Mach2 1:72 Vickers Valiant

[Mike]

Vickers Valiant B.1 – Mach2 1:72

Last year, when Mach2 released their long awaited 1:72 Valiant, I was near the front of the queue buying one, having tried in vain to obtain one of the AIM72 kits for quite some time.

To have an injection moulded kit of the “poor relation” V-Bomber seemed to me to be too good an opportunity to miss, so I spent some of my birthday money on one from Hannants.

When the kit arrived, it came in a long flat box, with a rather artistic rendering of a Valiant in anti-flash white, roaring across an orange sky, away from the unfolding mushroom of an atomic bomb, which it had presumably just dropped.

On opening the box, I noticed that the parts were moulded from an odd, almost pearlescent styrene, which seemed quite brittle. I couldn’t resist slapping the major parts together with tape, just to see if it looked like a Valiant.

Yup, but straight away I noticed some odd lines in the plastic, which looked like raised hairline cracks. Notably on the wing trailing edges and along the side of the fuselage. I suspect they were the result of mould damage, which is a little worrying from a new release. Not something that couldn’t be fixed with some careful sanding.

Another thing I noticed was a slight pebbly texture to some parts, which was shown up by applying a coat of Mr Surfacer, then gently sanding the high spots with a fine grit board.

Other parts were affected, but the vertical tail was worst. I moved onto some of the smaller parts, and noted that the cockpit was extremely basic, and the transparencies were thick and again had a somewhat pebbly surface.

Not the end of the world, as there will be precious little to see through those tiny windows. Here though, I opted for some replacement seats from Aeroclub, which seems to have been a good idea, as the kit parts not only looked too big for scale, but stood proud of the cockpit & baulked the fitting of the canopy…. Oops!

The decal sheet is fairly small, consisting mainly of roundels (with separate red dots), codes & tail flashes, plus a few small emblems. They seemed to be in register, but the whites exhibited a slight creamy color, which isn’t really evident on the picture below.

Turbine faces are up to the job, and wheel wells are about what you would expect, basic, but as it turns out, so are the real wheel wells!

Some of the smaller parts were short shot, and unusable, and others suffered from quite an amount of flash, plus sizeable sink marks, all of which had to be fixed before building.

[falcon]

I have one of these to build at some point too. I also have the Victor and Vulcan to complete the line up. One day I will get round to building them, when I get the space to store them .

[Mike]

After inspecting the quality of the intake parts, and the vague way that they fitted into the wing root, I decided to fabricate some replacements from resin, which would allow me the opportunity to refine the shape of the intake mouth somewhat, and create smooth “seamless” intakes, which I could then implant into the wing root.

Boy, did I have some work ahead of me!

The original is shown here, glued to the bottom of the wing, roughly filled to cover the worst of the joint, with clay blocking the gaps, so that the moulding rubber doesn’t flood the inside of the wing.

I sank this assembly into a mould box full of RTV rubber, and allowed it to set there for 24 hours.

Removing the wing from the boxes proved quite difficult, as some RTV had leaked into the wing despite my best efforts. They came out eventually, and I then cast up a duplicate using 2 part resin. This was the result:

Several sessions of fill/sand ensued, using wet’n’dry glued to MacDonalds coffee stirrers & brass tubing. I ended up with a “master” of sorts, which you can see here next to the original casting of the other side’s “adjusted” kit parts:

I decided to cut back the replacement parts to the nearest panel lines, and to the turbine faces, so that the adequate kit parts could be used. You can see what I mean from the picture below:

I repeated the process on the other intake, and after using the best part of half a litre of RTV, I ended up with a couple of finished parts. I think Grant has seen these, or the masters at Telford in 2006.

The next job was to install them in the wings…. Deep breath!

[Mike]

Before I installed the intakes, I sprayed them appliance white inside, and painted up the compressor faces, before gluing the assembly together for installation.

I had to measure, check & measure again before I cut out the root sections to install the intakes, but fortunately, they fitted ok, but there was a little bit of a step, which I decided to consign to the underneath, even though it would be the most difficult to fix, it’s the least noticeable place under normal circumstances.

Much sanding ensued, and a little bit of filling too, before I was happy to call them done. Here’s a pic of the results before I masked them over to protect them during the rest of the build.

Not bad, but not perfect. The real thing is somewhat shallower, but I’d have had to commit to some more serious kit surgery to correct those defects, so I made the best of what was available. I also noticed that the top surface of each wing has a different profile, so I’m not sure whether this was a demoulding issue with my copy, or a general defect of the kit. That’s one reason I’ve been reticent to dish them out to other unsuspecting Valiant builders so far.

