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A DH Vampire (another boring ehrrr... exciting 28 Sqn build)


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10 hours ago, hendie said:

the counterbalance of digital dabbling is NOT sanding Giorgio.  Just sayin'

You do have a fair point there.... :)

 

Amazing job with those intakes, literally transformed into completely different things! :worthy: :worthy:

 

Ciao 

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5 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Sorry. I don’t mean to be flippant. I was just ribbin’ ya. I know it comes across weird in written form sometimes so please accept my apologies. In reality you’re making me panic a little. I bought the Classic Airframes whirlwind while you were building the Venom. Seeing your stash of CA kits I figured they were sought after quality affairs. Now I need to go look at the hunks of plastic I have. 🥺😩 You’re going to make this shine as you always do. Great work on the intakes they look splendid. 👏👏🙌

 

Johnny

 

Looks like we both got caught out there with forum frump (can't think of a better term).   No need to apologize whatsoever Johnny.  I read your original post and took it as amusing, not flippant.  I tried (and positively failed) to post an amusing response. It seemed so when I wrote it but looking back now I can see how it can easily be misinterpreted.

 

I'm not in the habit of using emoticons a lot and can't find one for low humor/high wry smile ratio.  I've had another try here but I'm not sure it's any better

 

13 hours ago, hendie said:

Fitting is one thing Johnny, but having to carve your own shapes out of bits of the kit because it's so far off is another thing   

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-La4vl0Ykwr_U5tz2fn2:sick:    :puke:     :sick:

 

Sorry, best I could offer

 

 

 

So, no need to apologize and if one is needed, it should probably come from me  for writing a severely sub-par response. 

 

 

Sought after quality affairs?  Ha!   So did I until I had one in my hands.   I had seen a couple of CA builds on BM and people had somehow raved about them (or so it seemed).  My sole reason for going down the CA route was that they produced the "best" 1/48 scale of my chosen subject matter.  "Best" supposedly meaning most accurate though I think I'd probably have preferred correcting the Trumpeter offering than this. They're certainly not kits for the faint hearted, or those with an aversion to sanding.

 

we good then?

 

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4 hours ago, Dave Swindell said:

Most Vampires had symmetrical intakes port & stbd, except those that were tropicalised, ie FB.9's, and I've seen reference to FB.5's having being modded with a tropicalisation kit. The air conditioning pack (or at least part of it) was fitted in an extended intake fairing on the stbd side only. This is what you're seeing in the photo referenced above, it gives a good profile view of the extended fairing, which would be fitted to most, if not all of the Sek Kong Vampires. 

 

That looks like another extended fairing to me @hendie. You can't see the extended fairing on the shot of the BOAC lady sitting on the Vampire because you're looking at the port side which retained the standard fairing. The shot including Audrey also shows the extended fairing. The shots of the trials aircraft that landed on the beach shows symmetrical intakes, so standard FB.5.

 

Dave, that is fantastic information and something I was completely unaware of. Thank you!   It also gives me a great excuse for throwing symmetry out of the window. I have to admit that when I came across that shot yesterday, there was a bit of me that wanted to model that.  Without Dave's information, I would have modeled the same style of fairing on both port and starboard intakes.  Having those dissimilar intakes also adds an element of interest to an otherwise rather bland looking  model 

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17 hours ago, hendie said:

looking forward to never having to build another Classic Airframes kit

Or Fly, or  [ fill in blank]

 

You need to have a word with your acquisition manager hendie, failing that keep turning Soar's ears into silk. Great work on those intakes, I must pick you up on one point though, you can't blame poor old DH for producing beautiful aircraft, the fault lies with the designers at CA, bit like the numpties that designed my kitchen I am trying to fit at the moment. 

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35 minutes ago, Head in the clouds. said:

 you can't blame poor old DH for producing beautiful aircraft, the fault lies with the designers at CA, bit like the numpties that designed my kitchen I am trying to fit at the moment. 

Mate, Grantham is out of square! It's not your fault.

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That is some serious filling, filing, and sanding.

I have to ask though, would it not have been easier to just design and print new intakes? (advantage of hindsight here, obvs!)

 

(ducks and runs)

 

Ian

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8 hours ago, hendie said:

we good then?


