Airfix 1:72 Vulcan B.2

[dr_gn]

Bit of progress: fitted the spar structure and wheel wells, I reinforced all the joins with Araldite - if the main gear bays come loose when the weight of the model is on them, there’s no coming back from that. I might put blobs of Milliput on their roofs as well, to brace them against the upper wings:



I also fitted the intake ducts, again reinforcing the joints with Araldite:



Despite the fits-where-it-touches situation with some of the other main parts, these locate accurately, with pretty much a perfect fit all around the complex curves of the opening.

[dr_gn]

Joined the upper halves today. Needed clamps and weights to get things to a point where they can at least be filled and flatted smooth later on:



The upper spine is warped along the edges such that the fin sockets are narrow at the top. This is to the extent that the keys in the base of the fin won’t fit in them. If, after narrowing the keys, it results in a step around the base of the fin, it’ll be in the bin. It’s just not worth the effort.

[anonymous-user]

This is very discouraging from a new tooling, I thought modern processes and QC were supposed to result in higher quality kits?

[dr_gn]

Newarch said:

This is very discouraging from a new tooling, I thought modern processes and QC were supposed to result in higher quality kits?

I’ve seen some other builds of this kit where there are similar issues, but this one seems to be particularly bad.

[magpie215]

dr_gn said:

it’ll be in the bin. It’s just not worth the effort.

I've been put off doing this Vulcan now....think it's way over my skillset.

If you do bin it the nose section is ripe for a preserved aircraft museum exhibit diorama.

[dr_gn]

magpie215 said:

dr_gn said:

it’ll be in the bin. It’s just not worth the effort.

I've been put off doing this Vulcan now....think it's way over my skillset.

If you do bin it the nose section is ripe for a preserved aircraft museum exhibit diorama.

As I said, other builds I’ve seen aren’t as bad. I have no idea why this one is, maybe it’s an early one.

[dr_gn]

Had some time earlier to thin the fin tabs, and enlarge the closed-up sockets:



Crucially, any visible step between the fuselage pad and the fin footprint is very minor:



Yes, there’s a gap, but some Milliput should fix that.

Now onto the bomb bay roof:



I kind of understand the design of overlapping geometry here, and it might have looked good on CAD, but mine just doesn’t fit right, and will make fettling of these intricate and visible details very difficult. Not sure why a simple butt-joint wouldn’t have sufficed in these areas, as it does for thousands of other kit fuselage joints. I’ll probably find out why they didn’t do that, because mine is now effectively a butt-joint having given up and sliced the tabs off and glued them into their recesses.

[dr_gn]

This diagonal sink mark over the port wing and fuselage needs addressing somehow:



Doesn’t appear on the stbd. wing. There are no significant features under it. Suppose it could be some strange meld line, but either way it’ll be a pain to deal with. Go figure.

The more I look at this thing, the more I wonder if I just got a dud.

[CanAm]

dr_gn said:

This diagonal sink mark over the port wing and fuselage needs addressing somehow:


Doesn’t appear on the stbd. wing. There are no significant features under it. Suppose it could be some strange meld line, but either way it’ll be a pain to deal with. Go figure.

The more I look at this thing, the more I wonder if I just got a dud.

Bearing in mind that you said it was a prize from Airfix, that's rather disappointing.

[Regbuser]

How very frustrating

I'm guessing contacting airfix with your evidence of piss poor kit quality, and getting a free and hopefully better kit, and putting a lot of work in again, doesn't appeal..

[MarkwG]

Regbuser said:

How very frustrating

I'm guessing contacting airfix with your evidence of piss poor kit quality, and getting a free and hopefully better kit, and putting a lot of work in again, doesn't appeal..

Apologies for the tangent, but I recall when I was a nipper trying to build kits that I now realise were a similar "quality". I wouldn't say it was the only thing that put me off, I didn't have the best attention span, but I can see how a youngster could be frustrated enough to think "s@d this, I'll go & do another hobby" - which is a bit counter productive from the manufacturers perspective, surely?

[dr_gn]

Regbuser said:

I'm guessing contacting airfix with your evidence of piss poor kit quality, and getting a free and hopefully better kit, and putting a lot of work in again, doesn't appeal..

Nope, sure doesn’t.

[dr_gn]

MarkwG said:

Regbuser said:

How very frustrating

I'm guessing contacting airfix with your evidence of piss poor kit quality, and getting a free and hopefully better kit, and putting a lot of work in again, doesn't appeal..

