Airfix 1:72 Vulcan B.2

[r159]

This project seems like it has become a matter of pride to get it done…will we see it at SMW?

[Taita]

I'm sure there was another gent on PH with one of these kits too but on mobile and search is predictably dire. His kit wasn't quite as bad?

Still love watching it develop as its one of my fave aircraft!

[dr_gn]

r159 said:

This project seems like it has become a matter of pride to get it done…will we see it at SMW?

Gets to the point where you put so much work into it that you have to finish it.

It definitely won’t be at SMW, in fact I’ve got nothing to take; this thing has sapped pretty much all the motivation I had to build plastic kits.

Taita:

I’ve not seen another one on here, there’s the YouTube build I linked to earlier, but like me, he started off thinking it was pretty good, but found the same issues as I’ve found the further along he got.

[ten200]

I've been lurking on this thread and I'm amazed by the effort you've been putting in to this model. My attempts at Airfix kits as a kid usually ended up with my mum treading on them.

If you do get fed up with it, you could model it as the Vulcan crash from Thunderball. Displaying it at the bottom of the sea with a camouflage net over it should be enough to hide the flaws in the kit.

[dr_gn]

ten200 said:

I've been lurking on this thread and I'm amazed by the effort you've been putting in to this model. My attempts at Airfix kits as a kid usually ended up with my mum treading on them.

If you do get fed up with it, you could model it as the Vulcan crash from Thunderball. Displaying it at the bottom of the sea with a camouflage net over it should be enough to hide the flaws in the kit.

Thanks, but that would be even more work just to cover up the corrective work I've alrady done.

I'm hoping that camoflauge, weathering and matt varnish will make the appalling surface finish of it less obvious. At the end of the day it will end up in the loft anyway due to it's size. I have a rule that nothing gets left unfinished - it may take months (or years in the case of the McLaren MP4/6), but it will get done to the best standard I can realistically achieve.

[Murph7355]

Another interested viewer - glad you're persevering.

Pretty poor quality mouldings though.

Is lubframatt still around? I'm assuming feedback gets back to Airfix.

[dr_gn]

Murph7355 said:

Another interested viewer - glad you're persevering.

Pretty poor quality mouldings though.

Is lubframatt still around? I'm assuming feedback gets back to Airfix.

Feedback is pointless; they’re probably doing the best they can within tight financial constraints. I know in the past they’ve looked on here (I’m sure I have a degree of notoriety). No doubt they follow other forums too, and see the YouTube videos similar to the “not good enough” one I linked to earlier. I’ve seen old blokes ranting at them at the Telford show before now. It would be naive to think they’re not aware of their quality issues. I’ve built 7 Airfix ‘New Tool’ kits since about 2010, all but two have had issues with either mouldings, poor fit, accuracy or incorrect instructions (or a combination of these - indeed all of them in the case of this thing). Combine this with the cheap feeling plastic and often poor surface detail, and Airfix barely make it into my top ten kit manufacturers.

For the sake of arguement let’s break down sales into what I’d estimate is about right:

75% - Never get built.
20% - Get built by people who are happy just to finish a model to any standard.
3% - Get built by reasonably experienced modellers, but have a degree of brand loyalty/nostalgia for Airfix.
2% - maybe less - get built by capable modellers who are bothered enough to get pissed off when they find quality issues.

So assuming the above figures are ball-park…what’s the point trying to improve?

I’ve got £100 of vouchers to spend with Airfix before the end of the year - probably about 3 or 4 kits at current prices. I’ll be interested to see what proportion have faults of one kind or another.

[Taita]

Roughly what size is the finished thing do you think? 30cm+ 45cm+?

[dr_gn]

Taita said:

Roughly what size is the finished thing do you think? 30cm+ 45cm+?

About 450 mm span x 450 mm long

[dr_gn]

Upper surface grey finished, preshaded with NATO black:





Then Kleared ready for masking:



Did some masking for the green today. Started by enlarging the colour plans:



Looks more like XH558 will look in the near future



Checking for sizing and location:



Then, made the final masks by tracing, cutting, masking, cutting again (the exact sequence I can't remember)...







