goggsy Posted April 5, 2020 Share Posted April 5, 2020 (edited) I’ve had this hiding in the stash for a number of years while easier kits have somehow pushed their way past it in the build queue. I suspect this will be an incremental build that will require bursts of patience and enthusiasm to make progress with. As anyone who has seen one of these will probably attest it’s a truly horrible thing that barely qualifies as a kit. Apart from the two sheets of white plastic and a badly moulded vacform canopy it comes with nothing more than a child’s drawing of the assembly process and half a schematic that they ripped off from Aeroplane Monthly. Some years ago when I first got this kit I put a shout out on here for any tips on where I could pick up bits and bobs to supplement it and a couple of members kindly came up with the goods. Special thanks must go to @bentwaters81tfw for his kind donation of long unavailable Aeroclub props and for his effort in sending me a really helpful set of photos from the Newark Varsity. Sorry it’s taken so long to get around to this Frank, I’ll do my best to do it justice. Anyway, progress so far. I’ve separated the fuselage from its sheet and cut the windows out. These have been fitted with bits of CD case which will hopefully be more robust in the long run than flexy sheet. I’ve also cut the cockpit area out and started fitting it with floors, bulkheads, and instrumentation. The bulkhead behind the seat is a bit of a guess on my part and owes more to the Sea Prince than the Varsity but not much will be seen of this area anyway so I’m ok with it. Ditto the props inside the fuselage which are just there to provide rigidity . The whole area will be painted jet black when it’s buttoned up so this won’t be seen. Oh and I made a couple of little seats for the cockpit - the bottoms look a bit scrappy at the moment but will be tidied up when the glue cures. The biggest curse of this kit is the terrible panel lines that festoon the whole thing so they’re slowly disappearing under coats of filler. Edited April 9, 2020 by goggsy Add manufacturer to title 18 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Riot Posted April 5, 2020 Share Posted April 5, 2020 Interesting kit, never seen one built before. Looks like you've made a good start anyway. What are the decals like? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody37 Posted April 5, 2020 Share Posted April 5, 2020 Jumping on for the ride, great start 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goggsy Posted April 5, 2020 Author Share Posted April 5, 2020 41 minutes ago, Lord Riot said: Interesting kit, never seen one built before. Looks like you've made a good start anyway. What are the decals like? Haha, decals. Nice one! 🤣 Edit. No decals. Fortunately I’ve got a big stash of old roundels etc and a couple of Extradecal sheets with numbers and titles. I suspect this might be a Signals aircraft in the end. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bar side Posted April 5, 2020 Share Posted April 5, 2020 Been a fan of the Varsity since seeing one at Duxford in the late 70s. Not sure if there were still any flying then - will have to check the display lists. The Varsity & Pembroke / Sea Prince seemed to be from a bygone age, along with the Shackelton. Nice to se a vac kit of one. Would like a 1/48 vac, but haven’t ever heard of one 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goggsy Posted April 5, 2020 Author Share Posted April 5, 2020 2 hours ago, bar side said: Been a fan of the Varsity since seeing one at Duxford in the late 70s. Not sure if there were still any flying then - will have to check the display lists. The Varsity & Pembroke / Sea Prince seemed to be from a bygone age, along with the Shackelton. Nice to se a vac kit of one. Would like a 1/48 vac, but haven’t ever heard of one Sadly I think the Duxford Varsity is long gone, broken up due to corrosion I believe. As far as I know that last flight of one was to Brooklands in the early 90s, there’s a bit of YouTube video about it somewhere. I suspect I may have seen one in the air at some point in my early childhood as there seem to have been a lot in service but sadly I don’t remember them. Still, as you say, they were very much of their time and to my mind were “proper” aeroplanes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stever219 Posted April 6, 2020 Share Posted April 6, 2020 (edited) There were two Varsities at Duxford, WF425 and WJ945. The former had been a Meteorological Research Flight aeroplane and it was this airframe that was scrapped. WJ945, last serving with 6 FTS at Finningley, was still at Duxford until 2013 and was looking a bit sorry for herself, having been outdoors for a long time. She’s now at RAF St Mawgan, aka Newquay Airport and apparently receiving some overdue TLC. Edited April 6, 2020 by stever219 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bar side Posted April 6, 2020 Share Posted April 6, 2020 Now at WJ945 at Newquay it seems http://www.aerialvisuals.ca/AirframeDossier.php?Serial=401 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goggsy Posted April 6, 2020 Author Share Posted April 6, 2020 1 hour ago, bar side said: Now at WJ945 at Newquay it seems http://www.aerialvisuals.ca/AirframeDossier.php?Serial=401 I’ve got to say, she’s looking very tidy. I’d have preferred a more visually interesting scheme but I’m not complaining. Minimal progress today, complicated by my scribing tool being blunt. Nothing worth posting here anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Aero Posted April 6, 2020 Share Posted April 6, 2020 What might help in your introduction to this build as to which manufacturer made your kit. There were two 1:72 vacuform kits of the Varsity available, these are the early Airmodel kit and the later Aeroclub kit. The Airmodel kit was a fairly basic vacform. The Aeroclub kit whilst still a vacform also contained resin engine nacelles with whitemetal props and under-carriage units plus decals. John 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bar side Posted April 6, 2020 Share Posted April 6, 2020 Just checked & I did see one flying back in 78 at Duxford. This is how she appeared in the show book and on the flying line up - bit DH heavy that year! