Vickers Valiant BK.Mk.1***Finished***

[PeterB]

6 hours ago, Wings unlevel said:

You almost could, it looks pretty good from here, but I will watch with keen interest to see how the Colourcoats anti-flash white goes, as I really haven’t worked out how to tackle painting my Victor yet.

Well, as I see it there are 3 ways of painting a large kit like this, particular in an all-over white scheme, and I am sure you already know most if not all of it already, but I thought it might perhaps be helpful.

 

Firstly you could use an aerosol can of paint if you can find the right colour. I can't use spray cans in the house, unlike my airbrush, and I don't have a man cave so I literally have to do it outdoors which means waiting for a dry, reasonably warm day with little or no wind. Results can be variable in my experience but when it works it is relatively easy and fast as with the primer I used on the Valiant.

 

Secondly you can airbrush the paint on if you are comfortable with that method and have the required skills to thin the paint to the right consistency (if needed) and to use the airbrush on such a large subject. I have a “proper” table-top spray booth but that is too small in this case. However, I can spray under the extractor fan in my kitchen, with a lot of preparation such as hanging up sheets of plastic to avoid spraying the wall, work surface etc. Unfortunately my airbrush and compressor are like me getting old and I decided they were not up to such a large job in one go, so I would have to spend several days painting it in stages, waiting for each section to dry whilst cleaning out the airbrush and letting the compressor cool down, before doing the next one.

 

That leaves brushing by hand, which is never likely to match the finish from a good airbrushing, but with care and the right paint, brushes and technique it can work pretty well sometimes – probably better than my airbrushing anyway, and it is relatively quick

 

Paint

For the last few years I have been using acrylic paints whenever possible – Gunze, Tamiya, and Xtracrylic are my favourites but Humbrol and Mig also work well at times. I particularly like the Xtracrylic as it can usually give a nice smooth finish if applied properly. When I can't find anything suitable in acrylic, I use enamels – I like the Xtracolour as the longer drying time lets it “self level” to a certain extent, and Colourcoats can also be very good, but both require a good extended stirring and can take a day or so to dry completely. The rapid drying time with acrylics could be a minor disadvantage with something this big as you will probably have to do it in at least 4 sections, maybe more.

 

Brushes

I remember several years ago reading an article which said you should always try to use a large flat brush as this reduces the build-up of “ridges” at the outside ends of the painted area, and I have found that does work – these are my weapons of choice, the normal one being the pink handled angled one which is about 2cm along the diagonal, the smaller one being used for restricted spaces. The silver handled ones were bought specifically for large kits, particularly the Vulcan if and when I build it.

 

Technique

When I was a lad using tins of Humbrol enamel I used to stir it for a minute or so, then load up a size 0 or 1 round brush and slap it on. It covered in one coat, dried quickly, and with hindsight looked pretty poor. The trick seems to be to use several thin coats, possibly thinning the paint as well depending on the consistency - the Colourcoats white was marginal in that respect – I applied the first coat without thinning but the finishing coat may thinned a little as, unlike the old White Ensign original Colourcoats, Sovereign Hobbies version seems to dry a lot faster, though both need a lot of stirring before starting. To put it on I load just the tip of the brush lightly and then work the paint out well on the surface making sure it is even. You need to watch for build-ups around joints, things like fences, and runs on the “other” surface of wings and make sure you brush them out when still wet! Don't worry if the first coat looks a bit patchy as the second will sort that out. Because this paint dries so quickly, don't try and do too large an area in one go – once the brush starts to “go stiff” and starts to “drag” then it is time to stop and clean it, or perhaps switch to a clean brush if you have another suitable one.

 

Anyway, this is what it looks like after the first coat which I did in 4 sections - lower wings, upper wings, front fuselage and rear fuselage..

 

 

I will give it a day to harden before applying what I hope is the final coat - it took almost a full 14ml tin for the first coat and I only have one more in stock! You can see a slight difference in shade compared with the white kitchen towel/paper the tanks are standing on.

 

Pete

Edited April 8 by PeterB

[CliffB]

The paint looks very nice from here Pete 

After years of airbrushing, I'm gradually re-discovering the knack of brush painting (assuming I ever had it!).  My personal favourite at the moment is Revell Aqua Color.

 

Cheers

[Wings unlevel]

Thanks for the terrific explanation Pete, and great work so far - a full tin brush painted is impressive work!

 

I mainly use lacquers, no issues with the endurance of my airbrush and compressor, but the operator might struggle with the size and scale of the task, especially in applying lots of thinned coats. I painted the intakes with Mr Surfacer 1500 white which was quite effective, I may just use that for the base coat and polish it back a little. Just pondering though how to get some tonal variation…

 

Anyway, your Valiant is looking terrific and is definitely tempting me to pick one up!

[PeterB]

3 hours ago, Wings unlevel said:

Thanks for the terrific explanation Pete, and great work so far - a full tin brush painted is impressive work!

