Hawker Horsley, Vacform Tutorial

[Mr T]

Hopefully we will be removing the reasons not to build it.

My main problem is too many kits etc. It is near the top of the to do list when I can find my Frank Munger cutaway. Hopefully your tutorial will be what I need to get me going. Got out of the vacform building habit, last one was the Maintrack P1121 about three years ago. 

[Martian]

First up, I have to say how overwhelmed I am by the response to this thread before we have even begun cutting plastic.

 

Today I have begun to remove the parts from their backing sheets. The way I go about this is to rub a pencil around the edges of the parts in order to delineate more accurately where we need to cut the plastic when removing parts. This will also be of assistance when we start to rub the parts down.

 

 

I then score along the outside of the pencil marks and the parts will eventually come loose from the plastic backing sheet. If you are worried about bending the sheet, you can always keep cutting along the lines until the backing sheet is cut through and the parts come away. We can now trim any excess plastic away from the parts up to, but not beyond, the pencil marks. The reason for this will become apparent in the next episode when we will start preparing the parts for use.

 

 

I am doing this is bite sized chunks to demonstrate that building a vacform is made up of many simple steps rather than a few complicated ones.

 

 

 

Thanks for looking 👽

 

Martian 

[SafetyDad]

I'm enjoying this Martian - thanks! Your demystifying of the building process is very reassuring

 

SD

[Patrik]

Apology for hijacking your thread for a while Martian. By the way, excellent idea, you have my respect. Vacforms are undervaluated, there is nothing to be afraid of, and there are many, though quite-literally-rather-uncut, gems among them.

 

When I started building vacforms quite a few years ago, I learned the rudiments of the trade mostly from the article below, which at that time I had printed, source lost in time. When I searched for it today in my printed material, I did not find it, so I tried the internet, and voilá, found it posted on our favourite forum.

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234983173-building-vacformed-models/

 

And then, as I found more recently, there is an excellent tool for working with the vacform kits, that replaces (a lot of) sanding with (quite some) scraping, but I found it real joy to work with, especially compared to the usual sanding ordeal on the flying surfaces.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Proops-Wood-Cabinet-Carbon-Steel-Kidney-Scraper-180mm-4-5-Woodworking-W3340/292218002405

 

[dromia]

On 5/15/2020 at 1:06 PM, Marklo said:

Been searching for 1/48 scale vac forms and there really aren’t many out there. Is anyone still making them?

 

 

Falcon Models from New Zealand and Sanger in the UK are still producing 1/48 vacuum form model kits.

 

Falcon Models

 

Sanger Engineering

 

Sanger has many of the old Contrail, Sutcliffe labelled models.

 

Falcon are of a very high quality.

 

 

[TheBaron]

Interesting on all levels Daddy M - a great idea for a thread.

I've a strong personal connection with this aircraft because I lost a wallet with £50 in it in E. Horsely in 1984.

[Martian]

2 hours ago, Patrik said:

Apology for hijacking your thread for a while Martian. By the way, excellent idea, you have my respect. Vacforms are undervaluated, there is nothing to be afraid of, and there are many, though quite-literally-rather-uncut, gems among them.

 

When I started building vacforms quite a few years ago, I learned the rudiments of the trade mostly from the article below, which at that time I had printed, source lost in time. When I searched for it today in my printed material, I did not find it, so I tried the internet, and voilá, found it posted on our favourite forum.

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234983173-building-vacformed-models/

 

And then, as I found more recently, there is an excellent tool for working with the vacform kits, that replaces (a lot of) sanding with (quite some) scraping, but I found it real joy to work with, especially compared to the usual sanding ordeal on the flying surfaces.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Proops-Wood-Cabinet-Carbon-Steel-Kidney-Scraper-180mm-4-5-Woodworking-W3340/292218002405

 

I had missed these wise words from @John Aero Perhaps I don't need to do this thread now? I do? Bugger!

 

I was not aware of the this tool until you flagged it up. One should now be winging it's way to Martian Towers as we speak.

