Vickers VC-10 C.Mk.1K (ish) +++FINISHED+++

[Ray S]

Hello all.

 

A little while ago, I was given an Airfix VC-10 K2 by a very kind member of my Model Club, and I thought it was time to build it. All the parts were there, but there were no markings in the box. I had a tootle around Mr Google and found some markings by RAM Decals, but they were for the C.Mk.1K; now, I have to admit to being a bit of a numpty when it comes to recognising various marks of aircraft, with the possible exception of the EE Lightning. I asked for help in the Cold War section for aircraft on this fine Forum and was given some wonderful advice by @Archer_VC10, @Brizeman, and @Ossington among others, so a big THANK YOU to each of them for that help.

 

In general, they gave me guidance on how to modify the Airfix kit to RAM Decal subject specifications. This includes things like wing fences being different, wing leading edges inboard of the outer fence, engines being Super Conways instead of just mere Conways, not to mention different angles of engine alignment and various other bits.

 

I have considered long and hard since just how to do this, and I have come to a financial conclusion that it will have to be a C.Mk.1K (ish) when it is complete. I am having to be a little careful on costs at the moment, so will not splash out the £18 + post for the accessories, having already spent £13 on the markings. I hope you do not mind this way of thinking, but, needs must.

 

I have decided to do some improvements to the kit though, so it is not a total write-off! Anyway, this is what I was given:

 

 

Very inspiring design on the box (not), but what a beauty of an aircraft! I have always loved the VC-10, ever since I saw them out in Singapore in the 1960's and flew home in one instead of the good ol' Britannia that I had flown out in. Both beauties really, and I do have a kit of the Brit too! It obviously was not a tanker VC-10 we came back in.

 

These are the transfers (being a '50's child they will always be transfers) that I bought:

 

 

A fine selection of markings, but I will go for the second one down, as it is probably the one that would get built less often because of the lack of tail art. As the marking sheet had cabin windows as part of the artwork, and the configuration was different to the K2, it was a case of having to fill the windows. I added some strips of plastic card behind the openings and glued them in, then used milliput to fill the windows the following day. I had forgotten how good milliput is to use when it is damp, and soon had a fairly good result. I needed a little bit of extra filler afterwards as I had caused some dips in the milliput when I was smoothing it off.

 

 

I also made up a couple more bulkheads using the single supplied one as a template and marked off where I was to fit them later on. I found yesterday that back in 2012 Britmodeller had a Group Build for the VC-10, and have read through those and found that it will be a good idea to add some plastic card tabs to the fuselage to aid alignment when it comes to putting them together. One of the major things I will amend on this are the wing fences. There is one missing inboard on the wings, and the one which is present outboard is full span, but only needs to go back to the back of the slats. I marked to wings as to where the inboard fences should fit:

 

 

There is a re-fueling station below the rear fuselage which needs to go too as it was not on the C.Mk.1K, so I filled that with milliput when I did the cabin windows. I hope it will act as a key when I remove the plastic area and allow me to reshape the underside a little better (I will put a plastic 'capper' over it before I close the fuselage up):

 

 

Then it was time for another leap of faith - do I keep the raised panel lines or do I try to rescribe? I have only rescribed once before and that was a long time ago when I used a needle. Now I am the proud owner of a real, proper scriber. I resolved to try on something that would not be seen first, so I did some scribing on the wing interior and used Dymo tape, tape for curves, and masking tape to find out which helped guide the scriber. Dymo. Then I did the tailplane underside (still working on the theory that it would not be seen!).

 

 

Hmm, not too bad. You can see the 'straight' line has wandered a little at the top left. Firstly, I must say that any rescribing on this will only be straight lines, and nothing complicated like all the wiggly bits on the wings and tailplanes, and that also I would only be replacing raised for scribed unless the new line was easy. So there you know...