 

I mainly use lacquers, no issues with the endurance of my airbrush and compressor, but the operator might struggle with the size and scale of the task, especially in applying lots of thinned coats. I painted the intakes with Mr Surfacer 1500 white which was quite effective, I may just use that for the base coat and polish it back a little. Just pondering though how to get some tonal variation…

 

Anyway, your Valiant is looking terrific and is definitely tempting me to pick one up!

 

 

Yes, tonal variation would probably look good but I have never been very good at that sort of thing. Anyway, second coat on,

 

 

A few small blemishes to polish out and repaint but the white is nearly done.

 

Pete

[81-er]

That's looking great, Pete  

 

@Wings unlevel, I reckon the way to go (as I plan to do on my Valiant) is black basing. Get all the variation in the marble layer, then blend with a thinned coat of white over the top

 

James

[Wings unlevel]

19 hours ago, PeterB said:

Yes, tonal variation would probably look good but I have never been very good at that sort of thing. Anyway, second coat on,

 

 

A few small blemishes to polish out and repaint but the white is nearly done.

Looks terrific, Pete, I’d be very happy with that.

 

18 hours ago, 81-er said:

reckon the way to go (as I plan to do on my Valiant) is black basing. Get all the variation in the marble layer, then blend with a thinned coat of white over the top

 I’ll trial that, James. I’m a big fan of black basing and marbling, but wasn’t sure how that would go under a white base colour.

[PeterB]

I will watch that with interest to see how it goes. Painting any colour over itself in a second coat is always a bit tricky, and white is no exception as it is difficult to see where it has gone on at times, so in spite of what I said in my rant earlier I managed to get a bit of paint build-up in a few places. I have left the paint to harden for 24 hours then polished these off with a mixture of fine wet and dry and micromesh and repainted them and they look OK - the Colourcoats paint is robust enough to stand up to gentle sanding without crumbling or flaking. However, perhaps inevitably, I have now noticed that I missed a couple of small arears so I will give them the same treatment tomorrow. I also need to do a bit of work on the external tanks as they are still a bit rough in places - oddly enough the tanks and doors don't seem to respond quite as well to the "wide brush" approach as the airframe - I probably need to use a slightly narrower brush on them.

 

Anyway, with a bit of luck I should be able to start some detail painting on Friday.

 

Pete

[Adam Poultney]

Model's looking fantastic, excited to see more updates

[PeterB]

Not perhaps up to airbrush standards but I am quite pleased with how it came out after all the obvious blemishes had been sorted.

 

 

I will leave it to dry overnight then remove the masking and start on the detail painting, which could be quite fiddly.

 

Pete

[81-er]

That looks great to me, Pete

 

James

[Wings unlevel]

I think that’s looking great, Pete.

[Karearea]

Looking very lovely and clean, well done

[PeterB]

There are some paint colours modellers find problematic – Red and Yellow for example, but I am beginning to take quite a dislike to White as well, particularly on such a large area as on the Valiant! I remember my late father having problems with that colour as well – he had decided to “modernise” the look of the interior doors in our old house, and instead of the panelled finish which now is once more popular, he decided to cover them with sheets of hardboard and make them flush surfaced. As with everything he did he prepared them meticulously, rubbing down the wood to get a glass like finish, putting on a coat of primer, flatting that down, putting on another coat of primer and flatting that down also before trying what was then the new “Brilliant White” gloss paint that had just come on the market. Even after 3 top coats he was not entirely satisfied – there seemed to be a “patchy” finish but we subsequently realised that it was due to reflections. I may be having the same problem as every time I look at this model there seems to be patches where it looks like I have missed a bit - painting white over white is not that easy! Hopefully it will look a bit more even if and when I get a finishing coat of varnish on.

 

Anyway, in between other builds and allowing for the enamel paint to dry thoroughly I have been slowly working away at the detail painting.

 

 

Still a fair bit of tidying up to do but it is getting there - should be starting to put the decs on by the weekend hopefully. There are a lot of stencils of course, and getting the fin flashes over the vortex generators should be fun - I see Gen Melchett cut the generators off and presumably replaced them later but I don't fancy that. I see lots of setting solution being used and maybe a razor blade as well - we will see.

 

Pete

[81-er]

She's looking good, Pete. I'm not looking forward to applying the fin flashes when I do mine, I've been contemplating if it'll be easier to paint them

 

James

[PeterB]

1 hour ago, 81-er said:

She's looking good, Pete. I'm not looking forward to applying the fin flashes when I do mine, I've been contemplating if it'll be easier to paint them

 

James

I had thought of that too but as I propose to do the pale versions I am not sure I could match the colour well enough for anything more than minor touching up. Does anybody know if that early light blue and pale pink are the same colours as that used on current/recent low vis roundels such as on grey Tornados?

 

Pete

Edited April 17 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Painting just about finished. Structurally, all that is left the wheel doors, tanks, 2 pitot tubes and 2 aerials on the main canopy.