While all this was going on I tidied up the pebbly surface on the tail, and assembled it, being careful to install the horizontal tail with the vortex generators on the bottom of the tail, NOT the top as shown in the instructions.

I also added two brass pins to strengthen the butt-joint with the fuselage.

The next job was to try & close up the fuselage, so I toyed with the idea of scratching the cockpit for a more realistic finish, but given the size of the windows, I decided to dump the idea after finishing the shell, and instead sprayed the cockpit black, dry-brushed it, installed the painted Aeroclub seats and installed them. The control columns were short shot, so I didn’t bother installing or replacing them… you really can’t see a damn thing through those tiny windows!

Plenty of nose weight was added in the form of lead shot embedded in CA, just in case. The more sharp eyed of you will notice that the nose section of the fuselage is separate in the last picture… that’s because I cut it off!

It turns out the whole nose is twisted, and if built un-altered, will result in a lop-sided cockpit. I bit the bullet and sawed it off, which made it easier to enclose the cockpit before I’d finished the nose wheel well. Let me tell you about the nose wheel well… It didn’t have a single perpendicular surface, and the palette that it was to be sat on wasn’t anywhere near square either. I got out the styrene sheet & fabricated a new one, detailing it (a bit) with evergreen strips. I also replaced the nose wheel strut with sleeved brass & styrene parts, as it was crap! Mine’s only slightly more realistic, but gives a better impression of what’s there.

[falcon]

Looking very good indeed. Are you going to be selling copies of the resin intakes?

[Mike]

While I was about it, I fixed all the sink marks in the main wheel struts, added a bit of detail (not much), and generally tidied them up, ready for painting.

The next job was to install the nose wheel well before closing up the fuselage. I made a bulkhead against which it would fit, closed the rear of the fuselage, fettled & filled it a bit, then started to think about how much to rotate the nose to get it right. It was only a couple of mm out, but it’s new position showed up the woefully lop-sided bomb aimer’s blister, so I blobbed a lump of Milliput on, and in a fit of sculpting genius (never since repeated), I shaped it back into a symmetrical teardrop shape, as it originally should have been!

At this point I sprayed the nose wheel well silver & did a bit of washing to bring out the detail. Now I finally had a complete fuselage!

I turned my attention back to the wings, to prepare them for fitting to the fuselage… lots of sanding was required to get them anywhere near correct, and that still left a bit of a gap on the underside, which I felt was the most acceptable option. I glued them in place, and filled the gaps with Milliput, smoothing the underside with a damp cotton bud, so I didn’t have to do ANY sanding in that confined space!

The result was pretty bloody scary though, as the airframe looked like it was mid-flap, with the wings pointing upwards, in a lazy V shape, as you can see from the pictures that follow. Nige came for a quick look one night, and we decided that in order to correct the dihedral, I’d need to take some material out of the underside of the wings. Feeling a little brave, I took the cutting wheel on my Dremel to them there & then, cutting a 2mm groove along the join of the outer wing to the engine nacelles, as can be seen below.

They don’t look TOO bad sat on the desk, do they? Think again!

I attached the wings to the fuselage, and once cured, filled the 2mm gaps with CA and strips of styrene, whilst holding the wings to the correct(ish) shape with some heavy clamps, as below.

I lifted the weights off with some trepidation the next day, but was relieved to see they’d held. I filled the joints, sanding down where needed, and this was the result.

That actually looks a bit squiffy, but I can assure you it’s a trick of the light!

[Oliver]

OMG! Its alive, alive!!!!

Good to see this again, did you have to wipe alot of dust and cobwebs off it, after all that time it spent languishing on the backburner?

[Mike]

Next I built up the fuel tanks, which were fine, just needing a little sanding to get them to shape. The fins weren’t great though, so I replaced them with some styrene sheet, shaping the root to match the profile of the tanks… always useful.

Something that’s not pictured was the fact that the cockpit surround is also off in shape a little, and had to be augmented with some Milliput, and the canopy sanded down so that it doesn’t stand proud of the frame.

There are a few modellers out there that seem to think that the nose is too short, and I’ve given this some thought during the build. My conclusion, after studying plans and the real thing is that the nose is ok… certainly not 10mm too short, as suggested by some. If anything, the tail’s a bit too long (I think… it’s a while ago now). There’s probably a 1mm discrepancy in the fuselage diameter too, and cutting off the nose showed me that the fuselage isn’t symmetrical – there’s not much in it, but be prepared for some sanding & filling when you reattach the nose.

