Cyberhobby Venom NF3

[Edge]

Having had a bit of time off over the holiday & then a bit of a tidy up generally, it's time I extracted the digit & got on with some modelling. I found a Cyberhobby Venom in the to do pile and whilst I know it's not terribly accurate, it will give me something quick and easy to build, or so I thought!

Instructions aren't great & the build begins with having to glue wheel halves together. Not terribly onerous, but something I find a bit of a pain, especially as the neat tread pattern in the tyres will probably be lost when sanding the inevitable seam!

Next was even more faffing getting the fuselage halves to align moderately well. I managed to remove some poorly moulded locating pins and sand the mating surfaces to get to this:

 

IMG_4438 by Gavin Edgerton, on Flickr

 

IMG_4441 by Gavin Edgerton, on Flickr

 

Not the worst around, although I'd hoped for something a little better fitting frankly. And worse is to come. The kit is moulded as a Sea Venom so the fuselage pod has to be hacked apart and new parts fitted to make a more accurate RAF version:

 

IMG_4432 by Gavin Edgerton, on Flickr

 

IMG_4435 by Gavin Edgerton, on Flickr

As the fuselage is a relatively small diameter I found this hard going, making a mess with a Tamiy panel line scriber before switching to a different approach with a fine razor saw for the other fuselage half:

 

IMG_4443 by Gavin Edgerton, on Flickr

 

IMG_4450 by Gavin Edgerton, on Flickr

 

IMG_4451 by Gavin Edgerton, on Flickr

 

IMG_4454 by Gavin Edgerton, on Flickr

 

Time for a break now, before I fall completely out of love with the kit before I've so much as glued anything together! Maybe more this afternoon as I try to close the gaps and generally work on the fit of the replacement parts.

 

Edge

 

 

 

 

 

[Courageous]

Good job with the hacking.

 

Stuart

[Brandy]

Good start. You can't give up now - we're watching!

 

Ian

[Edge]

I did carry on despite my disappointment in the fit of some parts and my ham fistedness in removing the fuselage sections. I'll try posting some pics later.

 

Looking now at the undercarriage (again some less than stellar fit) I'm wondering what colours to use. The images from the walk around on here appear to show silver bays with grey legs, the grey appearing darker than the lower fuselage colour & less blue than the upper camouflage grey. Does anyone have a better understanding?

 

Edge

 

 

 

[Edge]

To illustrate the point regarding poor parts fit, this is the 2 halves of the front undercarriage leg held together with white glue. The obvious gap may disappear if I fiddle with the locating pin but it's not something I'd expect with  modern and quite frankly, expensive kit.

 

Untitled by Gavin Edgerton, on Flickr

 

I think I'll pin the nose wheel to the leg so that I can paint everything neatly prior to assembly. It's something new for me to try so let's see how that goes!

 

Edge