Yes indeed. Nothing to see here. 😘

 

8 hours ago, hendie said:

They're certainly not kits for the faint hearted, or those with an aversion to sanding.

I was so terrified I didn’t open the Whirlwind box but went into the garden for a beer instead. I might go and get the box now. Hmmmm but maybe a bravery beer first. 😉
 

 

ps. Just pawed over the kit. Looks ok. It has metal legs. Never seen that before. 🙀

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6 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

Aargh only just found this, the latest instalment of the Hendie Odyssey.

 

I have every confidence in you turning out a fine model!

 

Trevor 

 

thanks Trevor.  When did you last misplace your confidence?

 

4 hours ago, Head in the clouds. said:

Or Fly, or  [ fill in blank]

 

You need to have a word with your acquisition manager hendie, failing that keep turning Soar's ears into silk. Great work on those intakes, I must pick you up on one point though, you can't blame poor old DH for producing beautiful aircraft, the fault lies with the designers at CA, bit like the numpties that designed my kitchen I am trying to fit at the moment. 

 

:rofl2:

 

2 hours ago, Brandy said:

That is some serious filling, filing, and sanding.

I have to ask though, would it not have been easier to just design and print new intakes? (advantage of hindsight here, obvs!)

 

(ducks and runs)

 

Ian

 

It was seriously considered Ian, but since the part was all compound curves with no good way to measure anything and get a good starting point, it would have taken a good number of design, print, test iterations before I got anywhere, so in the end it was back to modeling the old fashioned way.

 

2 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Pause while Hendie lights the blue touchpaper on the ICBM in Texas.....

 

:rofl2:

 

Guess what I've been doing today with the misshapen Vampire?

With @Dave Swindell's illuminating revelation earlier concerning the tropical fit, I could forego the attempts at symmetry and bash on ahead. First thing to do was mark out what I currently had for an intake then approximate the new shape with the help of an old fashioned scribing stick. That gave me a rough idea of what I was now trying to achieve.

 

P4110001.jpg

 

The information on the tropical fit also explained the access panel seen partially behind the fairing.  I had wondered about that and despite multiple searches had not come across another Vampire with the same panel.  Now it all made sense.

Out came my little batch of PE panel templates and confirm my suspicion that I did not have a PE template that matched the Vampire panel, so I bodged one out of styrene.  That was taped in place and I scribed around half of it with a sharpened pin. Once half was scribed, tape over the bit that isn't taped, remove the tape on the bit that is taped, then scribe the remaining half. Simple.

 

P4110004.jpg

 

Okay, it's not perfect, but I think it will work.  The worst part is the lower left side - and that will be hidden by the new tropical intake thingy.

 

P4110005.jpg

 

Out with the razor saw and hack off the front of my carefully crafted intake and replace with a chunka styrene (again).  Then out came the heavy duty SIHRSC to start refining the shape.

 

P4110006.jpg

 

It was obvious very early on that this was going to take some serious work to get right.  Thick styrene sheets tend to be very flat

 

P4110002.jpg

 

whereas fuselages tend not to be

 

P4110003.jpg

 

Sometime later that day, after some sanding, filing, filling, sanding, filing and a bit more sanding, we have the start of a tropical fit intake fairing.  Still a good bit of refining to go yet though.

(for 'refining' read: sanding, filling, filing etc.)

 

P4110007.jpg

 

I also need to taper the fairing into the fuselage as it protrudes forward, quite substantially judging by the photo.  I've started the taper but as you can see, there is still quite a gap.  Filler just isn't going to cut it here I'm afraid.

 

P4110008.jpg

 

So, out with some more styrene, filed into a tapered wedge shape, then glued to the intake.  This is one of those 'a little bit at a time' jobs where you can only do so much then have to dry fit, shape and repeat as often as necessary before you can carry on.

 

P4110009.jpg

 

Once the glue had cured I could trim the excess off and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it all fitted.  Nowhere near finished yet though.

 

P4110012.jpg

 

Definitely heading in the right direction.  Despite the repetitive nature of this job I felt I was actually moving forward, which is a rare feeling on a CA kit.