 

Martian 👽

[Martian]

When we last met we were looking at cutting parts from their backing sheets. Today we will start preparing parts for use. I will concentrate on the fuselage as I use a slightly different technique for flying and control surfaces and will address this in a separate part of this tutorial. I also need to dis a tool out for this. I know where it is but its not easy to get at. Fret ye not, I know I have to get it so it won't be long.

 

Anyway, we now need to sand down our fuselage parts so that they are the correct width. To do this we need something called a vacform board. Don't panic; this is not some expensive and exotic tool. All you need is a decent sized bit of flat wood with a sheet of medium grit wet and dry paper pinned to it. I personally have two boards, one about a foot square and on about three feet long for larger models. The smaller one is the one we will be using throughout this build.

 

I sit at the kitchen sink and have a trickle of cold water running over the board while I gently rub the part in question over the wet and dry paper until the excess plastic containing the pencil marks that we spoke of earlier starts to flake away from the part. At this point we  take the mating part and carry out the same process. when this is complete, we very slowly sand the remains of the flaking plastic away, all the time offering the two parts up to each other. When all the excess plastic has disappeared, we should have a very good match between the two.

 

During this process it is important to vary the pressure on the parts that are being sanded so that we do not sand too much plastic away from any one area of the part we are sanding.

 

In vacform modelling, good preparation of the parts is everything and taking your time now will save a whole lot of grief further down the line. Remember the rule of the six Ps (Perfect Preparation Prevents P*** Poor Performance). It was never more true than when building vacforms. 

 

So there we have it for today, nothing difficult, just a bit time consuming and as it happens, many of us have plenty of time on our hands at the moment.

 

Before I close for today, it would be remiss of me not give a shout out for my glamorous assistant, aka Mrs Martian who has been helping with the pictures.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Martian 👽

 

 

 

 

[JosephLalor]

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

Interesting on all levels Daddy M - a great idea for a thread.

I've a strong personal connection with this aircraft because I lost a wallet with £50 in it in E. Horsely in 1984.

Ouch! £50 wasn't trivial then I recall.  My own link to the Horsley is through East Horsley as well.  In 1988 I did my first shifts as a security guard with Reliance at Horsley Towers, which was once upon a time in the Byron family, but prior to electricity privatisation was the Electricity Council staff training college.  There was a photograph of a Horsley in the games room adjacent to the bar in the old house, which also contained the trainers' offices.  I remember seeing a Sea Venom model from the Matchbox kit in one of them.

 

I've assembled Dynavector vacs in the past, but as this is a Contrail I'll be following to see what I can apply to my Hendon.

Edited May 16, 2020 by JosephLalor

[Murdo]

Following with fascination!

[StephenCJ]

Off to sand the fuselage.

[Jonners]

I'll be tagging along, Martian; every day is a schoolday. Besides which, having planned to build a simple injected kit for a change and mused over what to buy (I don't keep a stash), I ended up with a vacform Waco YKS. Masochist.

 

I definitely second Patrik's suggestion of buying the scraping tool. I followed his advice and it has been very useful. It is reasonably priced, too.

 

Jon

 

Edit: Apart from anything else, the Horsley is a great subject!

Edited May 16, 2020 by Jonners

[Martian]

23 minutes ago, Jonners said:

I'll be tagging along, Martian; every day is a schoolday. Besides which, having planned to build a simple injected kit for a change and mused over what to buy (I don't keep a stash), I ended up with a vacform Waco YKS. Masochist.

 

I definitely second Patrik's suggestion of buying the scraping tool. I followed his advice and it has been very useful. It is reasonably priced, too.

 

Jon

 

Edit: Apart from anything else, the Horsley is a great subject!

You are more than welcome Jonners but "Don't keep a stash"!!! Guys, don't let Jonners get excited while I rush to get the vet.

 

I just picked up the Horsley as I didn't want to embark on a major project and the kit was interesting, reasonably simple for the purposes of this tutorial and only cost £12.50 which is very cheap for a Contrail kit these days.

