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New Tool Vulcan B2 - "rivet counted" build X2 - second build now active


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32 minutes ago, STRAT'71 said:

Could you not apply Tamiya Extra Thin around the joint to soften it?

Problem then is how do I reposition it correctly and hold it in place without being able to apply downwards pressure on it

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1 minute ago, Adam Poultney said:

Problem then is how do I reposition it correctly and hold it in place without being able to apply downwards pressure on it

You could drill two small holes and fit some small screws to pull on, or glue two plastic bits of sprue, and then remove them with Tamiya Extra Thin when bay has set.

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Ok so I have a plan of attack for this. I think if I am able to remove the cockpit, that it should go back on without much of an issue as I reckon with the rest of the model now assembled the joints will hold their shape. 

Once it's removed, I'll carefully cut out a section of the bulkhead at the front where the cockpit joins, leaving the lip the cockpit attaches to. Then I will remove the wheel well, which I will have much better access to from in front, clean up any glue mess that would mean it won't go in properly and then reattach it in the correct position. I'll use a file, brush, pen or something to apply downwards pressure over the whole length of the subassembly until it remains in place.

Once it's thoroughly dry I will test fit the gear to ensure that I've got it right before reattaching the cockpit and redoing all the seams around it.

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Adam Poultney said:

Ok so I have a plan of attack for this. I think if I am able to remove the cockpit, that it should go back on without much of an issue as I reckon with the rest of the model now assembled the joints will hold their shape. 

Once it's removed, I'll carefully cut out a section of the bulkhead at the front where the cockpit joins, leaving the lip the cockpit attaches to. Then I will remove the wheel well, which I will have much better access to from in front, clean up any glue mess that would mean it won't go in properly and then reattach it in the correct position. I'll use a file, brush, pen or something to apply downwards pressure over the whole length of the subassembly until it remains in place.

Once it's thoroughly dry I will test fit the gear to ensure that I've got it right before reattaching the cockpit and redoing all the seams around it.

 

 

 

Best of luck.

On mine I omitted to fit the engine blades. 
Had great fun fitting the round bits down the intakes. Got there in the end.

I still think my method is the best to try first.

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Hello everyone.               Rivet counting - door entrance hyd jacks.

 

Firstly sorry to hear about the nose wheel well.

 

Airfix should of been on the ball, this little omission would have been nice as it would have set the door at the correct angle.  Here’s a few photos from my museum visits.


XL360 Coventry.
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Mrs B…… may look a little miffed, but I know that she’s smiling on the inside!!!!  😁
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XL360 intake.

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XL318 Hendon.

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XM575 East Midlands Aero Park.

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Thanks for looking.       😉

 

 

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IMG_20210809_204428

 

The Vulcan has had its surgery. It didn't quite go as smoothly as I hoped, the wheel well ended up fully disassembled as the top came off while I was testing for weak spots to start breaking the joint It really wasn't very well glued on. But in the end it's all in the right place now and the landing gear fits correctly. The cockpit fits back on smoothly upon dryfitting and I've just reglued it back in place, hopefully I can get the first new round of filler on that later tonight. 

I don't know how much I'm going to get done on this tomorrow, I'm getting my A Level results and will be sorting out a bunch of stuff for uni, then spending the evening out with friends. 

 

And thanks to @amos brierleyfor posting those pictures of the crew door. I see a potential area for some aftermarket company to really improve, both with the actual door itself and just inside the entrance.

 

Edited by Adam Poultney
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18 hours ago, Harry Lime said:

 

Like Adam, I'm not quite understanding the question. Do you mean the difference between the pale anti-flash shades of roundels vs. Roundel Blue and Post Office Red? If so, no operational B2 in the overall white scheme wore RB/PO Red roundels, only a few early production ones involved in trials.

 

No. Whilst vehicles were specified to be painted in BS381C 633 RAF Blue Grey, ground support equipment (GSE) was specified to be painted BS381C 169 Traffic Blue. This link to the IWM website gives an idea of the two shades, compare the Land Rover and tractor with the Blue Steel handling trolley.

 

Regards,

 

Mark.

Sorry guys, I did mean the normal Red, White, Blue as opposed to the pale colors I normally associate with the white bombers.

 

And thanks for the link on the traffic blue.

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7 hours ago, philp said:

Sorry guys, I did mean the normal Red, White, Blue as opposed to the pale colors I normally associate with the white bombers.