Apologies for the tangent, but I recall when I was a nipper trying to build kits that I now realise were a similar "quality". I wouldn't say it was the only thing that put me off, I didn't have the best attention span, but I can see how a youngster could be frustrated enough to think "s@d this, I'll go & do another hobby" - which is a bit counter productive from the manufacturers perspective, surely?

No idea - they still sell, and their marketing is spot-on.

Type in “Airfix quality control” to Google and see what comes up. I think the fact is, many people who buy them simply aren’t concerned with the quality of the mouldings, that’s if they even notice a problem. Others will never get opened, never mind built.

A child who’se never built one before probably won’t be concerned with poor fit or sink marks, unless, as would probably be the case with this one, it physically wouldn’t fit together without clamps, weights, files and tape. Then again, this is a c.£60 kit, so hardly pocket money.

[dr_gn]

CanAm said:

dr_gn said:

This diagonal sink mark over the port wing and fuselage needs addressing somehow:


Doesn’t appear on the stbd. wing. There are no significant features under it. Suppose it could be some strange meld line, but either way it’ll be a pain to deal with. Go figure.

The more I look at this thing, the more I wonder if I just got a dud.

Bearing in mind that you said it was a prize from Airfix, that's rather disappointing.

The irony - on many levels - isn’t lost on me!

[SydneyBridge]

It almost looks like a very bad pre-production prototype

[dr_gn]

SydneyBridge said:

It almost looks like a very bad pre-production prototype

Could be I suppose. Strange because I only noticed the diagonal sink mark the other day. I’d been thinking it was a boundary from some grey primer I used on the air brakes. As I said, there are no features underneath it, which is odd.

[goldbazinga]

dr_gn said:

SydneyBridge said:

It almost looks like a very bad pre-production prototype

Could be I suppose. Strange because I only noticed the diagonal sink mark the other day. I’d been thinking it was a boundary from some grey primer I used on the air brakes. As I said, there are no features underneath it, which is odd.

I think I was reading on the Airfix blog for the Buccaneer that sink marks are due to the plastic cooling before it is able to fill the mold fully and is much more likely on large parts.

Looking at the Vulcan, they might have little choice but cast those wings as large parts as there are few natural breaks to hide any joints.

[dr_gn]

goldbazinga said:

dr_gn said:

SydneyBridge said:

It almost looks like a very bad pre-production prototype

Could be I suppose. Strange because I only noticed the diagonal sink mark the other day. I’d been thinking it was a boundary from some grey primer I used on the air brakes. As I said, there are no features underneath it, which is odd.

I think I was reading on the Airfix blog for the Buccaneer that sink marks are due to the plastic cooling before it is able to fill the mold fully and is much more likely on large parts.

Looking at the Vulcan, they might have little choice but cast those wings as large parts as there are few natural breaks to hide any joints.

I don’t know why they didn’t mould the upper and lower wings as one part. The mould capacity is obviously there, because they’re on one sprue. It would have eliminated a whole load of hassle when joining them, especially when they subsequently opted for the bizarre joining method of pockets and tabs in the bomb bay roof, which don’t fit properly anyway.

End of the day I think it’s probably simple economics that dictates the quality of plastic, and production methods. To be fair, why would they change things when they’ve apparently got people pre-ordering multiples of the same new tool kits, and others begging them to produce kits of whatever obscure subject they’re currently obsessed with?

[IJWS15]

dr_gn said:

This diagonal sink mark over the port wing and fuselage needs addressing somehow:

..

Doesn’t appear on the stbd. wing. There are no significant features under it. Suppose it could be some strange meld line, but either way it’ll be a pain to deal with. Go figure.

The more I look at this thing, the more I wonder if I just got a dud.

Is it me, or the photo? There appear to be 2 lines on the port wing and one on the starboard.

[dr_gn]

IJWS15 said:

dr_gn said:

This diagonal sink mark over the port wing and fuselage needs addressing somehow:

..

Doesn’t appear on the stbd. wing. There are no significant features under it. Suppose it could be some strange meld line, but either way it’ll be a pain to deal with. Go figure.

The more I look at this thing, the more I wonder if I just got a dud.

Is it me, or the photo? There appear to be 2 lines on the port wing and one on the starboard.

Yes, one on starboard is offset lower?

Thing is that one is so shallow that I think it’ll be impossible to fill and sand back, without removing the filler as well. So then you’re back to square one. This is why I hate sink marks like this.