Review Build Vultee Vengeance Mk.II 1:48 Dora Wings

[Mike]

23 minutes ago, georgeusa said:

I am completely confident you will work out a solution to the tail wheel problem that will go along and blend in with this great build.

Thanks George I have made up a new tail-wheel assembly that's a mixture of soldered brass and styrene, and after losing the first one 10 minutes after finishing it, I decided to toughen up the second one, in the hope it'll last.  It sacrifices some of the finer details, but they're so far inside the bay that they'd never be seen anyway, so I figured why not?  I've got to paint it up yet, and will add it after I've done the chipping, which I've been shying away from for some reason I've got the main gear legs on now though, so it's a bit easier to have it sat in front of me.  Pics later

[Mike]

I did a bit of weathering and streaking on the Vengeance last night, and decided that I could remove some of the masking, as the majority of the painting is finished now.  I started at the front and worked my way back until I got to one pane on the rear slider, which I couldn't seem to get off.  There was a reason for that, dummy here had forgotten to mask it, and hadn't noticed before I started spraying paint all over it I had a careful look at it and considered scraping it off, until it occurred to me that I'd Kleared the canopy, as usual.  Why is that worthy of note?  Because once upon a time I decided to re-dip a painted canopy in Klear, and it brought all the paint off! So, in advance of getting out the caustic chemicals, I dropped the part into my decanted Klear bottle (and old Lifecolor pot), and went in for the evening to watch some TV.

 

Today I looked at the pot, and it was a pooey brown colour, which was a good sign.  I agitated it and it turned a darker shade of brown, with lots of bits swirling round.  I pulled out the part and washed it in some clean water to get rid of any residue, and I was pleased to find that it was almost pristine! Here's a pic of the stripped canopy, and the goopy mess it made of my Klear.  It's a shame to waste a thimbleful of Klear, but the other option was trying to get a spare canopy. It was a no-brainer really.

 

 

I'll remask it, line it with Blutak so I don't get any overspray on the inside, paint it whichever colour it was (I've forgotten), and crack on, which should be a little easier now that the Claude is finished

[billn53]

I’ve achieved the same result by soaking my Klear-treated parts in ammonia-based glass cleaner.

[Mike]

1 hour ago, billn53 said:

I’ve achieved the same result by soaking my Klear-treated parts in ammonia-based glass cleaner.

It's all good learning stuff I've got a bottle of 5% ammonia solution that I've just found again after 2 years of it being lost post workshop-refit, and that would probably do the trick too.  I wanted to be sure that it wouldn't marr the surface or clarity of the part, and the Klear bottle was right there.

 

Tell you what though, slip-ups like this are yet another reason why Klearing a canopy is a damn good idea, as it gives you a layer of redundancy if you stuff it up like I did

[Mike]

I'm becoming convinced that my desk has a wormhole on it.  I cut the radio antenna off the sprue, cut three more tiny parts off, and then looked down.  The antenna was gone.  Can't find it anywhere.  I hoovered the desk and the floor.  nothing.  Even checked all my clothing and elbow braces, just in case it had lodged there.  Nope. Using the sprue photo resized to fit the real sprue, I've just made yet another small part from scratch, using a piece of 2mm x 0.8mm rod as the starting point.

 

The Vengeance seems to be fighting me on the little things.  on the upside, the canopy is repainted, and this time I masked ALL the panes I might take a pic tomorrow if I don't lose my camera

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

7 minutes ago, Mike said:

I'm becoming convinced that my desk has a wormhole on it.  I cut the radio antenna off the sprue, cut three more tiny parts off, and then looked down.  The antenna was gone.  Can't find it anywhere.  I hoovered the desk and the floor.  nothing.  Even checked all my clothing and elbow braces, just in case it had lodged there.  Nope. Using the sprue photo resized to fit the real sprue, I've just made yet another small part from scratch, using a piece of 2mm x 0.8mm rod as the starting point.

 

The Vengeance seems to be fighting me on the little things.  on the upside, the canopy is repainted, and this time I masked ALL the panes I might take a pic tomorrow if I don't lose my camera

I hate when those wormholes show up, it can be a major annoyance. 

[Mike]

Got a wriggle on and finished this today.  I had to replace the pitot probe because it was just too flimsy, so I took some brass rod, chucked it in my new Proxxon motor tool and sharpened it, then cut it to length and shaved off the little barb off the kit one and glued it to it.  painted it silver and off it went.  I fitted the tail wheel and some of the other tiny bits including the main gear bay doors, which weirdly had that piece of brass turn up, after one of the others pinged off, so I was back to square one with that. Oh well.

 

I've taken some pics and will post up an RFI in a minute, even though I've still got to put the PE sight on the coaming.  I also broke off the tail wheel again when I fumbled it while taking the pics

 

 

The rest of the pics are here in the RFI Thanks for watching, I've really enjoyed building this model, which is an awesome piece of engineering, with very few gotchas