 

And thanks for the link on the traffic blue.

Ok so for Vulcan B2s, the first few in white mostly had the full shade roundels. Ones that definitely had this early scheme included XH533, XH534, XH535, XH536, XH537, possibly XH538, XH539 and XH558. 

Pale roundels were then introduced fleetwide and the roundels on the early ones were toned down, except XH535 which crashed, XH533 which was scrapped in the original scheme, and I think XH537 retained them as it was in use as a testbed for Skybolt. 

When camouflage was introduced, full shade roundels made a return. In the early camo scheme, the 84" roundel was absent from the right wing. 

Later the Type D roundels were replaced with the two colour roundels displayed on the majority of surviving examples today. This change began in the summer of 1972 and was gradual as aircraft were serviced and repainted. However, some aircraft particularly from the NEAF at Akrotiri had the roundels quickly painted over and as a result were missing the right one and retained the full white underside. There was a bunch of variation from there that I can go into if you want for the schemes with two colour roundels

IMG_20210810_131951~2

 

Canopy masked. 

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On 09/08/2021 at 15:50, Adam Poultney said:

Does anyone see a slight issue with the nose wheel well here? I just realised it's positioned too far back. With the fuselage sealed up and the nose on, I have no idea how I'm going to fix this. The landing gear certainly won't fit unless I do fix it.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this short of cutting off the nose?

 

The relative sizes and position for the nose wheel bay - measured on the actual airframe - are:

 

                                                                     Length                  Model

                                                                Inches      cm               mm

Crew Door                                                 61         155                22

Crew door to nose wheel bay                   27           69                10

Nose wheel bay                                      129          328               46

Nose wheel bay to bomb bay                  75          191               26

                                               

Front of nose wheel bay is                                           

forward of wing root LE by:                      5            13                 2

 

Model length calculations rounded to whole mm.

 

For an open crew door:

                                                                     Actual               Model

                                                                Inches     cm            mm

Length of rams  (extended)                      52         132            18

Attachment, from LE of door                   32           81            11

 

Angle between open door and forward fuselage = 135o

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Quite an update here, the nose was reattached and the seam removed again.

I've also put it on the gear temporarily as I've added the ECM plates and I don't want to risk damaging the parts there. A number of small air scoops and other parts were added at this point as well.

 

IMG_20210814_140818 IMG_20210814_175339

 

I cleared a bit of space in my display cabinet to fit the Vulcan. It'll go next to my Airfix Valiant for now, also it's quite a convinient place to put it when I need some desk space.

IMG_20210814_175330

 

 

Intakes! You can see how the first rough coat of paint has suffered in the seam removal efforts. My plan is to cover the intake blanks and white portion with blue tack and then u can easily airbrush in new paint, making any corrections by brush. Speaking of airbrushes I bought two new needles and tips for it last Monday, haven't had a chance to try them out yet but I figured I'd want my airbrush working at its best for freehand camouflage.

IMG_20210814_175424

 

 

Other intake, this is the one which was installed as per the instructions. The white is a little damaged so I'll have to fix that before I put in some blue tack.I also forgot to glue this intake blank in place which I just haven't gotten around to fixing yet, it's not going anywhere once it's in. 

IMG_20210814_175403

 

3D decal on the inside of the canopy

IMG_20210815_013126

 

 

 

Corrections were made to the gear as advised by @general melchett, the lower bracing strut was removed and I added the bit which is painted black here. I simply cut it off a set of old tool Vulcan gear I have lying around that I removed from one that I put on a stand and then attached it to the new gear. Still need to do that on the other side's gear but it's a pretty easy modification. Just need to source another set of old tool gear to nick these off for my other kit when I carry on building that one.

IMG_20210814_140726

 

 

 

Another error in the kit, parts K8 and K9 should be swapped. They're the wrong way around. The incorrect instructions are clearly just edited copies of the instructions for the Victor's Blue Steel Missile, which also has this error. It's been known about for a while now, come on Airfix... letting yourself down again with this....

FB_IMG_1629040175775

 

 

 

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On doing some more research, it appears that XM594 likely had the TFR mod in its 1966 refit. I'll be leaving the circular cap as is on this kit rather than blending it in and extending the panel lines. If I was going to do this, my method would involve making a cut in the part between the nose tip and IFR probe, only glueing on the tip and then doing all the work to properly blend it in. The IFR probe would be added after painting (Vulcan IFR probes really like to be broken!)

