Airfix 1/72 Avro Vulcan - XL321 1963.

[Richard M]

Vulcans seem to be like buses, wait around for ages then they all turn up at once! I've been doing mine to mark the 90th Anniversary of the RAF over on the Airfix Tribute Forum.

Strictly oob just for a bit of fun.

Firstly I re-inforced the bombay insert with some plastic card and made some blanks for the engine exhausts by squeezing milliput in between the two halves. Nothing fancy, just enough to block the view of the gaping interior.

The nose got a 40g fishing weight and the leftover milliput to hold everything in place.

Cockpit is very basic, but I figure very little will actually be seen, I did paint the figures up.

The two halves went together pretty well.

Biggest problem was the intakes - big gaps all round.

Best

Rich

Edited July 29, 2008 by Richard M

[Richard M]

The tail and rear sections went on reasonably well, some filler and plastic card required.

The engine blanks came out pretty well, good enough as they may get FOD covers anyway.

Then the loooong process of milliputting the intakes and filing/sanding etc.

Got there in the end though - I really must use a lot less milliputt for the initial fill.

Wings went on next, the join was pretty good, only one large gap on the left wing by the intake.

This was filled with some plastic card then some humbrol filler, came out well and was a lot less work than I was expecting.

Best

Rich

[bexwh773]

Hi RIch,

Looks very good so far matey Couple of questions for you, why the plasticard for the bomb bay? And would you mind if use you photos for reference as youre ahead of me?

TIA

Bexy

[Richard M]

Of course you can, although it's probably best to use them to avoid making the same mistakes

Tha plastic card tip I picked up from BM, in a Vulcan thread, appologies to the original poster as I cannot remember who mentioned it. It adds support to the bombay inset, which is otherwise only secured at the four corners. This means it can flex quite a bit which makes filling tricky. The plastic tabs help with this, although I did have to go over the join a couple of times anyway.

I'm doing mine in glorious anti-flash white with the Blue Steel attached!

Best

Rich

[AnonymousDFB1]

Looking good Rich

[JakeEaton]

Bloody great work and PROPER modelling!

Now for the fun part! Rescribing! YAY

[Richard M]

Rescribing - this is a fun build! I'm more than happy to live with the raised detail, invoking the three foot rule.

I got all the final assembley done and all the fiddly bits put on.

The undercarriage and bays are a bit sparse but are pretty chunky and are holding up to the noseweight well. I'm not going to bother adding any details to the bays. One thing I will sort out is the v shaped link in the wing undercarriage legs which doesn't actually join at the top on either.

The only parts left to deal with is a slight lip along one edge of the canopy, and the pitot tube which needs fairing into the nose. I've applied filler ready for sanding.

There'll be a slight hiatus in the build as I'm off on a jolly for then next week.

Best

Rich

[Dave T]

Rich,

If modelling this as a Blue Steel aircraft, you'll need to remove the fin tip add on's and the TFR nose thimble.

See this link to a period photo of XL321

[bexwh773]

Looking good so far Rich UC looks pretty good too matey.

Bexy

[Fmk.6john]

Rich

Richard

I cant help but notice that the arial on the port nosegear door is on the inside instead of the outside where it should be, otherwise this is one stunning build, I am massively impressed with this one.

Keep up the good work and I look forward to the end result.

John.

[Richard M]

Thanks Dave, good to see a picture of the real thing, plus those fixes should be easy enough to do.

Hi John, I'm not with the model, but I'm pretty sure I stuck them in the place where the placement holes were, which was located on the inner side of the curvature of the doors. I did think at the time it was a bit odd, but figured it was a grab rail or something similar. Easy enough to fix anyhow, another tip for Bexy!

Best

Rich

[bexwh773]

Oh yes wont make that mistake, thanks Rich & JB Rich, Im using Damien's webby for reference, any use to you?

Damiens Vulcan Page

Bexy

[atdb27]

Hi Rich,

Looking good so far.

This kit can be a bit of a filler princess but,..

