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BOAC Vickers Super VC.10 - Finished 11/07/22


nimrod54

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A bit of a late start but I think that I should be able to wrap this one up before the GB finishes. With plenty of military aircraft being built I decided to switch from my original plan to complete an Airfix Shackleton MR.2, bought as a gift by Mrs N when it was initially released, and join in the fun with this very British subject. The kit decals look a little fuzzy around the edges so I have ordered a set from 26 Decals which are on the way.

 

Here are the box and contents shots.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

John.

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I was looking at the real thing at Brooklands on Sunday and thinking what a great looking plane it was. One of those machines that still looks fast even when they are in a museum. 

Excellent choice 

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29 minutes ago, Colin W said:

I was looking at the real thing at Brooklands on Sunday and thinking what a great looking plane it was. One of those machines that still looks fast even when they are in a museum. 

Excellent choice 

 

I agree Colin, it's a lovely looking aeroplane. I had a trip to Brooklands a few years ago, but didn't manage to fit everything in that day. I think that a revisit is required. 

You have probably seen the footage of the Vanguard's arrival, but here is a link anyway.

 

Vanguard's arrival at Brooklands Museum.

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I didn't realise that the Vanguard had been flown in so thanks for sharing the video.  I have a soft spot for the Vanguard as it deserved to do well but the Viscount seemed to get the glory. 

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I have fond memories of the VC-10 - a beautiful plane. Back in around 1970 in my final year at Uni I went for a lot of job interviews, including one with BAC at Weybridge but I think by then they were dismantling the jigs for the VC-10 as production had stopped. I got to walk round what is left of the Goodwood racing circuit and saw Barnes Wallace's office, and I also went up to Warton - the old English Electric factory. Whilst I was there they killed some time between interviews by sitting me in a VC-10 control testing rig - basically a seat on a platform with a control column which was being moved backwards and forward to see how long it was before it broke - at least I think that was at Warton as my memory is going. On another interview I got to walk through the fuselage of one of the Concord prototypes under assembly still in yellow Zinc Chromate primer or whatever. I think it was the production prototype (01 or 02?) and as I don't remember ever going to Filton I assume it was when I went to Hatfield - does that make sense?

 

Anyway, I will watch this build with great interest as the only one I ever built was the old Airfix 1/144 kit.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Welcome to the GB, this kit will be a good fit. The Super VC10 is huge!

I recently got the same kit, although I might try to convert mine to a VC10 C1, not an easy task.

20042022_125400_0397_D3300

 

20042022_125826_0437_D3300

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I finally made a start on my entry for the GB today, fettling, sanding, and even gluing bits together. No cockpit to worry about for this one, so it should be a fairly quick build (that ought to have put the mockers on progress nicely :lol:) which means that I should be able to get the fuselage together later. This kit has very thin trailing edges on the wings rudder and tailplanes, and whilst that is a nice touch, it does make the corners prone to bending or breaking - several of those in my kit have suffered from one or the other, particularly the wings. I will patch them up after I have tidied up the joins. Here are the results of my labours so far.

 

52113058584_28c416c69a_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

Back with more soon.

John

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After adding some weight to the nose, I glued the fuselage together last night. Then today I sprayed the inside of the canopy with some matt black and fixed that in place along with the nose and tailcone.

 

52114900071_4e87a6dd5c_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

I had noticed that one of the fuel dump pipes had been broken off one wing and couldn't be found in the box, so I did a small repair with a piece of tubing, the other side looks odd, which means that I will have to replace that too. At this point I decided to repair the damaged corners on the wingtips rather than wait until after cleaning the wings up, I filled the damaged areas with superglue and will tidy them up once I start to tidy things up.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

I have assembled the engine pods and these have had an initial clean up, the tail parts had the seams tidied up before a coat of primer was applied.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

And finally I had a test fit of the rear components to the fuselage.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

Due to some sinking around the windows, the fuselage will take a few sessions for me to clean up, but I should be back soon with a further progress report.

 

Cheers.

 

John

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Colin. I have done some more work on it since the last update. The wings have been cleaned up and primed, the top and bottom joins of the fuselage have had an initial clean up, and the lower join requires another round of filling and sanding to sort things out. I have also noticed quite a bit of sinking around the cabin windows, and there is an area on one side where plastic has leaked around the window openings when moulding. The only solution will be to fill the window openings and sand the area to smooth everything out, so I will be using decals for those. 

I still hope to have it finished and in the gallery before the end of the GB, and I'll take photos showing my progress so far tomorrow.

 

Cheers

John.

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As promised, here is a photo update of progress so far.

 

  • Wings tidied up and primed.

 

52143531924_671e8bdba2_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

  • Fuselage seam on the underside has had a second layer of filler and the window panels are masked ready for filling.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

  • The next two photos show the issues around the windows mentioned in the previous post, this has led me to making the decision to fill and sand those areas.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

I have since applied the filler and the fuselage has been set aside to allow that to harden up.

 

John

 

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The window panels have had an initial sanding, after that they were wiped down with some IPA to remove the dust.

 

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

I then applied some Mr Surfacer 1000,  and the fuselage has now been set aside to allow the filler to harden up before giving the window panels what I hope will be, a final sand and polish.

 

52149277221_2034b10c50_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

52149514154_f25ca0c80f_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

Back with more soon.