 

Having done that, I was up for trying the wing lower surfaces. This time, after reading one of the VC-10 articles on here, I tried holding a 6" steel rule in place and that was so much better! I did not make any errors where the scribing tool wandered off course. On the underside, Airfix put representations of inspection hatches access panels, but they are only on the top wings in the plans I have got, so I sanded them off. All in all, a bit of an improvement, I think:

 

 

I have given the wings a good sanding down and used an old toothbrush with lots of water to get the swarf out of the panel lines. I am glad I keep things 'because they will come in handy!' As you can see, I still have to tidy up the trailing edge of the wings, and judging by the GB I will have to thin them and the wing tips to get the profile a bit slimmer.

 

The next 'heart-in-mouth' moment was getting rid of the outer wing fence. I popped some masking tape either side and used some sanding blocks supplied as a free gift by SAMI magazine a year or two ago, and soon had a fenceless wing!

 

 

 

I took the whole fence off so when I fit the new inboard one, I can do the outboard mini-fence with the same plastic stock. The rescribing was then done and it went a lot easier this time. I ran the scribing tool along the lines three times for each line, so if they turn out to be too deep, at least they will be consistently deep.

 

Anyway, that is where I am at at the moment, I am sorry I will not be doing this with the upgrade parts, but it will probably only ever be seen in my model room or my model club. I am happy with the plan, especially after a fortnight or two with it playing on my mind.

 

Take care all, any advice or tips will be very much appreciated,

 

Ray

Edited November 15, 2020 by Ray S
Found extra info

[Back in the Saddle]

Think I will follow this - great start!👍

[Adam Poultney]

I like the look of this project! I shall follow along

[RAF4EVER]

On the lower wing surface, they are not inspection hatches, they are access panels for the wing fuel tanks ,and they should only be on the upper surface, and I removed and fitted lots of them when I worked in the tanks at RAF Brize Norton,and RAF Saint Athan.

[Ray S]

10 hours ago, RAF4EVER said:

On the lower wing surface, they are not inspection hatches, they are access panels for the wing fuel tanks ,and they should only be on the upper surface, and I removed and fitted lots of them when I worked in the tanks at RAF Brize Norton,and RAF Saint Athan.

Duly edited, thanks for that extra information @RAF4EVER . I am always grateful to be corrected and am always learning. I hope it sinks in.

 

All the best,

 

Ray

[theplasticsurgeon]

18 hours ago, Ray S said:

One of the major things I will amend on this are the wing fences. There is one missing inboard on the wings, and the one which is present outboard is full span, but only needs to go back to the back of the slats. I marked to wings as to where the inboard fences should fit:

 

 

Hi Ray,   I just consulted,  There's no slat inboard of the fence.   I've not found a decent photo showing how close the fence is to those access holes.

 

But there is a shot showing the fence aligning almost perfectly with the first flap actuator.

Which co-incides with how I build my Airfix VC10.  With the fence positioned at the end of the slat.

Oh, and in the inteests of recycling, I made the fences from a coffee cup lid.  Didn't discard that one.

[kev67]

Great start on a iconic aircraft, regarding scribing the best stuff to use is 3M 471 blue tape as this last longer than dymo tape and goes round curves better

[Ray S]

2 hours ago, kev67 said:

Great start on a iconic aircraft, regarding scribing the best stuff to use is 3M 471 blue tape as this last longer than dymo tape and goes round curves better

 @kev67, that will be handy when I button up the fuselage!

 

Thanks for the advice,

 

Ray

[Ray S]

Hello all.

 

Things have been going slowly with this model so far. I have finished scribing the flying surfaces, and taken a leaf out of other's books and added tabs to the inside of the fuselage for added strength and as an alignment aid. I even remembered to add weight (aquatic plant weights, a soft lead-like substance) and boxed it in just in case the plane gets dropped and the superglue sheers!

