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British early jets - 1/72 Whittle and Vampire - COMPLETE!!!


Dennis_C

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On 2/23/2021 at 9:08 AM, Dennis_C said:

You can never have enough projects in progress

I thought that was just me !!

 

Good to see these back in action .

Edited by Marklo
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On 28/07/2021 at 12:30, Dennis_C said:

Obviously that required shifting the intakes back which in its turn required extension of the intake lips. The picture below explains what I did.

Just found couple photoes I did before mating intakes with all the surrounding parts:

20210730_022749

I think that shows where extra plastic had to be added to hide gaps and steps.

 

Result is seen in an earlier post.

 

Regards, 

Dennis.

Edited by Dennis_C
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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi All,

 

With Vampire fully prepared for painting I now switched to the Whittle. 

 

Interior has been assembled, weight added and finally fuselage closed last night. 

 

20210818_015212

 

Fit is the tightest I ever experienced. Parts are fitting each other ideally, but leave no space for errors and glue... That is even more difficult to cope with than what I experienced with Eduard models. Dry fitting is absolutely needed here. 

 

Clear Prop gives you a separate upper fuselage section which is devised to be modelled in open version in a full kit with engine included. 

My kit is simpler so no way to show it opened. However this becomes a challenge to fit in. The correct barrel-like shape is achieved only when you insert the upper section upfront to one side and insert wing to ensure fuselage sides get the right curved shape. 

 

Weight that I squeezed in the forward fuselage seems sufficient with some lead there. The model seems to be a tail sitter but the front section full of cockpit details with added weight looks heavy enough.

 

And size comparison with assembled Vampire:

20210818_015543

 

Whittle is tiny!

 

Thanks for watching!

 

Dennis.

 

Edited by Dennis_C
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Hi Chris,

 

7 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

the vampire looks great with the modified wings

I think it is, perhaps because I know I did at least something :) Still the wing looks too wide yet. 

 

Unfortunately I think this wing is un-fixable. What you actually need is to acquire a correction set produced by Airfix. Nice thing about that correction set - it has a fuselage and booms for a trainer version as well :)

 

Otherwise Special Hobby produced a very good kit that builds very easily. Convenient parts split, nice details everywhere you can see them such as exhaust or wheel bays. It went together very fast.  

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Yes great idea for the "correction set" , got one of those but doing a RN machine with that, built the F3 and FB.5 and enjoyed them as they are nice to assemble.  I am awaiting the new 48th Airfix kit, that will be a cracker I'm sure. 

Chris

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Hi All,

 

Some update on the Whittle.

20210824_221541

 

I attached the wing and also closed some gaps on the fuselage.

 

Wing required some dryfitting but result is very good and even excellent on the sides. This is typically a nasty area to sand and polish but here nothing is needed... Magnificent! Maybe a drop of putty in the bottom and that's it.

 

Fuselage closed with remaining gaps but nothing critical. Will need a small plug aft of the front gear. 

 

Next would be addition of flaps, rudder, stabilizers. Straight way forward. 

 

20210824_221612

 

Hmmm. Meteor nacelles are of very familiar shape... And Whittle is the size of Meteor engine with a cabin attached. Tiny bird!!!

 

Regards,

Dennis.

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Some further update on the Whittle. I added a fuselage section aft of the canopy. Also installed flaps and cleaned up seams on fuselage and wing joints. 

 

20210827_161303

 

A bit of putty went into wing joint on the bottom side. Nothing critical though. Otherwise a very low purity usage so far. 

 

Flaps were actually fitting not well. They are molded with pins that should correspond to opposing cuts in the wing structure. However shape and size of pins and cuts was not matching at all. Also flaps were a bit larger than space left in the wing. So quite a bit of trimming and dryfitting was necessary. 

 

Whittle starts to take shape!!!!

 

Best regards,

Dennis

Edited by Dennis_C
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  • 5 weeks later...

Hi All,

 

Time to refresh this thread. 

