Airfix 1:72 Vulcan B.2

[davidexige]

Thanks for the update, looks like the finishing line is insight now, looking forward to seeing it once complete.

[dr_gn]

Masked up the dielectric panels:







Cut out and painted the tip decals (might not work, but worth a try):



Panel lines on the fin dielectric aren’t symmetrical - missing lines on one side, extra line on the other:





There are at least four obvious asymmetry errors on this thing.

[dr_gn]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Thanks very much. I'm just trying to get it basically right, and none of the photos I've seen have it like Airfix have shown it in that area on their paint plan.

As an aside, the yellow stencil decals in the kit look very 'in your face', particularly the lifting stencils around the nose. I assume these would be much less obvious in reality?

Have a look at the seventh image down to see what I mean:

https://www.florymodels.org/vlog/2021/10/4/airfix-...

[RacingPete]

As others have said, thank you for the continuing updates on what is such a frustrating model. When there is a new update I’m genuinely excited to see what fun and mysterious thing has happened next with the kit

[dr_gn]

RacingPete said:

As others have said, thank you for the continuing updates on what is such a frustrating model. When there is a new update I’m genuinely excited to see what fun and mysterious thing has happened next with the kit

Ha ha no problem. I’m going to start the Special Hobby Viggen later; I need some quality modelling back in my life even though this one isn’t finished yet.

[dr_gn]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Thanks, yes it did cross my mind that the upper surfaces are rarely seen at close quarters. Maybe I’ll just put the stencils on and be done with it.

I appreciate your comments on skill, but seriously there’s little detail to apply any skill to, it’s just a very big expanse of plastic (not saying there’s much missing, although the central windscreen wiper and wingtip lights would have been appreciated), but it’s a model of a fairly featureless airframe. A lot of work went into correcting production errors like sink marks, but many are still visible. If anything, filling and smoothing the fit errors, and paint masking of the intakes and splitters was the trickiest part.

[eccles]

dr_gn said:

Thanks very much. I'm just trying to get it basically right, and none of the photos I've seen have it like Airfix have shown it in that area on their paint plan.

As an aside, the yellow stencil decals in the kit look very 'in your face', particularly the lifting stencils around the nose. I assume these would be much less obvious in reality?

Have a look at the seventh image down to see what I mean:

https://www.florymodels.org/vlog/2021/10/4/airfix-...

Having worked on quite a few aircraft that have been freshly painted the yellow stencils do indeed stand out at first. They do weather in though, just like the rest of the paint job.
From reading some of your previous amazing builds I know you sometimes finish your models with a 'dirty' wash, so if you did that after you've applied the stencils, that would knock them back a bit.

[dr_gn]

eccles said:

dr_gn said:

Thanks very much. I'm just trying to get it basically right, and none of the photos I've seen have it like Airfix have shown it in that area on their paint plan.

As an aside, the yellow stencil decals in the kit look very 'in your face', particularly the lifting stencils around the nose. I assume these would be much less obvious in reality?

Have a look at the seventh image down to see what I mean:

https://www.florymodels.org/vlog/2021/10/4/airfix-...

Having worked on quite a few aircraft that have been freshly painted the yellow stencils do indeed stand out at first. They do weather in though, just like the rest of the paint job.
From reading some of your previous amazing builds I know you sometimes finish your models with a 'dirty' wash, so if you did that after you've applied the stencils, that would knock them back a bit.

Thanks. I don't think weathering will do much to these TBH. In the past I've used Tamiya Smoke or even oversprayed with thinned base colour to tone them down, but on this thing there are dozens.

[dr_gn]

Continued with the dozens of stencil decals:



Also cut the solid plastic oil/air separator vent pipe ends off and finessed them a bit using brass tube:



I’ve missed out posting an almost endless sequence of damaging paintwork, correcting it, catching the damned thing on a door frame or the bench or whatever and having to make yet more corrections…this is one example around the stbd. elevons. It’s not just a case of over-spraying the error, because the pre-shading gets lost. This shows the pre-shading being added to an area where an accidental and un-noticed drip of Klear ruined the initial finish:





I’m determined to finish it, even though when it’s done it’ll look like a pretty unrefined plastic triangle. Partly because of the quality issues, partly because the real thing was fairly bereft of any detail features.

[Fallingup]

Please don't finish it. It's been a fascinating thread for so long now.

[dr_gn]

So exactly a year after winning this thing, I was at Scale Model World today, and so were Airfix. I showed them the pictures of some of the faults, and to be fair they seemed genuinely surprised. Both people (including I believe the designer) immediately said that it was clear that something had gone wrong somewhere. I think the conclusion was that perhaps an early batch might have gone out with some incorrect moulding settings (or whatever - anyway it wasn’t representative of what they consider to be acceptable quality).

That kind of ties in with some other builds I’ve linked to on here, where the same issues have been noted, yet other people say they’ve had no issues and it’s a pleasure to build. Also the majority of the models I saw at the show didn’t appear to have had much filler. Ah well, at least I know.

In other news, I finally spent the other part of last years winnings, the £100 Airfix voucher. These are what I went with:



I thought it was a good combination of stuff I fancy, but know might need a bit of work (Buccaneer), and brand new stuff that I want to try (Meteor & E-Type).