Since then, the whole airframe has been re-scribed to replace the lost detail & harmonise the depth of the lines. Panel lines aren’t that evident on the real thing, but I decided to represent them on mine, to give a little bit of interest to a stark white airframe.

All that’s left to do now is a bit more scribing, prime, paint, decal & add all the remaining fiddly bits… not a lot really, but I seem to have lost interest to a certain extent.

Maybe I’ll take up the cudgel again when Col stops harassing me about it!

Looking very good indeed. Are you going to be selling copies of the resin intakes?

Undecided... I'll probably dish a few out at cost to see how people get on with them, then decide from there. The moulds are sat on my desk, so it's not difficult to cast up a few copies... it's just remembering to mix up some extra resin when I'm, casting something else

[Len Thomson]

This is a verygood build Mike. I will be interested to see it progress to fruition.

Is that a club hammer I see being used as weight for your clamps?

Not your usual modelling tool I take it............

[JakeEaton]

Insanely good work Mike...I'm amazed at your casting job.

[Gary West]

Well my appetite, is now very much "wetted" Those intake sections with the compressor blades intact look really good -

[Mike]

Well my appetite, is now very much "wetted" Those intake sections with the compressor blades intact look really good -

The mouth is a bit deep vertically, but they are better... Providing your kit will have the same failings as mine did. There's an outside chance that they may have introduced better quality control, or new faults as time goes by... who knows?

[miduppergunner]

You really are coming on my boy!!!

David.

[Mike]

You really are coming on my boy!!!

David.

This was all done last year David, before I'd finished a kit I'm just trying to motivate myself to finish it off, and share my trials & tribulations with that damn fool that wants to buy one at the moment

[Andy K]

My compliments to you as that looks a hell of a build. Good stuff! Reminds me of when I tried to put the Contrail Vac-form Nimrod together years ago.....it still gives me nightmares! Ugh.......

[Mike]

Is that a club hammer I see being used as weight for your clamps?

Not your usual modelling tool I take it............

I know it as a lump hammer, but I imagine they're the same thing My workshop houses all my DIY and bike tools too (and the bikes), so I always have blunt trauma at my disposal should I need it

As a friend sometimes says "smite it a mighty blow"

My compliments to you as that looks a hell of a build. Good stuff! Reminds me of when I tried to put the Contrail Vac-form Nimrod together years ago.....it still gives me nightmares! Ugh.......

Thanks Andy Did you finish it? Let's see!

[Andy K]

Finish it??? Good god no......it stayed in sub assemblies for yonks until it was eventually scrapped. (No it was'nt an AEW version lol)

I take my hat off to the guy who built that one and brought it to the Nationals last year. What a great build and finish...talented git!

Edited August 8, 2007 by Andy K

[Col.]

All that’s left to do now is a bit more scribing, prime, paint, decal & add all the remaining fiddly bits… not a lot really, but I seem to have lost interest to a certain extent.

Maybe I’ll take up the cudgel again when Col stops harassing me about it!

Harassing you about it indeed, it's been weeks if not the best part of a month since I last had a go at yanking your chain on this one. Never mind using me as an excuse for your feckless procrastinating, just get on with it

Nice to see it again and get a reminder of all the work you've done so far. Now crack on and lets see this thread continue as a work-in-progress.

[Guest Cop]

Why don't you post a pic up of how it looks now? Complete with the thick layer of dust .

[Mike]

Why don't you post a pic up of how it looks now? Complete with the thick layer of dust .

I might just do that, you cheeky munkee... There's not actually much dust on it though, surprisingly, as I regularly pick it up and have a look at what needs doing...

[Guest Cop]

I might just do that, you cheeky munkee... There's not actually much dust on it though, surprisingly, as I regularly pick it up and have a look at what needs doing...

I think you'll find that's because, I pick it up every time I come ropund to take the mick out of the lack of progress.

Nigel.

[Mike]

I think you'll find that's because, I pick it up every time I come ropund to take the mick out of the lack of progress.

Nigel.

Pish!

[Col.]

I might just do that, you cheeky munkee... There's not actually much dust on it though, surprisingly, as I regularly pick it up and have a look at what needs doing...

Shame you put it straight back down again without doing anything

I think you'll find that's because, I pick it up every time I come round to take the mick out of the lack of progress.

Nigel.

Ha ha. See, it's not just me that's picking on you

[Mike]

Ha ha. See, it's not just me that's picking on you

Nige is just an opportunist... not a stalker like you

[Col.]

Nige is just an opportunist... not a stalker like you

Ha, glad you think you warrant the attention.

Now get back in that shed where we can see you and do some modelling