A Brace of Vampires

[81-er]

I’m jumping into this GB with what I hope should be a fairly quick pair of builds of Airfix’s 1/72 Vampire T11 kit:

 

 

I’ve built one of these previously as the Swedish offering from the kit decals and it was a nice build, so I’ve high hopes for these. Both are going to be built in flight, with the plan being to have them mounted on rods (possibly acrylic) glued into the exhausts so I can pose them slightly nose up and banking, as that sounds more interesting to me than using an Airfix stand and having it in level flight.

 

Aftermarket is being kept to a minimum with these, limited to some very nice Quickboost intakes:

 

 

The only other aftermarket is the decals, for which I’m using an Xtradecal set for overseas Vampires. One is going to be finished in post-independence Rhodesian colours of dark earth & dark green over high speed silver, with the green & white roundels:

 

 

The other is going to be in Chilean colours of a light sandy colour and a brown over a light blue:

 

 

Looking at photos of the actual machines, there’s quite a variation in the colours used, so I’m just going to mix up something I like the look of that roughly ties in with some of the shots.

 

Plastic cutting has started and I now have a stack of parts ready for some primer tonight:

 

 

I’ve also removed all other relevant parts from the sprues (with the exceptions of the clear parts) and assembled the booms for both aircraft.

 

James

[modelling minion]

A great project James, I hope you took some reference shots yesterday.

I built one of these in the Chilean markings a few years ago and really enjoyed it, a very nice kit. I would find it hard to resist the Lebanese one if I built another. I am hoping that Airfix get around to cover the two seaters in 1/48.

 

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[81-er]

I did, some nice shots of the cockpit of the two-seater outside  Did you go for the camo version I'm doing, or the high speed silver machine? I must confess I really like the two-seater Vampires & Venoms, and have many on the mental "to build" list in a lot of interesting schemes. A 1/48 Airfix two-seater would be nice, but with how they've tooled the single-seater, that'd take a lot of retooling. Thankfully Pilot Replicas have one due out very soon...

 

James

[modelling minion]

38 minutes ago, 81-er said:

Did you go for the camo version I'm doing

Indeed I did.

 

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[Marklo]

Welcome to the GB. A lovely kit, I’m building this one too and my one gotya was assembling the wing halves without fitting the booms an RTFM moment and completely my fault. 

[81-er]

Cheers Mark  It's an easy mistake to make, but good to see you caught it in time on your build. Another issue to watch out for is sink marks in the outer flaps on the upper surface. I left them on my first kit as it was a Blitzbuild, but both of these have the same issue and I'll be fixing it this time around.

 

James

[CliffB]

A belated welcome from me too James.  I've got one of these in my stash (for when I get back in to 1/72 mode), so it's good to hear that it's a nice kit .

 

Cheers

[81-er]

Thank you, Cliff  It is a very nice kit, these are proving to be even more enjoyable than the first one as I've already made the mistakes and know how to avoid the worst of them

 

*****

 

 

Figure painting isn’t my strongest ability, so I tend to avoid having to paint figures if I can help it. But building aircraft in flight dictates that there are pilots onboard, so I had to paint some for these. And actually, I’m rather pleased with how they turned out. Especially with the soft detail that Airfix provide.

 

Chilean T11

 

In my research for the external colours, I found some shots of Chilean Vampires with their pilots next to them, and they had olive drab life vests rather than the yellow ones called out in the instructions. I picked those out in a different shade of OD to the uniforms, but it doesn’t show up well, never mind:

 

 

The bulk of the cockpit was painted in dark grey rather than black as from previous experience I know it looks black by the time the cockpit is buttoned up. Plus it gives a bit of contrast to enable me to pick out details in black:

 

 

 

 

IP’s were painted in black and the decals applied before adding the gunsights:

 

 

 

Rhodesian T11

 

The Rhodesian pilots were painted as per the RAF colours from the instructions:

 

 

 

I won’t duplicate the rest of the internals as it’s the same as the Chilean one.

 

A bit of perspective on the size of the cockpits:

 

 

And finally the fuselages were closed up:

 

 

More soon hopefully, I know the pilots are all glued to the edges of their seats for the next instalment…

 

James

[modelling minion]

Very nice work James, the interiors look very good as do the "grow bags" on the seats despite you saying that figure painting isn't a strong point.

 

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[franky boy]

Nice work James

 

Good choices on the colour schemes also. I have a couple of these kits in the stash which I must get around to building so will follow along. 
 

James 

[81-er]

Thanks Craig  I think these are probably my best painted figures so far, and I'm actually quite impressed at how well they've come out, particularly given how they were looking at the part way mark! The wash actually lifted them up from "I guess they'll do" to "oh, they're not that bad actually"

 

James

[81-er]

Just now, franky boy said:

Nice work James

 

Good choices on the colour schemes also. I have a couple of these kits in the stash which I must get around to building so will follow along. 
 

James 

Thanks James  I have a thing for 2-seater Vampires (they look more "finished" and thought-out to me than the single seaters, which just look like they plonked a canopy on them and called it done), and I like a less-common scheme, so these are a win-win. It's a nice kit, thoroughly recommend you dig yours out to build

 

James

[Jose Miguel]

Another latin american bird!!!

