Great work Victor, good to see you still plugging away through all of the frustrations you have faced. Keep posting the progress pics, and if you can face the bad memories perhaps describe the issues with the kit for others who might have it in the stash ??

Cheers, Damian

Hi All
What is it with Venom's. Everyone seems to be battling these small fighters.
Mine has now got wings and booms. Still no pictures at the moment but will try to take some during the week.
Now going to start masking the camera pods. They are cast in clear resin so some careful masking is the order of the day.
I will say that all the problems I have been having have been of my own making and not the kit.
The quality of this kit is amazing. If you read MAI you will see a review of this kit a couple of issues ago.

plodding on

Brian

Great to see you plugging away still Brian, can't wait to see some pics of your progress.

Victor, I forgot to mention that swearing at kits is good therapy, until the wife comes in and backhands you in the ear. Then you need to consider the hammer option.

Cheers, D

I must say even my 3 Jack Russell's run and hide when I start turning the air blue. Then the wife tells me off.

Brian

Hi Guys,

The fit issues on my kit could be self induced, although I don't think they all were. However it was my first time working with major Resin Components.

I found the U/C bays had to be sanded down to almost wafer thin to get them to sandwich in the wings, even then a cosiderable amount of clamping was required. The Cockpit and nose bay sub assembly was a real to get together, with much fettling and trial before i got a decent fit.

The Wing to Fuse fit was very poor and as you you might be able to make out from the second picture in my previous post, it required strips of plasticard to fill the gaps on the underside. I will need some filler on those as well in the coming days. Modest filler was required on the top of the join, but not as bad as the bottom.

The Boom, to wing fit was also pretty poor and is currently taking my time, with filling and sanding to acheive a less obvious join. I built a very basic cardbord jig to assist with the alignment of the booms and the horiz Stab to the wings, which helped.

I'm not looking forward to the Canopy installation either, as intial dry fitting seems to show some small gaps which will neeed attention.

Now I've written the problems down, they don't seems so bad, but the kit could be quite de-motivating at times, which delays the whole process, But on the up side I've probably learnt more getting this kit to the stage it's in now than in the previous 3 or 4 'Mainstream' kits that I have done.

If anyone has any specific questions, ask a proper modeler, if you can't find one drop me a pm.

You don't need to worry about the swearing AussieReg the wife if a born and bred Dubliner, If i didn't swear I'd be a social outcast.

Take it easy guys,

Victor.

Thanks for the campaign aussie it was a really good idea

Cheers Justin, I've always had a liking for the Twin Boom concept, a little bit offbeat, and putting a collection together here just made sense.

Hi all!

After I had assembled the wings, booms and stabilizator (which was surprisingly easy), I turned to the big glass-house canopy.
First, a quick look at the completed cockpit, it’ll do!






Earlier, in the beginning of the build, I dipped all glass-parts in Future floor polish to get them clear and crispy!
I masked all windows, using my Tesa –tape (yellow kabuki tape, Tamiya-style)



Now I got some serious problems, nothing would fit!

I sanded the front screen to shape, and glued it to the model.



I had to sand the roof-part quite a good deal, being a few millimetres too long to fit.





The side panels gave me some problems and a lot of sanding, but in the end, I got ´em in place really good.

I glued them with white wooden glue (Elmers(?)), just to get the parts to “grip”.





Finally I reinforced all joins with CA-glue, and it became extremely strong.
Let’s hope I didn’t fog everything!
Will be quite a thrill to remove the masking later!

I used some more wooden glue as filler on the joins; this will dry clear and will be invisible later.

To finish off the canopy and check all joins, I painted the inner frames a satin Black (Hu85).



I still had quit a lot of paint in the cup, so I checked all joins on the model.
That’s why she’s so spotty right now!

More to come soon!

Cheers!

Stefan

Hi all
A really late start by me, but I am off and building my Xtrakit 1/72 Sea Vixen.











A bit of a challenging kit to put it midly. Not really one for a speed build, but thats whats it is going to be. Decided to have the wings fully extended, but the join between outer and inner wing is butt joined and is hopelessly weak. Hence the re-inforcing plastic strips. Assembled and painted the cockpit interior this morning and hopefully I can start some serious gluing tonight.
tim

Lovely stuff Tim ! You've taken on a fair load with your staff appointment, so don't sweat the finish date mate !!

Ok, getting close to last drinks with 2 weeks to go, who else is still with us here??

Cheers, D

Still here!

My Bronco is primed and masked up, ready for the paintbooth!

Might keep the scedule this time!