 

Martian 👽

[AdrianMF]

5 hours ago, JosephLalor said:

Ouch! £50 wasn't trivial then I recall

Not entirely trivial now

 

Nice tutorial from the Red Planet.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[DonH]

Never built a vacform and am totally afraid of doing so. Maybe this tutorial will help but I fear I don’t have the correct number of tentacles to cope with this kind of kit.

 

Great thread Martian, I am enjoying the learning experience.

[Martian]

1 hour ago, DonH said:

Never built a vacform and am totally afraid of doing so. Maybe this tutorial will help but I fear I don’t have the correct number of tentacles to cope with this kind of kit.

 

Great thread Martian, I am enjoying the learning experience.

Believe me, there really is nothing to be frightened of, it just requires care and patience. We haven't done anything very difficult thus far have we? I am also only using two tentacles in deference to all you Earthlings. 

 

Go on have a bash; what have you got to lose?

 

Martian 👽

[dromia]

As a life long vacuum form habitue who almost exclusively built them since my first Rareplane Seversky P35 in 1969 I am gladdened to see another thread on this revered subject.

 

Scrapers are indeed very handy in the preparation of vacuum formed parts, personally I prefer straight edged and kidney ones to the goose necked for most modelling applications, as well as the standard cabinet/fiddle maker scrapers IPMS do a nice couple of sets for modellers that I can highly recommend. A burnisher to keep the edge turned and sharp is also a good addition.

 

My own approach to cutting and sanding is slightly different but as all things in this game there is no right nor wrong only what works for you. When removing parts after outlining the shapes I hold my blade at a 45 degree angle away from the part, this gives an inward sloped edge to the cut part and reduces the amount plastic that has to be removed.

 

To sand the parts down to size I prefer to have at them with a coarse file, rough grit wet and dry wrapped wood blocks or "T" section aluminium with abrasives stuck on with double sided tape a la Aeroclub. This removes the excess plastic quickly, sand down to the marked line 'till a fine sliver is all that remains of the excess which can be removed by a light finger touch. This method gives me better final shape control as I find the pressure on the parts needed to sand them on a flat abrasive covered surface can lead to curving along the parts length, fuselages are especially prone to this. As always in this demesne "check fit" often, it is easier to remove than replace plastic.

 

Finally be aware that some vacuum formed kits need the thickness of the card left in place to give correct scale thickness so they have to have excess sanded down to the part as you would flash on an injection moulded part. I suspect that this "feature" appears mainly on plagiarised kits but always best to check on the less mainstream vacuum form brands.

 

Apologies if this is seen as high jacking the thread, it is not my intention just sharing the little I know and I make no claims to being a vacuum form/scale modelling maven.

[StephenCJ]

Fuselage halves sanded and they even fit.

Have a look.

 

Stephen

 

[CJP]

Delighted to see your vacform tutorial Martian - I'm casting my eyes up to the Dynavector Scimitar kit on top of my bookshelf and wondering if that might be possible once I read it all.

CJP

Edited May 17, 2020 by CJP

[StephenCJ]

37 minutes ago, CJP said:

I'm casting my eyes up to the Dynavector Scimitar kit on top of my bookshelf and wondering if that might be possible once I read it all.

Start it NOW.  Following Martian's instructions you can't go wrong.

[corsaircorp]

Hello Dear tentacled one !!

A tutorial from my beerfriend is such a good idea...

May I join the flock ?? No promises of any sort of course !!

Thanks for forbidding the beer throwing !! You're such a wise man or martian !!

Well I found a place at the bar !! Good !!

Great start !! I wait for the lessons !!

Sincerely.

CC

[Martian]

14 hours ago, StephenCJ said:

Fuselage halves sanded and they even fit.

Have a look.

 

Stephen

 

There's a good Earthling!

13 hours ago, CJP said:

Delighted to see your vacform tutorial Martian - I'm casting my eyes up to the Dynavector Scimitar kit on top of my bookshelf and wondering if that might be possible once I read it all.