John

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I finished the sanding of the fuselage windows this morning and then removed the tape before sanding back the slight ridge left by the filler. Once I had done that I started the polishing process. The next job will be reinstating any panel lines lost during the sanding process, after that I can get some primer on and check if any further filling/sanding is needed before I start more assembly work.

 

52151968519_10c86e598f_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

52152222310_8e46d6ea1f_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

John.

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Successfully filling airliner windows always seems to be harder to do than you'd think ;).  It looks like yours are coming along nicely though John.

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On 17/06/2022 at 06:37, CliffB said:

Successfully filling airliner windows always seems to be harder to do than you'd think ;).  It looks like yours are coming along nicely though John.

 

Thanks Cliff. I rescribed the fuselage yesterday and then added the tail and engines before priming. When I checked the windows over, there was still evidence of some sinking so I have refilled those areas along with a few rescribing errors. I also noticed a profile change just behind the canopy on one side probably due to some over zealous sanding, so I had to build that back up with some filler. I am going leave all of that to dry before I knock everything back.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

52164911332_6a031e87da_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

John

  

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A further sanding session a couple of days ago finally sorted things out and I was much happier with the result.

 

52171552988_d535193df5_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

52171548746_3c3228e7b5_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

This is how the fuselage looks after a further coat of primer.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

52172030215_8ac3f69169_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

Time now to push on with assembling the rest of the major parts and get this ready for some paint.

 

John

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Having discovered that the decals that I have bought are for a VC.10 and not the Super VC.10, I decided to bite the bullet and airbrush the blue areas of the cheatline, fin and engine pods using Humbrol Midnight Blue. Fortunately the details like lettering, door outlines, escape hatches and Speedbirds etc are separate decals and I should be able to cobble a code together from what is left. The second sheet includes window decals of both VC.10 and SVC.10, so I don't forsee any issues there. 

Anyway, painting has started and here are photos of progress so far. My plan now is to use a copy of the kit decals to create masks and spray grey on the wings, tailplanes and lower fuselage before further masking for the white.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

52188842679_559937ddd4_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

And I also made sure that I had plenty of coverage on the underside to allow for the drop in the lower part of the cheatline.

 

52189072850_3cfb4c37b4_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

That;s all  for now.

 

John

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I spent yesterday afternoon masking up the Midnight Blue areas, I had intended to use copies of the decal sheet to create masks but decided to freehand it in the end. I hope to get more paint on later.

 

52197988424_6b4c96e4a9_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

52197721586_d63938b4d0_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

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Thanks Adam. It turned too cool and windy to spray outside on Wednesday, so it was Thursday evening before I was able to get the grey painting done, after that had dried I masked off for the white, which went on yesterday. With the main painting done I unmasked things for these photos a short while ago, I can forsee a long decalling session tonight if I am to have any hope of finishing off painting and adding the small details tomorrow.

 

52204534666_78682a13b3_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

52204534746_60160d379d_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

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I am afraid that this one won't quite make it across the finish line chaps and chapesses. After a mammoth decal session last night, the first job this morning was to mark the locations for the top and bottom aerials and then to drill those out and after that I fixed the wings in place. Then due to some misaligned parts on sprues F, I set about cleaning up all of the undercarriage parts as best as I could, that meant removing the locating ring in one half of the mainwheels (x8) and checking the alignment, once satisfied I glued those together and started painting them up. The blade aerials and pitots are one the same sprues and these needed to be tidied up two, however two of those would eventually prove to be unusable, so I will need to scratch a couple of replacements from plastic strip. I then fixed the undercarriage legs in place which brought me to this stage.

 

52207548238_e38f3b3e21_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr 

 

52208022965_48b84e178a_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

This evening I painted up the forward turbines and engine exhausts then it was time to fit the wheels and undercarriage doors. Once they had set up it was on with the usable aerials (minus 2) and pitots and that brought me to this stage. 

 

52207795059_5af50fe875_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

52208022670_149d19c60b_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

I reckon that the model is about 99% complete with some paint required on the front of the nacelles, the two small blade aerials to sort and a clear coat to seal everything in to wrap it up, but after a very late night and the heat of today, I am too tired to continue so it will be an early night for me and I will look at this with fresh eyes tomorrow.

 

Cheers for now.

John

 

 

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I completed this over the course of today and took these photos a short time ago, I could just about squeeze it into my portable photo studio. 

 

52209004372_686ca0fd7a_b.jpg

by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

My thanks to Adam for allowing me to enter the GB at a late stage, sorry that it didn't quite make the gallery.

 

@PeterB I have been checking up on your Test Rig experience at Warton (?) but haven't come across anything to date. The only testing that I have come across was done at Weybridge or Filton but that does not mean that there may have been something done at Warton. I will keep looking and let you know should I come acros anything for flight controls.

 

John.

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  • nimrod54 changed the title to BOAC Vickers Super VC.10 - Finished 11/07/22

Hi John,

 

Nice build.

 

No worries, probably Weybridge then and my memory is wrong - after all it would have been over 50 years ago! I certainly had interviews at Weybridge, Hatfield and Wharton, not to mention Leyland trucks where I got to sit in the cab of their prototype turbine powered lorry - whatever happened to that?

 

Pete

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