First the E-Type; I’m a bit of a connoisseur of S1 Coupes, and I do believe this Airfix kit is one of the best representations of the shape I’ve seen in a model. To me it’s as obviously right as the recent Revell offering was obviously wrong:



The wheels let it down, but for £6 I found a nice set of 3D printed items:



It’s a very inexpensive, simple ‘kerbside’ starter kit, with few parts, but it does capture the car very well. I think it should have been moulded as right-hand drive - it is after all *the* king of classic British sports cars, and there are small errors; the 4.2 decal is incorrect for the 3.8 seats, and the iconic original steering wheel rim shouldn’t be riveted. Anyway, time will tell if it still looks good once finished…

Then the Meteor. The pleasant surprise on opening the box was the vast apparent improvement in plastic quality. I was a bit taken aback to be honest. It seems harder and crisper than the light grey stuff, almost like Tamiya plastic.

I couldn’t resist doing some dry assembly, and the good news got better - the fit of the few parts I’d cut out was exemplary:





Unfortunately there seems to be a flaw in the canopy, which I think is being addressed, but apart from that I have high hopes this is going to be a great little model.

[pingu393]

Having seen the Hornby programme on the telly, my money is on them using an enthusiast's E-Type as the thing to copy with a laser scanner. Unknown to them, the car had been modified in the last 60 years.

[dr_gn]

pingu393 said:

Having seen the Hornby programme on the telly, my money is on them using an enthusiast's E-Type as the thing to copy with a laser scanner. Unknown to them, the car had been modified in the last 60 years.

It was in an Airfix Workbench feature, they scanned a car at some E-Type restoration company. The car they used probably had a Moto-Lita steering wheel, which has rivets around the rim. The left-had drive might be to try and improve sales overseas, but a right had drive dashboard would have been good to include. Still, it would have meant more cost, and I suppose a 3D printed version will be available soon enough (if not I’ll print one myself along with the correct seats).

[saaby93]

What's the origin of 1:43 scale? 1:72 is reasonably obvious

[shalmaneser]

dr_gn said:

So exactly a year after winning this thing, I was at Scale Model World today, and so were Airfix. I showed them the pictures of some of the faults, and to be fair they seemed genuinely surprised. Both people (including I believe the designer) immediately said that it was clear that something had gone wrong somewhere. I think the conclusion was that perhaps an early batch might have gone out with some incorrect moulding settings (or whatever - anyway it wasn’t representative of what they consider to be acceptable quality).

Having had some experience with plastic injection moulding I would say it was indicative of an underfilled cavity. The sort of thing you would see early in a production run IMO.

[tr7v8]

saaby93 said:

What's the origin of 1:43 scale? 1:72 is reasonably obvious

O gauge model railways.

[saaby93]

tr7v8 said:

saaby93 said:

What's the origin of 1:43 scale? 1:72 is reasonably obvious

O gauge model railways.

Was there something 43" that became 1"?
3ft 7 inches
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_track_gauges

[dr_gn]

shalmaneser said:

dr_gn said:

So exactly a year after winning this thing, I was at Scale Model World today, and so were Airfix. I showed them the pictures of some of the faults, and to be fair they seemed genuinely surprised. Both people (including I believe the designer) immediately said that it was clear that something had gone wrong somewhere. I think the conclusion was that perhaps an early batch might have gone out with some incorrect moulding settings (or whatever - anyway it wasn’t representative of what they consider to be acceptable quality).

Having had some experience with plastic injection moulding I would say it was indicative of an underfilled cavity. The sort of thing you would see early in a production run IMO.

They mentioned a few things it could be - moulds not fully warmed-up, injection pressure, injection temperature etc. etc. I guess that could also explain the left side being slightly shorter than the right side (although none of that would explain the asymmetric panel lines). Still disappointing, but it is what it is, the Airfix name is on the box no matter who actually moulded it and let it go out of the door. Not the first time I've had faults with Airfix kits, and it wasn't the last. Hopefully the new plastic will help reduce faults like this in future.

[pingu393]

dr_gn said:

... the Airfix name is on the box no matter who actually moulded it and let it go out of the door...

Exactly. No excuse can avoid this simple fact.

They should have offered you another voucher, at least.

Although these threads are a great advert for your skill, they are also a great advert for the model manufacturers.

[dr_gn]

pingu393 said:

dr_gn said:

... the Airfix name is on the box no matter who actually moulded it and let it go out of the door...

Exactly. No excuse can avoid this simple fact.

They should have offered you another voucher, at least.

Although these threads are a great advert for your skill, they are also a great advert for the model manufacturers.

To be fair, on seeing the pictures, they immediately said they’d send me another one, but I politely declined the offer. I never want to see another Airfix Vulcan - it’s de-motivated me to the extent I’ve not completed a model since starting this one nearly 12 months ago. I know…I could have sold the new one, but the aim wasn’t to get another model out of them; the original (and the voucher) was a much appreciated prize, but it just turned out to be a bad ‘un. I’m currently busying-up the bomb-bay a little bit, then it’s done.