 

 

I also remembered to curve the tabs so they follow the fuselage contours - I discovered once that if you do not do that, strange things happen to the alignment...With all the glue and CA inside, I let the fumes vent for quite a while before closing up the fuselage. It needed some persuasion, and will require quite a lot of work!

 

 

Try as I might, I could not get the fuselage to sit right one side to the other. In one of the VC-10 threads on BM someone said that the two halves of this model were different sizes, I think they were right! There are still steps above and below the fuselage, with the port side being proud in both cases. I wonder if that was my fault with the tabs as I put them on the starboard side?

 

Now, @theplasticsurgeon has given me the advice that I had drawn in the wing fence positions in the wrong place, in that I had them with the leading edge slat inboard of the fence.

 

Looking at the plan, he has a point, which I had missed.

 

 

In the image above, the plan has the fence just outboard of the inner flap actuator and at the inner edge of the slat. As the plan seemed to fit the plastic, I had measured the distance from wing root to fence, and drawn that onto the wing. The drawn fence line is just outboard the actuator, but a bit more so than on the plan. If I drew the fence line on the wing at the inboard edge of the slat, it would be inboard of the actuator. I am going to re-draw the fence line a little nearer the actuator and fill the remainder of the 'inboard' slat, so things should look right (ish).

 

I will leave it at that for now, but if I am about to make a monumental boo-boo, please let me know. I know this is a VC-10 C.Mk.1K (ish), but I do want to get things reasonably correct!

 

Thanks for all the advice and comments so far, and my learning points!

 

All the best,

 

Ray

[Adam Poultney]

looking good so far. It would be nice to see a modern kit of a good quality, I'd like a VC10 in my RAF collection

[Turbofan]

4 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

It would be nice to see a modern kit of a good quality, I'd like a VC10 in my RAF collection

Hi Adam,

If you're happy with resin Authentic Airliners were planning one for this year. I don't know the current status of the project but I think it was due to be released at Telford in November.

Sorry for hijacking your thread Ray!

Cheers,

Ian

[Plasticbasher]

4 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

looking good so far. It would be nice to see a modern kit of a good quality, I'd like a VC10 in my RAF collection

Roden do a nice 1/144 kit, having fought the Airfix one and the Welsh Models vac (which to be fair is very good) the Roden kit is well worth a look.

[Ray S]

12 hours ago, Turbofan said:

Hi Adam,

If you're happy with resin Authentic Airliners were planning one for this year. I don't know the current status of the project but I think it was due to be released at Telford in November.

Sorry for hijacking your thread Ray!

Cheers,

Ian

@Turbofan, no worries on that score. Anything that spreads the VC-10 love is good in my book!

 

Ray

[Britman]

Enjoying this very much as I have a couple of these that should be dealt with one day. I get your point about the expense of after market products, they will add up and if you end up with the model you had in mind , job done. After market for me is generally transfers at most. Looking forward to your finished model,no pressure as we all have distractions.

 

Keith

[junglierating]

I like this and I like your practicality to rivet counting to ...BZ 

[Archer_VC10]

Here's a view of the inboard fence on an 1103 wing, which should be the same as the 1106 wing (some corrosion rectification work back in 1999):

You can see that it runs very close to the two fuel tank panels. The wing on the Airfix model was based on the 1101/prototype wing and the leading edge on this is different. Because of this, the large wing fence on the 1101 wing actually covers part of one of these inspection panels and a part of the fence needed to be removed to get to the fuel tank panel. Your approach to align the back end of the fence with the outboard edge of the innermost flap fairing should work. You might also be able to align it right next to the remains of that fuel tank inspection panel as shown on the photo above. If you then find that it overlays the slat, I would do the same and change the panel lines to get the slat back in its place outboard of the fence. As your wing leading edge will remain in 1101 profile, this would be the best way to deal with the wing fence. Please ignore the stall strip on the leading edge on the photo above, that may not be present on the 1106 wing, I'd have to check... so go with what's on the drawings you've got. (edit: I checked... no stall strips on the C Mk.1/type 1106 wings).