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IMG_20210816_131732312

Canopy interior colour is sprayed on. This is very important on a Vulcan as it will throw the whole look if the windows aren't quite dark; on my 1/200 scale ones I've started painting the windows instead of masking because it simply looks better at that scale.

I've also corrected the other main gear now, no point in another photo, it's the same as the first one. I managed to slip with the xacto knife and stab a finger removing the parts from the old tool gear though... I'm fine, no real damage just a cut

Edited by Adam Poultney
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On 09/08/2021 at 19:48, amos brierley said:

XL318 Hendon.

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Hmmm never noticed this but, now this is total guesswork, that horizon panel in the intake looks to be about the right size to be the difference between early narrow intakes and later wide ones. The difference was all in the lower part... something to look into further I think

 

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I might be totally crazy ... no I definitely am ... but I'm considering trying to build up the white underside from black primer. I tried this on my recent 1/144 diecast Valiant repaint and it worked very well.

Here's that Valiant if you haven't seen it:

PSX_20210802_154217

It means I can basically skip the entire step of preshading the underside, and instead build up tonal variation as I paint the white (I purposefully did the Valiant as very clean so it's not so visible on that). I have no trouble at all building up a good solid white on a black base so I don't see why not. I also don't particularly want to wait for ideal weather to go outside and spray this Vulcan from a spray can (the white primer I use is from a spray can, I really should get an airbrushable one....)

 

 

 

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On 16/08/2021 at 22:43, amos brierley said:

Hello everyone.          Rivet counting - ahead by a nose.

 

A little off piste: 

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😉

 

 

 

 

Perhaps just a little small to bother with in 1/72, that really is literal rivet counting 😂

 

Anyway, quite an update this evening. The Vulcan was primed yesterday afternoon

IMG_20210816_173339

 

Tin triangles look good in black

IMG_20210816_173302

 

 

I hope I have enough white paint for this and a few other builds I have planned! I accidentally bought more than I needed because I didn't think I had as much as I did... Oh well, I will definitely get through it all eventually.

IMG_20210816_182138

 

 

After one layer it's pretty patchy

IMG_20210816_184118

 

But after the second it was much better, I forgot to take any photos until I'd masked off the underside.

IMG_20210817_190120

 

 

First use of my new fine detail airbrush needle and tip for this preshading, I used Vallejo white for this despite my abundance of Tamiya white.

IMG_20210817_181100

In some places it's not brilliant but it's a preshade so it doesn't matter too much

IMG_20210817_184219

 

IMG_20210817_184228

 

 

For the camouflage I have chosen to use Hataka paints which I had some success with on a Blenheim, Whitley and another Vulcan. 

Most Vulcans in camouflage were painted with Medium Sea Grey and Dark Green, the exact formulation of the paints changed over time but on paper they should have been the same colour (in reality the colours on Vulcans varied quite a bit, mostly down to fading and some Vulcans going quite a while between repaints). Grey first, roughly freehanded only where it should be so I leave the areas for the green with a preshade and don't have to redo that.

IMG_20210817_192931

 

IMG_20210817_202204

 

An important step which is easy to miss is masking the radome. The rear portion is always grey on early camo schemes, the green doesn't go on it until much later. Some Vulcans had the radome removed when the green was applied, such as this one; others had the camouflage pattern modified with a "sweeping edge" to avoid the radome, therefore only having a narrow band of green on one side. XH558 is an example of one which had the "sweeping edge" style iirc

 

IMG_20210817_202837

 

 

IMG_20210817_202848

 

 

And then the green. This is sprayed on freehand to allow for a visibly soft edge to the camouflage, I choose to exaggerate this effect on my models so it looks visually distinct from camouflage applied with a hard edge starting in April 1967. I will be going back with grey and correcting areas in not happy with, which is easy to do without having to remask anything. 

IMG_20210817_205702

With adjustments made, I'm happy with this. It's a pretty good generic Vulcan camouflage for the time period. Due to the lack of photos I've seen of the upper surfaces of XM594 after the 1966 repaint, I cannot replicate the unique aspects of XM594's camouflage; all Vulcans had slight differences in their camouflage, some more recognisable than others. With enough suitable reference photos you can identify most Vulcans by their camo pattern if clues in the configuration are not enough. 

The advantage of having painted this camo pattern ten times is that I can do it quite quickly now.

