@ Mark the Chipmunk looks great
@ Rowan which Kit is that and what scale is it
I have finished my Sea Vampire




Yup she is a tail sitter even with the small weight added in the nose

Sea Vixen finally

Good work guys. They look great. Don't forget to post in the gallery.

Hi Sal and Mike

Nicely done!




Hi Sal

I'm butchering the Trumpeter 1:48 kit. So far everything seems to be working - I just hope I don't get too ambitious and miss the deadline...

All the best

Rowan

Hi

Picked up Trumpeter's Vampire Mk 9 today. Also ordered Xtradecal's Mk 5 decal sheet as I have read this is not actually a 9.

That's a real purdy Sea Vixen Mike

Hi there

That's right - it needs the fairing for the cold air unit adding to represent an FB.9. I'll be doing that for mine, and use some spare Alley Cat decals (which I have no doubt will be superior to Trumpeter's).

All the best

Rowan

Jesse, Forgot to harass, you. to the best of my recollection this is the first non USA marked airplane I've finished since high school. And that was a VERY long time ago...

Oh really? I thought you'd want to do a USAS machine

Behave, I have a Canadian, a Kiwi and a Brit plane or two in the que along with a couple of American birds...

OK, as a new guy with just joining up, I will try this.

Shanghaied is getting me the instructions for this kit, and I was about to start as soon as I got them, so here goes. Hopefully I will be able to complete it in five weeks

- Dave

Lower wing on and cockpit primed:

OK, so I got serious on this one

There was such a beautiful build on Britmodeller that inspired me. Per the recommenendations there, I lengthened the fuselage 4mm, and changed the angle of the landing gear, slanting it forward.

My photos aren't great, but if this works, I will invest in better equipment. This is a new thing for me

Hi Dave

Great stuff! I wonder whether the forthcoming Trumpeter Hornet and Sea Hornets will need similar surgery? - I fear if they're anything like the Vampire they'll need a fair bit of help, but I do hope I'm wrong...

All the best

Rowan

Hi Dave,

so you do the long nose NF21!
Do not spend too much time with with the landing gearbay. You do not see much at the end of all the work.
Have fun!

Greetings from Shanghai

Hi again

I attacked the Trumpeter Vampire a bit more today. It really is a bit of a dog's dinner of a kit! Everywhere I look, I find more things wrong.

The engine has a weird flared trumpet-like exhaust, so I've turned it 'round and thinned the other end. (If you do this, you'll need to shorten it somewhat, because it messes up how it attaches.)





I had a look at the air intakes, and that was a bit demoralizing, because they are so bad I don't think it's worth trying to do too much - basically, anything I try will simply replace one problem with another. I think the whole wing-root is too shallow, so no amount of tinkering with the intakes alone will solve things. I'll dress them up a bit and leave it at that.

To cheer myself up, I assembled the 100-gallon drop tanks - only to find they noses look nothing like my reference shots! Trumpeter's versions look too straight and blunt, so I got to work with a file. The result isn't prefect, but it's a definite improvement. If I were doing it again, I'd fill the tanks first with epoxy resin or similar, because I had to file down until the plastic was translucent:





More soon. Onwards and downwards!...

All the best

Rowan

Gee, Merlin, you're making me feel better.. After struggling with all these old Airfix and Frog kits for the last few months, seeing a master modeler struggle with one of the newest offerings is well, kinda heart warming...

Hi Mark

What master modeller? - certainly not me! I wish I was that skilled.

I wouldn't say I'm struggling - I'm actually enjoying the rest of the modifications (although it's a little frustrating to have to keep doing more of them every time I think I can move on! LOL!). It's nice just to do some proper modelling again - but I'd have to go back to scratchbuilding to cure the bloated fuselage and wing-root problems, so I'm leaving them be.

I only said to a friend earlier today that I was glad I didn't have to review a sample of this kit - it wouldn't have made for pretty reading! LOL!

All the best

Rowan

Hi Merlin, I'm with Mark, but then I might not have noticed half of those problems. Hope the Airfix one is better

I stand by my comments. Standing behind them would require a different kind of footwear...

I'm only a little way into Airfix's Vampire for "The Great Buildoff". But I'll keep an eye out for these kind of problems...


Oh, and FWIW, I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every instant of it...

Hi guys

I appreciate your kind words. I'll meet you halfway and say I'm a master at not finishing kits - sadly, Aeroscale is littered with far too much evidence of that for anyone to dispute the claim!

Andrew, I think you should be fine with the Airfix Vampire - from Magnus's review it looks very good. It's a shame they didn't do the 1:48 version(s).

All the best

Rowan

Hi again

If ever a remark deserved a quick reminder of the danger of pride before the fall, this was it! I haven't had a chance to use my airbrush in months, and when I started up my compressor this morning no more than a whisper of air came out! I don't know what's wrong with it, but thankfully I managed to dig out a spare to get underway with.

I'll be more careful what I write in future!

All the best

Rowan

Hi again

I've managed to get a little bit more done, starting work on Pavla's neat resin replacement cockpit:



But, of course, in test fitting it - and this kit being what it is(!) - I found more problems. I knew something still seemed odd about the canopy and cockpit opening, and I finally realised what it is - the sides of the opening aren't straight, and the cockpit's too wide. This was underlined when I added the external canopy guides that Trumpeter missed (still a lot of sanding down to size to do on them):



Hopefully, the finished build will look reasonably Vampire-like - but it'll never measure to close inspection by the accuracy brigade.

All the best

Rowan

That cockpit looks great Rowan, and BTW, screw the accuracy brigade!

I'm into the home straight on the Sea Vixen. All the main colours are on, just some navigation lights and the undercarriage needing a little more attention. A couple more days and I'll have the decalling done.



Keep up the good work everyone!

Cheers Lee

That Sea Vixen is looking very tasty!

I've done a bit of sanding to straighten the sides of the canopy sliding section and get it to fit:





A quick test shows it should polish up nicely - just as well, considering I took such care not to scratch it when I reshaped the frame at the rear end.

All the best

Rowan