1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan FINISHED

eNax

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May 16, 2013
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Hello, time to make an appearance in the aircraft section of the forum. And yes, FIRST AIRPLANE since I was a kid! Basically I needed something to occupy myself with and went looking. I found this kit for 15€ in a local modelling store and went for it, despite of bad reviews. So here it is, along with my newly aquired workdesk! (girlfriend finally gave in)

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I did figure out quite fast why the kit has received so bad reviews.
Main concerns are inverted panel lines (raised, not recessed), and very poor fit of the fuselage parts. The poor fit is the easier to remedy in my opinion, just a lot of milliput ;D . The panel lines on the other hand are a different matter, maybe I'll have to go out and get myself a Dremel? :p

So, let's get to the build then! I'm going to build this basically out of the box, not sure how much I'll use the Humbrol acrylic paints supplied with the kit but we'll see... True to the instructions I started out with the pilots.
On this part Airfix did an ok job.

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Painting the flyboys was a first for me, as will many things as the build progresses. I think the pilots came out quite nice, nothing special or too ambitious but no one will see much of the anyway.
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The cockpit is very simple indeed, just the pilots' seats glued to a floorboard + the an instrument board. The waterslide decal for the instruments is quite nice.
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I went mega-simple on the cockpit chairs but I figured once more, not much will be visible in the end ;D .
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Got started on the air intakes. This is where I began to notice the "small" issues with how the parts fit, as you will see. Inside of the air intakes is painted with the supplied acrylics. They aren't too bad, but for the fuselage I'll get some spray-can primer and use my Humbrol enamels.

The intakes are supplied in 2 pieces/side for some reason, will require some putty in a difficult to access area.
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Some dry fitting after sanding the inside
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Painted and puttied.
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Different angle showing the compressor blades
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Dry fitted the assembled intake, just to find more gaps in the fit.
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That's it for now. Next is sanding + repainting the intakes and getting the cockpit ready so I can join the 2 fuselage parts.
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan

Gonna take some work, but I'm thinking you're on the right track here
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan

Very cool subject. The Airfix Vulcan is an old kit, it'll take some effort - but I think it's the only 1:72 kit of the Vulcan on the market. Good start on those tough inside seams, looking forward to your next update.
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan



I do love the Vulcan, one of my all time favorite pieces of engineering, I kinda have family links to the Vulcan as my dad looked after a few squadrons of them during his time in the RAF.

What colour scheme are you going to go for then?

NATO camo or the flash white scheme?
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan

Mikey: To be honest I haven't thought much about it yet... First I was going to build it just OOB as a slam build but she's turning out to be quite the putty queen, so why not go custom on the paint. I was actually toying with the idea of aftermarket waterslide decals, to turn her into a Falklands Vulcan. You do however bring up an excellent option with the flash white., if i decide to go for the nuclear Vulcan! Thanks for the idea :) .
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan


I could throw a curve ball and suggest XH506 - the Vulcan bomber portrayed in the James Bond movie Thunderball?

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Either way, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you do with this kit. Tempted to do one myself :)
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan

According to the instructions a 30gram weight was needed in the nose, no weight was included in the box. I decided to use lead pellets strapped in with superglue. Also at this point the intakes went in to the lower fuselage, and cockpit into the upper. Major gaps, and bad alignment appeared as the fuselage halves were joined (suprise) ::) . Worst areas were the intakes and engine nozzles. Forgot to take pictures of the gaps in the nozzles before putty.

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After 2 rounds of putty and vigurous sanding the intake area is starting to smooth out. Still got some work to do around there though...

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I got tired of working on the damned intakes so I went to visist a hobbyshop to get tips & tools for tackling the raised panel lines. I ended up with a Trumpeter scribing knife and went to town on the underside of the wings. At first I managed quite a few crooked lines but after half a wing, I started to get the hang of it.
The technique I got to by trial and error, was slicing a light groove with the blade using the raised lines as a guide, then switching around my grip and drag in deeper grooves. I think I got a bit too excited on some of the lines and made them unnecessarily deep. I guess we'll see when primer goes on... ;D

Undersides of both wings done thus far, and worst damage puttied:

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Motivation is good at the moment and I hope to make steady progress. I'm also thankful for your encouragement and kind words, thank you! :)
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan

Looks like it is coming along well considering the kit.

As far as the raised panel lines. Just my opinion here, but why stress it and add all that work? They dont look all that bad and nothing prevents weathering/shading them. Look at it like this. When that kit was produced, were the hobbiests then running to sand it down and re scribe it? They had the same tools then we do now. And there were companies starting to do recessed panel lines.

I find it to be almost a fad. But, as I said, that is just my opinion.

Oh, to help with keeping the panel lines straight, get some Dymo label tape. Use it as a straight edge. Works great.
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan

I really just want to learn the technique, and being most interesting in building ships I think there's a lot of applications for it, with armor plating detail lacking in many kits. Since I'm new to modelling, I'm treating this kit like a test of my patience to gauge what I might be able to build in the future ;D . Lastly I absolutely love the Vulcan and wanted to really go to town with it.
Wondering if there's a Handley Page Victor kit available in 1/72? Would be cool to build one those too since they played a big part in the Falklands bombing raid.
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan

Try the dymo tape trick. It helps a LOT.

I think I saw something somewhere that they were getting ready to come out with one later this year.
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan

The project has reached a point where work feels a bit tedious and not very rewarding. That might have something to do with the fact that working on it feels like groundhog day; putty, sand, get tired of sanding, scribe panel lines, sand a bit more, and it keeps repeating. ;D

I glued on the wings, vertical stabilizer and tail, all leaving major gaps and leading to major putty and sanding work. The wings turned out pretty good I think and once paint goes on there shouldn't be any trace of the huge gap, the vertical stabilizer and tail will require some further work.
Also I've improved on using the scribing tool and panel line work on the top side of the plane is quite decent, atleast good enough for me. I still have one of the wings, the vertical stabilizer and the very tail of the plane left to scribe. Some putty work and sanding on the leading edges on the wings is also required, but after that I dare to say we're ready for primer. 8)

Pics:

Wings on, puttied and sanded a bit:

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Tail piece glued in (even worse gaps on the underside):

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Tail piece putty hell :mad: :

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Some work has been done on the leading edges of the wings:

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Panel line work:

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I've decied that I want to make this particular Vulcan into XM607 that carried out the first mission of Operation Black Buck during the Falkands War. I just can't seem to find any aftermarket decals for Vulcans and help would be much appreciated! ;)
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan

Thank you very much for the comments and the link, I'll definetly order that decal set! :) Any tips on getting the letters and numbers lined up properly?
On another topic, I've been looking at a great number of pictures and done some further research on the plane. Some of the panel lines on the nose section are quite inaccurate, which will be easy to fix since I've already delved into scribing panel lines.
Also I'll have to look into fabricating an underwing pylon and the AN/ALQ-101 jamming pod that was fitted to Vulcans during the Black Buck raids.
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan

She looks to be fighting you, but I think you're winning.
Those seams will surrender, in time
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan



Glad the decals look good for you. Some low tack masking tape to line up the decals? Tamiya do a range of widths that may help?

https://www.emodels.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=tamiya+tape

Also, and I'm not sure how close you are to RAF Cosford, but I would highly recommend paying a visit to the Cold War museum there. It's free (just have to pay for parking which isn't much) but you can get seriously up close and personal with a Vulcan and various other aircraft in the "V" squadrons.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/cosford/things-to-see-and-do/hangars/cold-war.aspx
 
Re: 1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan

I'd love to visit but unfortunately I live in Finland, so not very practical ;D . Maybe on a future UK visit though!
 

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