 

 

Time to start adding decs beginning with those that go on the wheels, doors and tanks.

 

Pete

Edited April 18 by PeterB

[PeterB]

U/c doors on.

 

 

There were a couple of problems. Firstly the instructions for the inner main doors may not be quite correct - either that or I have got an alignment problem with the main legs which seems unlikely. Here are the instructions-

 

 

As you can see you have to glue the small parts 2 and 3 onto the top of the main door and the instructions clearly show them at right angles. Fortunately I test fitted them before the glue dried and found that small parts hit the engine "bulges" and prevented the pins on the main doors lining up with the holes in the legs so I had to reduce the angle to about 60 degrees to get them on, and then push them back down - they still were not quite at 90 degrees - possibly about 80 or so, The other problem is one the General mentioned in his build on BM and concerns the nose doors. Although Airfix now seem to use laser scanning to draw up their plans when they can get at a preserved aircraft, that presumably was not the case when this kit was being designed and there was mention of a number of errors. One was that the nose wheel bay was far too wide, which in turn meant that the doors hung too far down, so like the General I have cut them down a little. In his thread there is mention of Airfix staff crawling about under the preserved Valiant taking photos, but it is suggested that some of the errors arise from copying plans from the same source used by Richard Caruana in his drawings!

 

These days kits seem to come with a lot of stencil which is good to a point though some are so small as to be virtually invisible and are a b*gger to handle. One of the problems with this kit is that unlike some other manufacturers (Japanese I suspect) whose kits I have built recently, Airfix do not provide an enlarged image of the stencil so it is at times difficult to work out their alignment - this is an example from the Valiant - the Phantom and Buccaneer kits had the same problem, and it looks like the latest Vulcan kit is the same..

 

 

The above pic is a couple of Centimetres smaller than the actual sheet but you will get the idea.  For example there are quite a few "hook" type lifting stencils and it is hard to work out the correct way round. It also does not help that some of them in the anti-flash scheme are pale blue as is the backing sheet, so once you put them in water they become invisible!

 

Oh well, I will get there in the end. Fortunately, when I magnify the copy I have on the computer most of them become just about legible!

 

Pete

Edited April 18 by PeterB

[81-er]

Minor niggles aside (and notes made for when I do mine) she's looking good, Pete

 

James

[PeterB]

I have made a start on the underside decs.

 

 

From any distance the blue stencils are virtually invisible so here is a close up. On the camo version the blue stencils changed to black on the bottom and yellow on the top.

 

 

So that is about half of the stencils under the wings done - more later.

 

Pete

Edited April 19 by PeterB

[Adam Poultney]

On 10/02/2024 at 20:49, PhantomBigStu said:

only problem is I lack a suitable small scale test subject...... 

New gwh valiant? 1/144

[PeterB]

I finished off the underside and stuck the tanks on.

 

 

Perhaps inevitably, whilst adding the decs I noticed a few areas where a little touching up will be required - I will deal with that later!

 

I know I said I would leave the fin flash until the end, but I decided to get it over and done with.  For those interested in building this kit, I can now report that it may just be possible to persuade the decal to settle down over the vortex generator vanes by using decal setting solution alone, though you might need something stronger than Micro Sol - I used 3 applications and the dec I was trying it on was on the verge of dissolving, and although it had settled down pretty well, it had not "stretched" enough to cope with the contours so the front end was a bit "distorted". I therefore resorted to using a razor blade to make a couple of cuts, and that settled it down better but left gaps.

 

 

I therefore gently cleaned up the messy bits and then mixed up some pale pink to touch it up.

 

 

Much better. For the record I used Hu 34 White with a tiny amount of Hu 60 Scarlet and after a couple of goes it seems about right. from a distance though perhaps a little pale under the unforgiving eye of the Macro Lens! I had considered using a very light grey instead of white but in the end white seemed fine.

 

So - onwards and upwards as the saying goes!

 

Pete

[Andwil]

Looks like the Valiant had a fake cockpit painted on the underside decades before the Canadians had it on their F/A-18s, certainly confused me for a while!

 

Nice job on the fin flash, vortex generators can be a real pain at times.

 

AW

[PeterB]

19 minutes ago, Andwil said:

Looks like the Valiant had a fake cockpit painted on the underside decades before the Canadians had it on their F/A-18s, certainly confused me for a while!

AW

Yes, that thought had crossed my mind too.

 

Pete

[81-er]

I thought the bubble on the underside was the bomb aimer's position? Admittedly I'm no expert on the Valiant, however. I think you've managed a nice save on the fin flash, Pete

 

James

[PeterB]

9 minutes ago, 81-er said:

I thought the bubble on the underside was the bomb aimer's position?

James

Hi James,

 

Yes, it was but it does look rather like a slightly smaller version of the actual cockpit when looked at from below.😄

 

Pete