1. Attach intakes to lower fuse section with fit/sand etc till a nice join appears - Will cut down kgs of filler.

2. Attach upper outer wing sections to upper fuse halves - Again you will get a nice clean unstepped joint requiring very little filler.

3. Repeat process for lower wing sections

4 Join upper and lower parts together - Yes it is large but working steadily and carefully it is much easier to fill along leading edges (if need be!)

Have done this on most of my part builds to date and find it works well for me.

HTH

Adrian

[Richard M]

Made the adjustments to the nose thimble and the fin and I've sprayed Hu64 on as a primer and to check the seams etc.

There are a few minor tweaks here and there. Then I'll spray humbrol gloss white.

Best

Rich

[bexwh773]

Looks very good to me Richard Rather you than me with the anti flash white

Bex

[Richard M]

Bit of a torrid time with the Humbrol Hu22 Gloss white. I got three tins in as I figured it would take a lot, unfortunately it looks like the tins had gone off, the pigment was very gritty and chalky and the carrier very gloopy. I rather foolishly had a crack at spraying one coat on. Much swearing and cursing ensued as the surface finish was horrible, very grainy and patchy. The build stalled while I sourced some more paint. Airfix customer services very kindly sent me three replacement tins, even though the ones I had purchased must have been old pre-Hornby stock.

I also received some Hu130 from Vince at MFS rather quicker than expected (express service!) so I've sprayed one coat onto the freshly sanded and buffed model.

Another couple of coats should see a reasonable finish - fingers crossed.

In the meantime I've cut all the wheels off the sprues and cleaned up the flash and seam lines, the main wheels have been glued together. Looking at the spigots on the maingear, it looks like it will be challenging to get all the wheels touching the ground.

So I've decided to chop off the spigots and drill out holes, which will enable me to run pins through them, joining the two sets of wheels each side. As the holes will be larger than the pins, hopefully this will give enough play so that the wheels can all be made to touch the ground.

Best

Rich

[bexwh773]

Sounds like youve had a bad time Rich matey. However, looks like the start of a good recovery job going on so fingers crossed

Bexy

[Azgaron]

How lovely, another Vulcan! Looking great, Richard!

Cheers,

Azgaron, having a hard time keeping up with all that's happening here in the aircraft section!

[Fmk.6john]

She's looking good Richard, not long now!!.

JB.

[speedy]

It seems each of these kits is fighting back. None of use are having or had a easy build

[Richard M]

Bit of a catch up post, I ended up putting 4 or 5 coats of white on - I lost count towards the end!

Whatever it was I'd had enough and that's as good as it was going to get. I started painting the detail bits and the engines, the black and tan areas, plus the navigation lights and engine exhausts.

Also painted the undercarriage bays Hu64, before I did the undercarriage legs.

Once I'd finished all the undercarriage and wheel bays etc, I managed to get the first layer of gloss cote on, then broke the large tip attachment for my Badger 150 . As my medium tip had been playing up, that left only the fine - which I didn't fancy using for some reason!

So things went on hold - again while I got a replacement tip. Once I got my replacement parts for the airbrush, it turned out they produced a vastly improved performance. So after putting two layers of gloss cote on I spent most of a day putting the decals on. I used the roundels and letters and fin flashes from the excellent FreightDog decal set - the colours are much better than the kit ones in my opinion.

The decals all went on OK, the advantage of doing the anti-flash white is the out of register on the Airfix decals didn't really show up except on the squadron flash. I then applied one more layer of gloss to seal them in. Then the wheels went on and I unmasked the canopy. Finally finished!

Best

Rich

[Richard M]

So here's the finished great big tin triangle in all her glorious anti-flash white!

B.Ae (Avro) Vulcan B Mk.2, XL321 617 Squadron 1963.

I really like how she looks in white and quite fancy doing a collection, so bring on the Valiant Airfix!

Best

Rich

[bexwh773]

Thats rather good that Rich, especially knowing what a right pig that kit is

Bex

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Great Work Rich,

Click 'Add to favourites', rename to Vulcan build reference thread

Edited July 30, 2008 by TrojanThunder

[Richard M]

Thanks for looking and for commenting!

Best

Rich