CJP

Seeing as how you defeated that Fonderie Alize, The Scimitar should be a doddle for you.

13 hours ago, StephenCJ said:

Start it NOW.  Following Martian's instructions you can't go wrong.

Now that's pushing things a bit too far!

11 hours ago, corsaircorp said:

Hello Dear tentacled one !!

A tutorial from my beerfriend is such a good idea...

May I join the flock ?? No promises of any sort of course !!

Thanks for forbidding the beer throwing !! You're such a wise man or martian !!

Well I found a place at the bar !! Good !!

Great start !! I wait for the lessons !!

Sincerely.

CC

You may indeed join the flock as long as you promise to behave. You can't? Oh well, join in anyway.

 

Martian 👽

[Martian]

15 hours ago, dromia said:

As a life long vacuum form habitue who almost exclusively built them since my first Rareplane Seversky P35 in 1969 I am gladdened to see another thread on this revered subject.

 

Scrapers are indeed very handy in the preparation of vacuum formed parts, personally I prefer straight edged and kidney ones to the goose necked for most modelling applications, as well as the standard cabinet/fiddle maker scrapers IPMS do a nice couple of sets for modellers that I can highly recommend. A burnisher to keep the edge turned and sharp is also a good addition.

 

My own approach to cutting and sanding is slightly different but as all things in this game there is no right nor wrong only what works for you. When removing parts after outlining the shapes I hold my blade at a 45 degree angle away from the part, this gives an inward sloped edge to the cut part and reduces the amount plastic that has to be removed.

 

To sand the parts down to size I prefer to have at them with a coarse file, rough grit wet and dry wrapped wood blocks or "T" section aluminium with abrasives stuck on with double sided tape a la Aeroclub. This removes the excess plastic quickly, sand down to the marked line 'till a fine sliver is all that remains of the excess which can be removed by a light finger touch. This method gives me better final shape control as I find the pressure on the parts needed to sand them on a flat abrasive covered surface can lead to curving along the parts length, fuselages are especially prone to this. As always in this demesne "check fit" often, it is easier to remove than replace plastic.

 

Finally be aware that some vacuum formed kits need the thickness of the card left in place to give correct scale thickness so they have to have excess sanded down to the part as you would flash on an injection moulded part. I suspect that this "feature" appears mainly on plagiarised kits but always best to check on the less mainstream vacuum form brands.

 

Apologies if this is seen as high jacking the thread, it is not my intention just sharing the little I know and I make no claims to being a vacuum form/scale modelling maven.

Thanks Dromia, bear with me, many of the points you raise will be covered in upcoming installments. Talking of which...….

 

Martian 👽

[Martian]

……..A slight change in the running order of things today as I couldn't find some stuff I needed for the flying surfaces until this evening. I therefore decided to cut my losses and do some work on the fuselage instead. It all helps illustrate the process so it doesn't really matter that it is slightly out of the order that I had originally intended.

 

Firstly, I felt that the nose looked a bit on the slim side. No big deal. Plastic card is a very forgiving medium and I just added some .30 x.30 'thou plastic strip to the mating edges of the fuselage. this corrected the nose but left the tail end of the fuselage too thick. This is easily dealt with, I will just pop the fuselage back on the vacform board tomorrow then the glue has cured and sand the tail back a bit. This is a simple technique if you find you have sanded a fuselage part away too much.

 

I thought that I would do something to make the fuselage look more like an aeroplane next, I taped the fuselage halves together and marked out the positions of the pilot's and gunner's cockpits. A shout out for @John Aero for pointing out that the pilot's cockpit was offset to starboard I doubt if would have picked up on it or if I did, not until it was too late. The forgiving nature of the plastic makes it a simple matter to chain drill and then carve out the cockpits.

 

Back to the flying surfaces for the next part.

 

Martian 👽

 

 

 

[AdrianMF]

20 minutes ago, Martian said:

pilot's cockpit was offset to starboard

Well you learn something every day. Something to do with visibility/torpedo aiming?

 

Nice progress and very informative!

Regards,

Adrian