I follow your progress

[81-er]

Welcome along, Jose

 

There's not been much progress since I last updated as I've been pushing some of my other builds. I have got the canopies on both aircraft, but it wasn't plain sailing. After managing to get a gluey fingerprint right on top of the main canopy of the Chilean bird (and spending a lot of time polishing it out), I thought I better not do that with the Rhodesian one. So I didn’t. I put one on the starboard quarterlight instead 🤦‍♂️Oh well, at least I can polish that out too

 

James

[Marklo]

21 hours ago, 81-er said:

After managing to get a gluey fingerprint right on top of the main canopy of the Chilean bird

For that very reason I foiled my canopy before fitting with Kristal Klear as the adhesive.

[81-er]

You live and learn, I'd definitely do it differently when I build the remaining unstarted one in the stash. I've got canopy masks for both, I just thought it'd be easier to apply after they were on

 

James

[AdrianMF]

Lovely figure painting! Looking forward to the rest of the build.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[81-er]

Thanks Adrian

 

James

[81-er]

I’ve been beavering away at these in the background, but had a big push yesterday, so I figured an update was due.

 

Chilean T11

 

I’d previously sanded back the glue print on the canopy with finer grades of sanding stick (up to 12,000), followed by a coat of Aqua Gloss to bring the shine back. Then the canopy was masked, and a coat of the internal colour painted on. I’d also done some filling & sanding to the seams on the fuselage.

 

Yesterday’s push saw me fit the intake ducting, then the top wing panel, before adding the Quick Boost resin intakes. Airfix suggest fitting the intakes first, but I found fitting them after the wing allowed me to get a better fit. A bit of a fiddle, but worth it. The tail booms then went through a couple of rounds for filling & sanding (and a little primer to check) before being attached to the wings. I’ve removed the pitot on both aircraft and drilled the fins out to accept brass replacements later.

 

I then added the underside of the wings when that lot was dry. One tip for anyone else thinking of building one of these, don’t glue the edge of the underside wing panel to the fuselage straight away. Glue the outer edges to the upper wing panel and glue around the booms, and set it aside to dry. You can then apply glue to the joint with the fuselage while putting some pressure on it to close the gap, which will minimise the amount of filler needed.

 

Current status of the upper side:

 

 

The white on the outer flaps is filler as they’d suffered with sink marks.

 

And the underside/a dead one:

 

 

You can see where I’ve started to fair in the new intakes there. Only a minor bit of work, and worth it as the intake vanes are much finer than the kit parts.

 

I still need to go around the boom joints and the wing/fuselage junctions with a bit of filler, but it’s getting close to paint now. I’ve left the tailplane off deliberately as it gives better access for sanding, plus I know from my previous build that it pops in nicely later.

 

Rhodesian T11

 

Things have been much the same with this one, though it isn’t quite so far advanced as the Chilean build. I couldn’t managed to sand the glue print off the screen of this one, so I’ve stolen the screen from the other one in the stash (to be replaced later). And managed to drop glue on the top panel 🤦‍♂️ At least it polished out relatively well…

 

I had Montex masks for this one, and they haven’t fitted all that well. I’ve gone with “least worst” fit, but still had to reinforce with tape in a couple of places. I still need to paint the canopy with the interior colour on this one.

 

Upper side:

 

 

Lower side:

 

 

I’ve not glued the lower wing to fuselage joints on this one yet, so you can compare the gaps here with the other build above to see the difference.

 

James

[modelling minion]

Good solid progress mate, they're both looking very much like Vampires now. Thanks for sharing the tips on getting the best fit, very useful 👍. 

 

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[81-er]

Happy to help Craig

 

James

[81-er]

Only a little progress last night, as most of my time was spent on the Spitfire and the Dalek, but I did get some primer on the Chilean bird. As expected, a couple of minor issues to sort, but that won't take long. After that, I'll be popping the tail on and then this one is ready for paint:

 

 

The Rhodesian one is lagging behind a little, I'm still in the first rounds of filler on that.

 

James

[modelling minion]

She looks really good in the black primer James.

 

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[Jose Miguel]

Well.... I miss this one. A rhodesian aircraft will be interesting.....

 

[81-er]

Time for another update.

 

Chilean T11

 

This one’s now hit the paint stage. First off was a mottle coat of Tamiya white & buff, plus some Vallejo RAF Azure:

 

 

That was followed by a blend coat of my home made colour mix for what’s shown in the photos. It isn’t quite as bright as it looks here, but it is definitely a brighter blue than Azure:

 

 

Apologies for the fuzzy image there.

 

The topside has only had the white & buff mottles so far, but with the underside now being blue, it does look somewhat Luftwaffe desert camo circa 1941:

 

 

The next step for that will be masking the underside ready for the top camouflage. I haven’t forgotten the aerials, I’ll be adding them after paint to stop me breaking them off. I have added the brass tube pitot replacement though.

 

Rhodesian T11

 

No pictures of this one, but it’s at the same stage that the other one was at the last update. Quite literally, I could reuse the primer picture and it would be accurate. One or two minor bits to fix there, then that’ll get horizontal tail surfaces and start getting paint as well.

 

James