 

All up I was happy with this - the fit wasn't perfect but I'm confident some filler and sanding will fix any issues. 

 

I was then able to turn some attention to the wings:

 

QEdwmHU.jpg

 

I sanding down the control surfaces to try and reduce the block like appearance they had - I'll do some more work on this once they're glued. 

 

I put in some rivets on the underside of the wings: 

 

jlDsAez.jpg

 

There's a couple of lines that went wrong there but the rest went in okay... 

 

I was happy I was able to get the fuselage closed - it's nice to hit these milestones - hopefully this time next week some painting will commence... 

 

Thanks for looking in...

 

Cheers

 

John 

 

 

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39 minutes ago, Courageous said:

Excellent work John. Cockpit looks very effective. Did you bother putting weight in the nose?

 

Stuart

Thanks Stuart 😀 I could have easily enough but thought I’d better hold back in case the landing gear couldn’t take the weight! It’s quite weighty as it is - but gives the model a nice feel -  like it has substance... 

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