1/48th scale Halifax BIII – Sanger vacuform
Afternoon all,
My first completion of 2025 is Sanger's 1/48th scale Handley Page Halifax BIII, NA222, O-Oscar of 640 Squadron, RAF Leaconfield, Spring 1945.
If you want a 1/48th scale Halifax, options are rather limited at the moment with the nightmare that is Fonderie's limited-run injection kit or the venerable Sanger (ex-Contrail) vacuform. Having wrestled the Fonderie kit (pictured alongside this one) into submission a couple of years a go, I fancied another 1/48th Halibag so dived into the Sanger kit. As vacs go, it's not bad at all - nicely moulded parts and lots of white metal bits to keep you happy. I did, however, substitute some spare Fonderie engine cowls and propellers and grafted them on, as well as the wheels. The Sanger kit gives an interior of sorts but I scratch-built my own, as well as the gear bays, bomb bays and various other parts.
It was painted with Xtracolor's enamel range, with decals from Fantasy Print Shop (code letters) as well as the spares box. Some Mig pastels completed the weathering in high-traffic foot-traffic areas as seen on reference pics.
As always, comment and critique gratefully received!
Tom
Sensational, Tom. A real work of art on build & finish.
Tom (@vacform),both builds are museum quality. The gold standard. On the surface they don't look like vacuforms. Two thumbs up.
Lovely build - especially working with vac-formed stuff! Kudos!
This is a wonderful result, Tom @vacform
Especially considering this to be a vacuform kit.
Nice work on a difficult kit. We don’t see many Halifax’s built.
Extraordinary one!Congratulations!
Tom, I am always fascinated when I see someone tackle a vacuform kit, especially when it comes out as well as yours. It looks sublime. I have 1/48th P2V-7 from Combat Models in my stash but haven't been brave enough to start building it.
Combat Models are named that because it's combat to build one.
That is stunning!
Awesome result, Thomas!
Congratulations on this very challenging vac kit!
Amazing work as usual. I tackled that kit 28 years ago - yours is an improvement so vast they don't exist in the same universe.
That's just awesome!
Brilliant job. As much as I want one in 1/48, I'm not going to tackle one of these. I'll just hope ICM come to the party like they did with the Hampden. LOL.
This must be a huge kit in 1/48, Thomas (@vacform). Exceptionally well done.