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goggsy Posted April 9, 2020 Author Share Posted April 9, 2020 On 4/6/2020 at 7:00 PM, John Aero said: What might help in your introduction to this build as to which manufacturer made your kit. There were two 1:72 vacuform kits of the Varsity available, these are the early Airmodel kit and the later Aeroclub kit. The Airmodel kit was a fairly basic vacform. The Aeroclub kit whilst still a vacform also contained resin engine nacelles with whitemetal props and under-carriage units plus decals. John It says that it’s the Airmodel kit in the tags at the top of the post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Aero Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 Sorry I hadn't noticed the tags, Cheers John 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goggsy Posted April 12, 2020 Author Share Posted April 12, 2020 I got out into the garden to do a bit more this afternoon which made a pleasant change. I decided to get on with the remaining sub assemblies, such as they are; the wings, tailplane and nacelles. As expected the fit was tenuous to say the least. The wings have a sort of blob on the end of the engine mounts that look like they’ve been formed around wet tissue paper. They do have a distinct cut line that I followed carefully with a razor saw. Dear God what is this evil that we must have done? The other wing was the same Obviously the whole structure had little rigidity so I put some formers in there to give it a bit of strength. Then it was time to break out the filler; no way was I using the expensive Tamiya stuff for that, it was out with the Holts knifing putty. I think it was about 3 quid from Halfords and in many ways I find it better than model specific stuff, especially for low sink qualities, hard wearingness, and excellent feather edging. Needless to say I’ll be needing a whole lot more of it when it’s time to fair the nacelles in because they’re a totally different profile to the mounts. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bar side Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 That fit is approximate! Good effort on the formers. How much P38 did you have to put in those cavities? Or did you put a blank plate in & smooth over the front of it? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goggsy Posted April 12, 2020 Author Share Posted April 12, 2020 Thanks, fair to say a fair bit has gone in. What I did on the engine mounts was to glue some flexible plastic sheet inside them to create a level front and the blanked the cavity off with a bulkhead. I then filled the shallow cavities around the bulkhead with filler; having the strips of plastic I’d fitted inside the mount housing minimised the amount of filler I’d need, if you see what I mean? Anyway, I realised afterwards that one of the bulkheads was out of true to the wing so I added a half bulkhead to the front of it on the side that needed to be built up and then levelled the whole thing out with some filler. Once it’s cured I’ll be squaring it off and smoothing the whole thing down. I’ve noticed that the trailing edges are way thicker than they should be, possibly due to my formers but I don’t think so as I was quite diligent in how they fitted. I’ll make an honest attempt to thin them out but I think I’ll probably have to live with them being out of scale. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 Aaah, vac forms... I like what you’ve done with the bulkheads for the nacelles. Presumably you will be fitting a wing spar at some point? Regards, Adrian 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goggsy Posted April 13, 2020 Author Share Posted April 13, 2020 1 hour ago, AdrianMF said: Aaah, vac forms... I like what you’ve done with the bulkheads for the nacelles. Presumably you will be fitting a wing spar at some point? Regards, Adrian That’s the plan, not sure how I’ll do it just yet though. I’ve got some 10mm microbore heating pipe in the shed, that might do the job. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 Tis is very interesting, I have never done a Vacform before and am in Awe of you guys that can turn them into a great model. I will tag along if okay. Good luck with your build. Great work so far. All the best Chris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bar side Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 Yep, get the process for bulkheads. Know what you mean about trailing edges being too thick. I think most plastic kits are too thick anyway. Trouble is if you sand down too far you go through & then it’s a pig to fill & level it off. Better to leave them how they are 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonners Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 Great subject, ‘interesting’ kit. Or perhaps that should be interesting ‘kit’... This will be good to watch. Jon 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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