I've finally prepared both Vampire and Whittle for painting. 

20210926_193335

 

Standard job is done on Whittle to finish it. Since last time I added tail surfaces, flaps. Did some more sanding, especially in the intake and front wheel bay. Installed canopy as the last step. Also assembled undercarriage. A bit nervous and fiddly job!

 

Different story with Vampire though. I mostly completed this a while ago and considered that as okay for painting. But then I took it again and hmmm...

Screenshot_20210926-194618_Brave

Isn't that a helicopter with that many raised bits across?

So what I did - I compared it to some photoes, Airfix Vampire and read couple critiquing articles on this kit. Based on that I figured what could be fairly easy fixes. What is particularly annoying - that is those raised hinges for different doors. They are also present on top side. Raised on the kit these should be flat with fuselage surface in the reality. But since it's just too much - I did not sand them off and left as is. 

 

Basically that's the result:

20210926_175342

 

As you can see I sanded and filled some most prominently questionable details. 

 

In addition I drilled gun openings. I also drilled through the holes for navigation lights from outside and filled in the drilling 'tunnels'. I also drilled a 'landing light' which Special Hobby forgot to provide. My plan is to paint this opening with bright silver and then fill in the hole with Kristal Klear at the very end of assembly. 

 

So that's where the process is now. Let me know if any questions. 

 

Kind regards,

Dennis.

Edited by Dennis_C
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi all,

 

Some further update on the project.

 

First of all, Whittle is already primed. Its undercarriage is assembled and enhanced with straps. Clear Prop gave p/e parts for the straps. I managed to set them all right to the front wheel. But unfortunately I lost one yoke from the main undercarriage to the carpet monster. So I scratched these from wire there. 

 

20211011_155410

 

On Vampire I made couple more small edits:

 

20211010_184437

 

I drilled two holes for aerial on port wing and removed a hole from starboard wing. The whip antenna was located on port wing on mk.I and was only later (from mk.III?) moved to starboard. 

 

That is all for now.

 

Kind regards,

Dennis

Edited by Dennis_C
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  • 1 month later...

Hey all, 

 

I'm not abandoning this project :) it's just that is gradually moving through the workshop with Vampire primed since the last post, some aluminium, black and burnt metal sprayed. And then I switched to the main colours with the progress as shown in the below collage:

 

20211204_004449

 

Undersides, then ocean grey on top, and just finished masking before green goes on.

 

Paints are Tamiya acrylic for standard RAF colours and Hobby Colour H329 yellow for yellow :)

 

Hoping to finish this over weekend :fingerscrossed:

 

All the best,

Dennis

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14 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Nearly there now Dennis and both look great, a tremendous amount of work on the Vampire and the wings definitely do look better.  The little Whittle looks lovely too.

Glad to see them again 

Chris

Hi Chris,

 

Yeah, I'm really glad with the progress so far. Not much to do after these leave the paintshop so hopefully more frequent updates are coming soon :)

 

Kind regards,

Dennis

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12 minutes ago, TheyJammedKenny! said:

Nice!  I had no idea the Vampire's silver undersides came up to the fuselage halfway mark.  Very attractive scheme!

That was the case on early mk.1 and that was medium sea grey rather than silver :)

Edited by Dennis_C
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Little Whittle moves forward.

 

20211217_142313

 

Decals are on. Panel lines are lightly highlighted with a pencil. Some modest greasing is done too. I highlighted flaps, engine access door, plus some light streaks on the bottom side. And lastly toned gear bays with gun metal coloured powder. 

 

Not much remaining!!!

 

Kind regards, 

Dennis

 

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Little Whittle is on its legs. Some alignment efforts were required to put it straight but all in all it worked fine. Enough weight in the tight space! No tail sitting!!!

20211219_024123

Also masked canopy prior to satin finish and crafted a pitot tube as kit's one is a little clumsy. 

 

Cheers,

Dennis

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