IMG_20210817_215419

 

Tomorrow I'll apply the black to the radome, silver to the underside of the ECM plates and then do any details that want painting instead of decals. I'll then put on a gloss coat and hopefully get the first decals on. Or alternatively I might paint the landing gear... 

 

I've not decided what I'll do with the final finish of the model, they were painted gloss but it quickly faded to a satin or even matt finish, I could do it fairly dirty and worn or I could do it as if it were fresh from having a new coat of paint applied.

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On 8/9/2021 at 3:50 PM, Adam Poultney said:

Does anyone see a slight issue with the nose wheel well here? I just realised it's positioned too far back. With the fuselage sealed up and the nose on, I have no idea how I'm going to fix this. The landing gear certainly won't fit unless I do fix it.

 

Hi Adam, the Vulcan is coming on nicely. Quick question was the nose wheel bay too far back because the location is wrong in the kit or was it a placement error?

 

Thanks,


Mark

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2 minutes ago, FZ6 said:

 

Hi Adam, the Vulcan is coming on nicely. Quick question was the nose wheel bay too far back because the location is wrong in the kit or was it a placement error?

 

Thanks,


Mark

It was my error, can't blame the kit for that one. I think Airfix's instructions could be a little clearer there, but I didn't read them closely enough and got it wrong. I thought I had it aligned correctly, checked it and all but I think it was wrong all along

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Radome time! Airfix have correctly not split the radome like most kits do. They tend to put a panel line halfway back where the black bit ends. Airfix is correct, but the panel line in other kits is useful and in smaller scales rarely visible. Along that line would have been a very good place to put the nose tip joint as it would at least look right if it was left as is.

IMG_20210818_171031

 

 

If we go back to my photos of XH563 from earlier in the thread, we can see where the black portion should end, a little further back than where the top of the radome levels out. Also, kit manufacturers looking to do Vulcans take note of this, it is NOT a flat line along the top. This gets done badly on some kits, looking at you old Airfix, Trumpeter and Cyberhobby/Dragon.

IMG_20210718_131040

 

And again the shape on a white Vulcan, Woodford's beautifully restored Vulcan, XM603. I think I mentioned this earlier but don't use this as reference for the configuration of a white Vulcan, 603 still has a lot of bits from when she was retired, the changes made at the museum make her look like an authentic white Vulcan very well indeed, but it would be impossible to do it perfectly within a reasonable budget. This Vulcan is one of my favourites preserved.

IMG_20200822_114215974

 

A couple more bits to be painted black. The ECM plates at the back will be silver but I'll base them in black first.

IMG_20210818_171026

After that and the application of a gloss coat, it's a shiny Vulcan!

IMG_20210822_100645

 

 

IMG_20210822_100613

 

 

IMG_20210822_100712

 

 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, Adam Poultney said:

Radome time! Airfix have correctly not split the radome like most kits do. They tend to put a panel line halfway back where the black bit ends. Airfix is correct, but the panel line in other kits is useful and in smaller scales rarely visible. Along that line would have been a very good place to put the nose tip joint as it would at least look right if it was left as is.

IMG_20210818_171031

 

 

If we go back to my photos of XH563 from earlier in the thread, we can see where the black portion should end, a little further back than where the top of the radome levels out. Also, kit manufacturers looking to do Vulcans take note of this, it is NOT a flat line along the top. This gets done badly on some kits, looking at you old Airfix, Trumpeter and Cyberhobby/Dragon.

IMG_20210718_131040

 

And again the shape on a white Vulcan, Woodford's beautifully restored Vulcan, XM603. I think I mentioned this earlier but don't use this as reference for the configuration of a white Vulcan, 603 still has a lot of bits from when she was retired, the changes made at the museum make her look like an authentic white Vulcan very well indeed, but it would be impossible to do it perfectly within a reasonable budget. This Vulcan is one of my favourites preserved.

IMG_20200822_114215974

 

A couple more bits to be painted black. The ECM plates at the back will be silver but I'll base them in black first.

IMG_20210818_171026

After that and the application of a gloss coat, it's a shiny Vulcan!

IMG_20210822_100645

 

 

IMG_20210822_100613

 

 

IMG_20210822_100712

 

 

 

 

I will be doing my next one with a hard camouflage demarcation. Soft demarcation, although correct in some cases, doesn’t look ‘right’ to me.

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