 

Here's another photo:

Edited October 7, 2020 by Archer_VC10
Added another photo

[Ray S]

8 hours ago, Britman said:

Enjoying this very much as I have a couple of these that should be dealt with one day. I get your point about the expense of after market products, they will add up and if you end up with the model you had in mind , job done. After market for me is generally transfers at most. Looking forward to your finished model,no pressure as we all have distractions.

 

Keith

 

8 hours ago, junglierating said:

I like this and I like your practicality to rivet counting to ...BZ 

Thank you both for that, it did take some thinking about, but I am glad I have gone this my way.

 

@Archer_VC10, thank you too for those images, they explain all for me, along with your written advice too. I feel happier now and will make the cut tomorrow. I have cut out a couple of wing fences and will fit them to the top half first, I think. I cut them from the plan so in theory they would fit the top of the wing and if I tape the wing to the cutting mat, the long lower edge should ensure they align properly. I had drawn a line through the wing front middle to trailing edge middle and used that as my datum line. I will find out tomorrow if I have mucked the plan up!

 

Today's work involved the creation of lots of dust, so a mask was worn!

 

 

I needed to get rid of the under-fuselage refuelling point. Thankfully, I had packed the moulding with milliput when I blanked off the cabin windows. I was concerned that it would not have stuck to the plastic when I did that, I built an Airfix Cutty Sark a year or two ago and needed to pop some milliput in to hold some brass rod for skis (don't ask!), but the milliput broke loose and rattled around inside. This time, I need not have worried. It stuck like a limpet. I used some sanding pads which were very coarse to start sanding the detail off, being careful not to ruin the fuselage itself. After about half an hour I ended up with this:

 

 

It is not far out but still needs some work. The side profile looks okay, and you can see how well the milliput plug has fared, but I needed to close up the gap that appeared along the fuselage centre line. It did close up, and has now been glued and it setting overnight.

 

This was the remains of the refuelling point:

 

 

That is a Peanut Butter pot lid, and I collected quite a bit of dust! I am glad I wore the mask...

 

Well, that is it for this -ish build at the moment, I really do appreciate the advice, information and the backing you have been giving me for this project, it means so much!

 

Take care all,

 

Ray

[Archer_VC10]

Always happy to help out Ray, your VC10 is looking good so far! 😀

[neilfergylee]

An excellent job!  I was forgunate to get up-close and personal with VC10s when my then employer was rewiring the C.1s.

 

 

[Ray S]

Hello all.

 

One thing I am always wary of during construction of a model, is destruction of a model. Even if it cost nothing. Today, I bit the bullet and re-marked the line for the inner wing fence, thanks to @theplasticsurgeon for highlighting the issue, and @Archer_VC10 for the very clear photograph that I found so useful. I used one of the inspection panels as the guide this time and drew the line in, clenched my gnashers and got the scriber out and marked the line in properly. Then got the saw out, and intrepidly cut the line. Would you believe that the saw cut was exactly the right width for the card fences I had prepared earlier? Anyway, I cut the gap, and kept test fitting the fence, and then I had a brain-wave (I do get them from time to time!) and remembered that I had cut out the fences using the plan. It is for a 1106 wing, I am building this WITHOUT the leading edge extension (it is a C.Mk.1 -ish) as the 1103 1101 wing, so I needed to trim down the fence or it would have been too long! Phew! The reduced fence went in okay and I glued it in with Tamiya Thin cement, and taped the wing upper to the lower half to ensure the leading edge was okay.

 

 

It seemed to go okay, the wing did not fall apart when I was cutting the slot, so that was a win too. Then I did the other one. I did need to use a little filler along the edge of the fences, and I also filled in the remainder of the slat that was inboard of the fence.

