STRAT'71 Posted August 9, 2021 Share Posted August 9, 2021 Could you not apply Tamiya Extra Thin around the joint to soften it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 9, 2021 Author Share Posted August 9, 2021 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT'71 Posted August 9, 2021 Share Posted August 9, 2021 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 9, 2021 Author Share Posted August 9, 2021 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT'71 Posted August 9, 2021 Share Posted August 9, 2021 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gondor44 Posted August 9, 2021 Share Posted August 9, 2021 Sounds like a plan. Does it involve Turnips? Gondor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amos brierley Posted August 9, 2021 Share Posted August 9, 2021 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. Mrs B…… may look a little miffed, but I know that she’s smiling on the inside!!!! 😁 XL360 intake. XL318 Hendon. XM575 East Midlands Aero Park. Thanks for looking. 😉 7 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 9, 2021 Author Share Posted August 9, 2021 (edited) 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 August 9, 2021 by Adam Poultney 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philp Posted August 10, 2021 Share Posted August 10, 2021 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 10, 2021 Author Share Posted August 10, 2021 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 Canopy masked. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XrayLima Posted August 14, 2021 Share Posted August 14, 2021 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 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 15, 2021 Author Share Posted August 15, 2021 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. 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. 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. 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. 3D decal on the inside of the canopy 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. 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.... 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 16, 2021 Author Share Posted August 16, 2021 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!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 16, 2021 Author Share Posted August 16, 2021 (edited) 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 August 16, 2021 by Adam Poultney 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 16, 2021 Author Share Posted August 16, 2021 On 09/08/2021 at 19:48, amos brierley said: XL318 Hendon. 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 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 16, 2021 Author Share Posted August 16, 2021 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: 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....) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amos brierley Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Hello everyone. Rivet counting - ahead by a nose. A little off piste: 😉 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 18, 2021 Author Share Posted August 18, 2021 On 16/08/2021 at 22:43, amos brierley said: Hello everyone. Rivet counting - ahead by a nose. A little off piste: 😉 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 Tin triangles look good in black 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. After one layer it's pretty patchy But after the second it was much better, I forgot to take any photos until I'd masked off the underside. 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. In some places it's not brilliant but it's a preshade so it doesn't matter too much 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amos brierley Posted August 18, 2021 Share Posted August 18, 2021 Oooohhh. 😯 I like that last photo, your Vulcan is now starting to look nice. 😉 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FZ6 Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 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 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 20, 2021 Author Share Posted August 20, 2021 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 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FZ6 Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 Thanks Adam, that's a great help. I'll take extra care when fitting mine. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Poultney Posted August 22, 2021 Author Share Posted August 22, 2021 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. 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. 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. 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. After that and the application of a gloss coat, it's a shiny Vulcan! 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT'71 Posted August 22, 2021 Share Posted August 22, 2021 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. 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. 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. 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. After that and the application of a gloss coat, it's a shiny Vulcan! 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. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tornado 01 Posted August 22, 2021 Share Posted August 22, 2021 Looking good. Now I have some form of working laptop I will have a look at your list of Vulcans at some point Tim 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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