Eventually located them on the model by matching the trench panel lines to the traced panel lines on the masks:



Still a way to go, but seems to work well enough so far.

[Fallingup]

It may be a rubbish kit but the finished model is going to look superb even if you don't think so. Well done. Having overcome all the challenges so far, you have my greatest respect.

[dr_gn]

Fallingup said:

It may be a rubbish kit but the finished model is going to look superb even if you don't think so. Well done. Having overcome all the challenges so far, you have my greatest respect.

Thanks! I think it might look good enough - depends on whether the flat varnish hides the remaining surface defects.

Hopefully by the end of the afternoon it’ll have the basic camo pattern on, and that might motivate me to finish it. I’ve got 2 other models I want to at least start this year…

[Taita]

No pressure but..... We are all waiting

[dr_gn]

I've ended going a bit off-piste with some parts of the scheme. I don't really get the painting instructions - they say it's a 1966 scheme from Scampton, and also say the aircraft is currently preserved at NAM. But the scheme it wears at NAM isn't the same as the '66 plans - for example the stepped demarcation at the nose isn't there (unless of course they've re-painted it recenty). So as a painting reference, that information seems irrelevant and quite confusing.

Also, the scheme itself has errors: Take the demarcation over the cockpit; round the roundel, up behind the porthole, then veers aft:



Same with the plan view:



Then you come to the stbd side, and...it's completely different - with the demarcation passing through the porthole:



Which...is impossible based on the other views.

Same at the tail with the demarcation passing over the brake 'chute fairing, and covering the nose of the outlet duct:



Yet on the side view, the duct has no demarcation at all:



Again, like with the intake duct masking templates that are wrong - who checked them before signing them off? Jeez.

[dr_gn]

Anyway, finished the masking as best I could and added the remaining dorsal antenna:





Also brush painted some green where I know the airbrush won't reach:



Then sprayed the base coat of green:



Preshaded with NATO black:





Then the long awaited de-masking:



Not bad overall, but the canopy demarcation doesn't look right to me so I might try and change it somehow.

A few errors are to be expected with something this big, such as missed masking:



Lifted masking and underspray:



Also missed a radius on one of the intake wrap-arounds:



I'm surprised the masking on the intakes worked as well as it did - it's been on for months. A bit of work needed, but nothing huge:



The wrap-around on teh leading edges worked pretty well:



So I'll let it harden a bit (probably for another 6 months at this rate of motivation) and get the corrective work done.

[Taita]

Few minor issues (that I'd struggle to see tbh!) but still looks great imo!

[dr_gn]

Taita said:

Few minor issues (that I'd struggle to see tbh!) but still looks great imo!

Thanks - yeah very minor issues in the grand scheme of things, but they can and do bite you when you're 99% done!

[dr_gn]

Started on paint corrections, beginning with partially re-masking the intakes to get various small errors sorted:





Also did a bit of green camo re-profiling too.





A few minor bits to sort on the rest of the airframe, but I’m glad the intakes are done.

[dr_gn]

Masked and painted the radome black:





The final bits of masking will be for the buff coloured fibreglass panels in various places.

[dr_gn]

Someone on the V-Bomber FB page kindly posted the original RAF camo paint manual scheme from 1966, so I thought I’d at least improve the impossible scheme Airfix provided for the forward fuselage. Began by abrading the hard demarcation to get rid of any slight step, and also to feather any contrast difference caused by over spraying a dark colour:



Then profiled the masking to blend into the more or less correct bits:



That’ll do:



The reason I’m having to mess about masking the buff coloured fibreglass panels is that Airfix provided most of them as decals, but not all of them (the ones on the fin are missing):



And the two most tricky to mask (and prominent ones) aren’t provided. Since it’s impossible to match the decal colour, and there’s a decal right next to one of the missing ones, to do it right they all have to masked and painted. Nice one Airfix. Must try harder.