 

 

Then it was a much simpler job to cut a very small slot for the outer mini-fences, which were only on the slat (there were originally full-chord fences on the model):

 

 

I think I may still need to clean up the old fence marks a little more looking at this photo.

 

In other news, today I reinforced the under-fuselage seam with CA and sanded that down, yesterdays gluing session was not good enough.

 

I now have the worst of the modifications done that I will be doing, I just need to finish cleaning up the underside a bit, then pluck up courage to re-scribe the fuselage. I have not been able to find any of the 3M tape that was mentioned a few posts back, so I am going to try the Dymo tape again, but double it up and hope that strengthens it a bit.

 

Thanks for looking, and also for the invaluable help, advice and encouragement I have been given.

 

All the best,

 

Ray

 

PS, do the fences look too tall? They seem okay to me but I am not sure - I know they look very tall in the first photo that Archer_VC10 posted. I did add reinforcing plastic card on the wing inners so they could be sanded down if needs be.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Ray S
Found extra info

[Archer_VC10]

The fences look allright to me Ray! Quick note: the 1103 and 1106 wings are the same, they both feature the leading edge chord extension. There are basically two types of wings on VC10s: the prototype/type 1101 wing (straight leading edge) and the 'improved' wing with leading edge extension that was used on all the other subtypes. As produced, there are also three different wing fence configurations but let's focus on what's needed for your model 😉

Good thinking on the wing fence length by the way, I hadn't thought of that.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Archer_VC10

[Ray S]

16 minutes ago, Archer_VC10 said:

The fences look allright to me Ray! Quick note: the 1103 and 1106 wings are the same, they both feature the leading edge chord extension. There are basically two types of wings on VC10s: the prototype/type 1101 wing (straight leading edge) and the 'improved' wing with leading edge extension that was used on all the other subtypes. As produced, there are also three different wing fence configurations but let's focus on what's needed for your model 😉

Good thinking on the wing fence length by the way, I hadn't thought of that.

Duly edited! Thanks for that.

 

Cheers, Ray

[Ray S]

Hello all!

 

I have not forgotten about this project, I got waylaid by a sneaky Airfix Gloster Gladiator which found its way onto the workbench!

 

Today, I actually got back to the VC-10, and got the panel lines scribed onto the fuselage and cleaned up. I also added the cockpit transparency, which surprisingly fitted really well! It will be blended in later when the glue has cured, the RAM Decals sheet has a replacement 'transparency', so that will be used.

 

 

You can probably see the scriber slipped slightly on the nosecone! Whoops...

 

Now I have got back to this, hopefully things will not take over again (he says noticing an Airfix Dornier Do17Z has now also appeared on the bench!).

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Ray

[Ray S]

Hello all. Today's job was to scribe the lines onto the tail fin. Yesterday, I was quite happy to leave things as Airfix had intended, but, during the night, I decided that it would not do. This is very much an '-ish' build, and that carries on with the scribing done today. I used the Airfix raised lines for the rectangles just forward of the rudder, and added the final line near the top which was missing, and then did the lot that are on the front of the fin. Airfix had left this area completely blank, so it was very much a case of 'draw by eye'. I kept referring to the plans which had been kindly sent to me, and as things turned out, I got somewhere in an almost approximately near enough ball park. 

 

 

 

The scribing tool slipped again, and you can also see some of my initial drawn lines. I think I may also have done some of the 'panels' slightly off perpendicular. It was only later, while I was reading a great book totally unconnected with modelling, that I realised that what I should have done was trace the panel lines from the plan, and use that to align everything. One day I will learn! As it is, I do not think I brought down the longer diagonal line following the leading edge far enough, so it means the panels aft of the (intake?) at the base of the leading edge are too far back. The lines also still need swarf removing from them, but that will be done later, as will toning down the oval inspection(?) panel.

 

That is it for now, thanks for looking,

 

Take care all, Ray

[VT Red Sox Fan]

This is a great build—I am going to join the crowd and follow along, best Erwin