 

P4110013.jpg

 

Once all the heavy lifting was done, there were still a few gaps here and there and this seemed like a good opportunity for some sprue gloop.  The gloop was slabbered on the top and bottom side and left for an hour or so

 

P4110026.jpg

 

During that time, a skin had formed on the surface and it was then safe to press the wing against the fuselage and let the gloop take the form of the fuselage thus eliminating most of the gaps.  The squidged out bits can be sanded off later. There will still no doubt be plenty of gap filling opportunities left for me when it comes time to fit the wings but this will go a long way to making the end job easier.

 

P4110028.jpg

 

With that job accomplished there was little else I could do on the stbd wing until the gloop dries in a few days. I may as well turn my attention back to the port intake.

 

Don't you just love it when you spend about an hour sanding and shaping and then this happens?  :angry:

 

P4110010.jpg

 

Thankfully it wasn't too bad and was cyano'd back into place and some micromesh brought it back into line post haste.

Now it was on to the final furlong for the port intake - that meant being creative in ways to try and sand the inner faces of the intake back to something approaching smooth.

 

P4110011.jpg

 

I think the port intake is in a decent place now and any additional fettling will take place once the wing is in place.

 

Which is not as easy as it sounds!   Following yet another fettling session I got the top edge of the wing mating surface in a decent place

 

P4110023.jpg

 

yet there is still a sizeable gap on the underside.  Guess what I'll be doing over the next few days then?

 

P4110024.jpg

 

I'd had enough of this sanding malarkey and decided it was time for something else.  Remember that less than enthusiastic rendering of the front undercarriage leg that CA offer?

Yes, this one...

 

P4100013.jpg

 

Obviously, something had to be done about that. Lets be honest here - that is just a monstrosity.

Guess what? Yup.  Brass.

Take a length of brass tube. Find another piece of brass tube that slips over it nicely - thin walled of course.  Cut a small length of aforementioned tube.

Then find some more brass tube that slips over the first tube nicely, but this time with thicker walls.  Cut two thin slices of that tube, sand them as thin as you can get without removing all the skin on your index finger right down to the bone.

Slip a thick walled slice over the first tube, followed by the thin walled section, followed by the remaining thick walled slice.

 

P4110014.jpg

 

I then tinned the main tube and wire-wooled it as smooth as I could get it so the three pieces could slide over the pre-soldered section. 

I then threw some flux on there and held the iron against the main tube while squeezing the three pieces together with tweezers. (easier written than done)

It looks a bit messy here, but solder cleans up very easily with some wire wool

 

P4110016.jpg

 

This will now form the basis of the new nose undercarriage leg. As luck would have it, I had a length of brass rod that was the perfect diameter for fitting inside the main tube.

 

P4110019.jpg

 

Then in a moment of madness I decided to try and replicate the small bracket that holds the stay in place.  (with apologies for the poor photo)

For the bracket, I took a piece of square tube, cut a minuscule piece of that and by making some additional sacrifices to the gods of soldering, I managed to solder that teensy piece of square rod onto the undercarriage leg without it all falling apart.

Once that was soldered in place, I simply filed off the 4th side, leaving a 'U' shape and then filed the two sides of the bracket into shape. That will allow me to fit the stay later when the leg gets fitted.

 

P4110020.jpg

 

You can see in that shot above that I have started cutting the kit part into pieces.  What I wasn't expecting was to see just how far out of round the kit parts was. That white line is the styrene spacer I glued in there the other day.

 

P4110018.jpg

 

It's just as well I was butchering this innit?

Anyway, I then took the bottom part of the undercarriage, and (here we go again) after some filing, some sanding, and a little bit of drilling, we have a half decent looking nose undercarriage leg

 

P4110022.jpg

 

If I'm hones it may be a little light on the diameter, but these were the only tubes I had which telescoped with each other and I wasn't about to start ordering another batch of brass for this job.  Undersized or not, it's still better looking than the kit offering and I'm happy with it.

 

By that time I was done for the day as there was really nothing else I could be doing until I get these wings stuck on and it's probably going to be at least a day or so before the gloop hardens enough for me to start attacking it with abrasive implements.

 

Happy sanding folks

 

 

 

14 minutes ago, The Spadgent said:

I was so terrified I didn’t open the Whirlwind box but went into the garden for a beer instead. I might go and get the box now. Hmmmm but maybe a bravery beer first.

