Airfix Vulcan

[81-er]

With another large box incoming, I needed to make some space in the stash, and this is one of the largest boxes:

 

 

This is actually the second copy of this kit added to the stash, because Jadlam were knocking them out for £40 at Telford and I couldn’t say no at that price. The other one is earmarked to be XL426 (she lives just two miles from my flat) and will be a longer build to be reasonably accurate to how she currently looks. I’ve not decided exactly which Vulcan to build other than I want it to be camouflaged on the top surfaces and not carrying the Blue Steel missile. So I’m just going to build this OOB and not be too worried if I have the right number of blisters etc.

 

I’ve got the cockpit assembled, but only the basics as I know almost none of it will be visible after it’s in the fuselage and it wasn’t worth spending lots of time on the details:

 

 

 

 

The interior of the nose parts have been painted black, with the respective glazing pieces added and masked:

 

 

The tail section has been assembled, with work on the seams ongoing:

 

 

The gear bays have been assembled, a few bits picked out in black, and just await a wash to bring out the rest of the details:

 

 

 

 

The intake splitters have been installed, and the interior of the intakes painted white. I’m going to fit the FOD covers (which are painted and masked ready for fitment), so I don’t need to worry about cleaning up the seams on the intake splitters. Test fitting has shown there’s going to be much fun in dealing with the seams between the top and bottom halves of the intakes. I did start marking the masking line on the intakes, but apparently the paint wasn’t fully hard, and it was damaged, so I’ll be repainting that intake:

 

 

The bomb bay/spar structure has been assembled and attached to the lower wings. I followed a tip from a build online and fitted the wings one at a time, using spots of superglue to get them to grab quickly and following up with my usual glue afterwards. That worked really well, as dry fitting before I found that tip had me wondering where I could get another three hands from! I’ve painted areas that may be visible with the gear bays in place white, ready to add the bays:

 

 

 

Not bad progress for Friday evening and today, especially as I’ve been working on some of my other builds today too.

 

James

[jackroadkill]

Crikey, you don’t hang about, do you?!  Okay, you’ve got 4,621 builds on the go already but you’re cracking on with them all quite nicely. It makes perfect sense to knock out most of a Vulcan in two sittings, doesn’t it?!  Sometimes I think you just do it to show me up!

 

In all seriousness I’ll enjoy seeing what you do with her, because bog standard’s not really your bag, so you must have something up your sleeve….

[81-er]

Thanks mate. I have built a few OOB too. I will say, if you're having the bomb bay shut, you can actually progress this one pretty quickly. 

 

James

[Andrew.S]

Really nice start, good luck with the build!

[81-er]

Thanks Andrew

 

James

[bigbadbadge]

Crikey that was quick progress, looks good too, what a beastie.  This is one kit I would like but cannot fit in the display as too many other big kits 🙄 so will be good to see this one develope.

Great start

Chris

[Retired Bob]

11 hours ago, 81-er said:

The intake splitters have been installed, and the interior of the intakes painted white. I’m going to fit the FOD covers (which are painted and masked ready for fitment), so I don’t need to worry about cleaning up the seams on the intake splitters. Test fitting has shown there’s going to be much fun in dealing with the seams between the top and bottom halves of the intakes.

Hi James, quick progress on your Vulcan.  I thought I'd share a method I found of building the intakes and eliminating the seams.  I didn't want the intake blanks fitted so I did the whole assembly but it's adding the splitter plates, parts E38 & E39 that I thought would be a problem.  After getting the internal intake parts all smooth, you then add those plates and have another clean-up to do.  I worked out that I could assemble the whole thing and fit it during wing assembly.

I was building an early white aircraft so I needed a smooth finish.  After painting they looked like this.

There are the outside edges to blend in but they are to do either way it's assembled.  My big problem was, after all that work was done I checked the seams with a coat of Tamiya matt white which is the paint used in the intakes, it all looked great.  To paint the exterior of this big plane I used Halfords appliance white like everyone recommends, and it reacted with the Tamiya paint, my nice smooth intakes now resemble cracked dry mud.   I foresee lots of sanding and more painting white in my future.  Hopefully you have no problems like this.

[81-er]

Thanks @bigbadbadge, I also have an issue that my current display case is too small for this when it's finished, but I'm on the lookout for a bigger one.

 

@Retired Bob, thanks for that idea. I actually stumbled on that exact approach on another build earlier, and I think I'll go the same route too. That's not good about your intakes, I hope you don't loose too many hours to fixing them. Which also makes me realise that I've done these in acrylics, but I'm likely to use lacquers for the exterior paint. Best get some white lacquer then!

 

James

[Timmas]

I have one (or maybe two, can't remember) of these in my stash as yet unbuilt so I'll follow this with interest. I've done the old Airfix version and am looking forward to tackling this newer one.

 

Nice looking work so far by the way! And I also like the intake assembly shown by @Retired Bob I'll give that a try when I get mine going.

[psdavidson]

@81-er

Are you trying to take over everywhere?

Great progress so far

 

/P

[The Spadgent]

Here you are! I’ll tag along for this. Seems you’re moaning light work this far. The interior is looking lovely. Bravo.

 

 Johnny

[81-er]

On 29/01/2024 at 18:58, psdavidson said:

@81-er

Are you trying to take over everywhere?