Cheers, D

Stefan E

I've finally found some time to get my Classic Airframes Vampire Mk.5 back on the front burner - we'll see if I can get her done before the due date...

pic of current state of things:

Cool, seems to be a final spurt with a focus on De Havilland designs!
I‘m working on a speed build of the Hobbycraft Vampire.



@ Vance: I‘m highly interested in your Vampire build. The Classic Airframes‘ kit is definitely more sophisticated than the Hobbycraft one. Keep on going!

Cheers
Matty

@ Matty - I suspect your vampire will at least go together faster than my Classic Airframes version!

here is my current state of vampiness:



I applied liberal amounts of Mr Surfacer to various joins just to be thorough.

It took quite a bit of parts juggling to get the booms straight and parallel with the tail-plane locked in and level at the same time, but I eventually managed it after a fair bit of

It was necessary to add a thin plastic shim to each side of the horizontal tailplane to get it to be wide enough if the booms were to be equidistant from each other and not angling in at the tail.


I really should have just built a jig.

Hi All,
Here‘s my building status: Cockpit done

Detail is somewhat sparse. As you barely see many details with closed canopy I just added paper seat belts.

@ Vance: Your Vamp is taking shape nicely! Tail booms and wings look well aligned. I see the challenge coming up at this step.



Cheers
Matty

Next phase:
Preparation of wings and tail boom subassemblies accompanied by some tedious sanding. The fit is not too bad, but the sanding is always like a mantra to me - when thinking „enough is enough, nobody will ever see this“ I try to motivate myself for another 5 minutes of sanding time...

The exhaust pipe is heavily thinned in comparison to the original part which looked more like a sewage pipe.

I have a kind of respect for twin boom assemblies - therefore I improvised a cardboard spreader to ensure alignment until the glue has set.



Cheers
Matty

Looking great guys, the last minute rush hour will produce some really cool Boom Boomers !!

Cheers, D

Hi Damian

Well I know you already wrote it in my thread, but I just want to ask again, as I totally underestimated the small PE stuff and am now sure that I will not make it. Could I puleeeeeze have an extension?

all the best

Steffen

No problems Steffen, you have an extra 2 hours, 37 mins and 45 seconds. Now hop to it !!

Seriously, take what time you need. As I said, I would rather see you finish the build to your own standard than have you rush it to meet a time frame.

Cheers, D

Hi Damian
I think like Steffen I might need a bit of an extension. I was going to put some primer on this morning but the little beauty has turned into a tail sitter [see photo] despite filling the nose with old lead solder! I have had to drill a couple of holes in the roof of the front u/c bay so I can push more lead and super glue into the nose area just forward of the cockpit. I hope the resin nose gear can bare the weight! I will put a piece of plasti-card in the gear bay roof to cover the holes. Now I wonder if the glue will be set by this evening. It's been a challenging build so far, I think I have used more cryo than plastic glue, but I love the little darling. I think I might look out for MPM's FAW 1.
All the best.
tim

Another step towards a gracious plane (at least the original).

But, at the moment it‘s just something between a powered egg or an egg plane...

@ Tim: Your bird looks great already! Good luck with „operation nose weight“. I‘m looking forward to the Airfix kit in 1/48 hitting the shelves.



Cheers
Matty

Hi Matty
operation nose weight was a success . The nose gear bay is a bit of a mess, but can be cleaned up, in fact I am doing it now. I can't wait for the release of the Airfix 1/48 Sea Vixen either. When I acquire it, I think it will be a case of stop everything and start the new Vixen. I must admit the visit to Duxford this summer and seeing the real thing is very inspiring. Must go again before the end of the year.
Oh and Matty your Vampire looks fantastic. I really like that jet pipe.
All the best and here's to finishing. Hope the boss man is in a good mood.
tim

Hi Tim,
I‘m glad to hear that your operation was a success!

Once I totally forgot to install some weight in a build - since then I always glue it in in the very beginning of construction.

Duxford is always an inspiring trip. I‘ve been there several times during the Flying Legends Air Show taking place. Maybe you‘ve noticed the tower building in my avatar...

The Sea Vixen in the Duxford hangar is really looking cool - some kind of unique mixture of elegance and brutality. You can see the rapid development from the Vampire, Venom to the Vixen

And thanks for your nice words on my Vampire taking shape. At the moment it rests with added wings and tailboom for glue curing. Hopefully tomorrow everything has set in good alignment...

Cheers and all the best
Matty

Tim the Boss Man is always in a good mood, what's the point of getting sad or angry ?? Frustrated doesn't count as a bad mood in my book, because it encourages some innovation and lateral thinking.

You guys are doing some awesome work, and I'm glad your surgery was a success Tim.

Cheers, D

D.
tim