 

a good systematic approach and one other BM'ers would be well advised to heed when dealing with CA kits

 

 

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On 4/11/2021 at 10:47 PM, hendie said:

we have a half decent looking nose undercarriage leg

 

I’ve put that through Google Translate and I understand that it’s hendie-speak for “gobsmackingly good” looking nose undercarriage leg.

 

Your a sort of modelling polymath Alan, at the cutting edge of 3D printing and ‘traditional’ multi-media modelling too.  It must be bloomin exhausting :clap::D

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On 4/11/2021 at 6:09 PM, The Spadgent said:

Very purposeful and steady progress. The tropical intake thingy is great! The sanding and fitting and sanding and fitting is really paying off. 🙌

nice leg too. 🦵

Johnny. 

 

all I can see from all that sanding and fitting is more dust Johnny 

 

On 4/12/2021 at 1:40 AM, Max Headroom said:

All that repetitive filling, sanding and filing must be very zen-like. You must be very calm by now!

Trevor

 

:angry:

 

On 4/12/2021 at 2:54 AM, Hamden said:

Very nice progress and your nose gear leg is miles ahead of what you started with!

  Stay safe            Roger

 

On 4/12/2021 at 3:09 AM, giemme said:

Wow, more excellent craftsmanship on display here, Alan! :worthy:   That  gear leg looks miles better than the kit offering :clap: 

Ciao

 

thanks Roger, Giorgio

 

On 4/12/2021 at 3:43 AM, Pete in Lincs said:

Lovely work. It looks a whole lot better. Oh, and two Pork chops and a pound of sausages, please.

 

the sausages would sure come in handy for replacing the tail booms

 

On 4/12/2021 at 3:12 PM, Head in the clouds. said:

Your pulling at my heart strings with all that lovely brass work, it may be a little slim but under a coat of paint it will look miles better and no one will be the wiser....well, apart from 15000 or so BM'ers....

 

ah... paint. In a land far, far away...

 

On 4/12/2021 at 4:30 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Beautiful nose leg.  Proper job.

 

thanks Crisp

 

On 4/13/2021 at 11:43 AM, Christer A said:

Nothing beats having "fun" with a CA kit...

That nose gear leg is pure master class!

 

A colonoscopy is more fun than a CA kit

 

On 4/15/2021 at 1:20 AM, Wlad said:

Great work on the intakes and nose gear leg, Hendie. This kit is scary...

Wlad

 

thanks Wlad

 

On 4/15/2021 at 1:52 AM, Fritag said:

I’ve put that through Google Translate and I understand that it’s hendie-speak for “gobsmackingly good” looking nose undercarriage leg.

Your a sort of modelling polymath Alan, at the cutting edge of 3D printing and ‘traditional’ multi-media modelling too.  It must be bloomin exhausting :clap::D

 

Thanks Steve.    Exhausting as in I'm sick and tired of all this filling and sanding?

 

In a strange turn of events, I got thoroughly sick of all that filling and sanding and even although the intakes weren't quite finished, I couldn't take it any longer and had to stick something together.  I reckoned it couldn't really be that much harder to sand the intakes while they were attached to the fuselage so I threw caution to the wind, my coat on a chair, and slapped some glue on the fuselage.  

 

P4140001.jpg

 

Classic Airframes, never being one to disappoint, provide you with a myriad of choices.  You can align the top half of the wing with the fuselage and have dihedral, or you can align the bottom half of the wing with the fuselage and get anhedral, or set it somewhere in between and go for pot luck.  I chose to at least try for some degree of dihedral. (see wot I did there?)

Having no positive engagement anywhere also adds an element of fun to the proceedings.  CA do provide a small ledge-like sticky out bit on the upper and lower half of the wing stub though it really would have been nice of them to at least try and make those ledges the same heights as the wing halves. 

It's very much a case of stick it on, hold it in place until your hands go numb, try and position it like a baby Orca swooshing through the oggin, then keep double checking every few minutes to check it hasn't slipped somewhere.

The top seam turned out reasonably ehrrrr... average

 

P4140002.jpg

 

On the lower side we have a nice gap just ripe for more filling and sanding opportunities.

... and a small step.

 

P4140003.jpg

 

I had so much fun with that it made me want to try it again.