Great progress so far

 

/P

I don't know what you mean 

 

On 29/01/2024 at 22:58, The Spadgent said:

Here you are! I’ll tag along for this. Seems you’re moaning light work this far. The interior is looking lovely. Bravo.

 

 Johnny

I am, and I see you've found the Wesserflug build too. I've also got four builds on the go in the WW2 Twins GB I'm hosting.

 

Just a smaller update this time. After locking 40g of weight into the pot Airfix provide for it with some epoxy on Sunday, it was dry enough to attach to the cockpit yesterday:

 

 

I’m not going to assemble the nose section until the wings are closed up, as I’ve seen some other builds where they needed to shim out the nose to fit properly.

 

After thinking about the points Bob raised, I stripped back the acrylic white on the intakes and swapped it for Alclad white primer, as that’s lacquer based. I’ve also assembled the intakes with the external splitter plates to fully blend the seams in one go:

 

 

I’m not sure yet how I’ll mask off the camouflage demarcation now, but realistically anything I did before assembling the intakes would be damaged while dealing with the seams anyway. I’m also not sure if I can get the FOD covers in now either (maybe with some trimming of the sides of them), but it’ll be easier to fix the intakes this way, and if I do a good enough job of that I won’t need the FOD covers to hide anything.

 

I foresee much filler, sanding, and swearing ahead

 

James

[woody37]

Nice progress. Watching with interest as I have one of these and a Victor that keep calling from the stash!

 

Cheers

Neil

[81-er]

Thanks Neil  I'm learning all the mistakes with this one so I can (hopefully) build the other one without issue. The incoming box the "forced" my hand to build this one (cough) contains a Valiant, but I still need to get a Victor for the set. I'm thinking (excluding this one, as I'm still debating the scheme) a trio of XL426 in wrap-around camo, the Valiant as XD818 in anti-flash white, and a Victor bomber (not tanker) in the camo over white scheme will make a nice set.

 

James

[81-er]

Well, it’s been “a while” since this one has had any updates, but as I’d like to have it finished for Telford it’s about time to get moving on it again. There’s been a fair bit of filling and sanding on the intakes since the last update, but that was about all until tonight.

 

I got the nose assembled, including the nosecone and the (closed) crew access door:

 

 

 

The gear bays had been given a wash at some point since the last update, so I got those installed and did some work on the underside seams. Round 2 of filler is drying in the photos:

 

 

 

 

The ECM plates were assembled and primed, as was the tail. I also primed the tailcone to check the seams, and a bit more work is needed there:

 

 

The exhausts have been partially assembled, with some seam cleanup ahead:

 

 

And finally, yet more filler has been thrown at the intakes:

 

 

I’ve decided to have the FOD covers in those, so I only have to make the area in front of those passable.

 

James

[jackroadkill]

Excellent work, James.  You'll have it done by Telford, I'm sure.

[Retired Bob]

Coming along nicely, a month to go James.  I hate working to deadlines, they sound so final. 

[81-er]

Thanks chaps  I love deadlines, particularly the whooshing noise they make as they go flying past 

 

 

A major milestone has been reached with this build now, as the fuselage/wings are together:

 

 

The seams still need addressing, but that’ll be early next week as I’m away for the weekend. I dealt with the intakes by trying the house paint trick (taping up the end & filling them with emulsion & then letting it drain out). This worked rather well:

 

 

The nose section is coming along well, the canopy is now on, and a bit of primer is on in order to check the progress on the seams:

 

 

There’s still a couple of bits that need attention, including some filler to blend the canopy in, but overall, it’s looking good. With any luck I might be painting this by next weekend.

 

James

[Retired Bob]

I don't know about your thoughts on the surface panel lines, but I was disappointed that Airfix blighted this kit with overly large and deep panel detail.  As with their other V-Bombers it should have been very subtle.  More Tamiya and less Matchbox. 

 

[81-er]

I just accept they're about the standard for Airfix in the timeframe that this was tooled, I'm not that worried about them as this isn't an exacting build with the details. It's still the best kit in 1/72 as far as I'm aware anyway

 

James

[81-er]

I’ve apparently been a bit remiss with keeping this one updated! Suffice to say, stuff got in the way, and it’s taken a while to get to paint, not least of which was the large amount of filling & sanding the seams have needed. I thought I’d taken some progress photos along the way, but I haven’t, so we’ll jump from a Vulcan in a few sub-assemblies in the previous update to one that’s completely assembled and with the underside primed for this one:

 

 

Hopefully I’ll remember to take some more photos before it’s fully painted…

 

James

[mark.au]

3 minutes ago, 81-er said:

Hopefully I’ll remember to take some more photos before it’s fully painted…

 

Please do! It's the painting and marking process that really brings these things to life. This one looks like it's going to be a cracker.

[David H]

Looks great, James!

[81-er]

Thanks chaps!

 

James

[BarryB]

Hi,   Nice work on the Vulcan and those intakes are looking good. 

 

Can I query those exhaust cans. The photo shows the longer 201 cans but you've fitted the shorter 301 cans by the look of it.  As far as I know XH558 was never retrofitted with 301s.    (sorry - I can go boil my head if this isn't important or is wrong)