 

P4140004.jpg

 

But this time it's just a little more exciting as you have now got to try and match the random dihedral that you ended up with the first time around.

I think I got something close, but I ain't gonna try and measure it

 

P4150005.jpg

 

This time around it's more of a gigantic gaping gorge than a gap.

 

P4150006.jpg

 

Bet hey!  As well as the gaping chasm we also have a lovely step to contend with.   Achhh, dinnae worry, it's only about a millimeter and a half   :yikes:

it's the kit that just keeps on giving innit? 

Had the step been t'other way around it would have been easy to insert a wedge to open up the wing at the root, however trying to reduce the height at that region is nigh on impossible. It takes a great deal of force to close that opening and glue would just never hold it.  The plastic is like concrete and it would take screws to pull both wing halves together.

No! I'm not doing it.

 

P4150007.jpg

 

The only alternative I see is to use a wedge along the wing rood to try and disguise (not eliminate) the mismatch.

 

P4150009.jpg

 

No surprise that it now leaves me with a sharp transition from wing to fuselage at the wing root whereas it should be a nice generous radius. Maybe I should think about filling and sanding it   

:wall:

 

P4150010.jpg

 

In a drastic break from tradition, I decided to attempt some progress and moved to the back end.  A couple of holes were drilled, one for the tail light which is completely missed on the kit, and one for the pitot, also completely missed, along with all the other things they completely missed. At least they're consistent.

YES! those will get filled and sanded later. Sheesh! give a guy a break why don't you?

 

P4170018.jpg

 

I thought I would try a little dry fit here to see what I'm up against later ('cos I haven't got enough to be up against right now in this build :mental:)

Lets try a little game now.  What's wrong with this picture?

 

P4150012.jpg

 

Okay then. Omitting the fact that the front half of the aircraft is missing, let's just focus on the three bits that are there.

Starboard boom: slight short shot on the extreme end.

Port boom: larger short shot on the extreme end.

Tail surface: longer than the booms.

 

This is where it all gets a bit confusing:  Checking references I found that there appeared to be several configurations of the tail. Most of them however had the tail surface stopping well short of the end of the booms. In fact the tail surface stops short of the rear edge of the rudder.  How to deal with this then?

Out came the SIHRSC and I removed a millimeter or so off the front edge of the tail surface, reshaped it and then a bit of tweaking here and a it of tweaking there and we have this.

 

P4170019.jpg

 

Better? Maybe, but not by much.

Cue intense reference checking again - and then I noticed that on the CA kit, the tail surface starts too far back on those knobbly bits sitting atop the booms. On the CA kit, the horizontal tail surface starts in line with the base of the tail fin.

Here you can see that the horizontal surface starts well ahead of the tail fin and much closer to the head of the knobbly bullet.

 

De_Havilland_DH-100_Vampire_2_ExCC.jpg

 

Maybe I shouldn't have SIHRSCed the front end of the tail surface off after all.  It may have been simpler just to move the whole thing forward. 

Now I've seen this it cannot be unseen, so I'm going to have to move the tail surface forward and deal with the consequences, come what may.

 

By this time I was all but micromeshed out so to delay the onset of brain death out came the primer and airbrush - I figured it was time to see just how bad this was.

On first glance it doesn't look too bad.

 

P4170014.jpg

 

Definitely some more work needed, but it's not terrible

 

P4170015.jpg

 

Well, maybe some bits of it are not terrible, but some sure are

 

P4170016.jpg

 

It looks a lot better from head on though.  The intakes are looking a lot better than where they started out

 

P4170013.jpg

 

There's even a passing nod to symmetry (if you squint hard enough).  I think I've got it overall shape-wise, I just need to concentrate on what was it again?  That F-word.  Oh yes... filling. Filling and sanding. More filling and sanding

then some filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and :angry:

 

where's that Wapiti when you need one?

 

 

 

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I’m trying to think what’s left that won’t fit. Did you try the canopy yet? I can’t seem to remember. too much dust in the noggin. 😣 Good luck with moving the tail. At least she’s moving in the right direction. Those intakes do look good you know.😀

 

Johnny

 

 

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Oh my, this is really a lot of work :frantic:And extremely patience trying too....

 

I agree with the above, intakes looking just the biz now :clap:

 

Ciao 

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