1/48 Hobbycraft de Havilland Vampire FB52, Iraq, 1955

Started by Spiros Pendedekas · 104 · 3 years ago · 1/48, de Havilland, Hobbycraft, Iraq, Vampire
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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    Yep, and if I impatienly and prematurely coat it with Future, it self seals and takes ages to cure...
    So patience it is, my friend @airbum!

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    Light tan and touchups


    To obtain my desired not sharp-not soft ("hardsoft"...go figure...anyway) demarcation lines, I used tac to define the camo borders and headed to the paintshop again:

    After light tan was applied, microtouchups back and forth took place, to correct any minor imperfections, overspray etc. here is the result:

    Now, everything is drying...
    Cheers!

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    Erik Gjørup said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    The camo is really making this Vampire stand out my friend (@fiveten). I suppose your preferred drying method is the dry warm Greek climate 🙂 - greetings from cold wet and rainy Denmark!

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    Yep, that's my preferred drying method, my friend @airbum, with Kafetoula (our neighborhood dog) as guardian!

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    Unmasked and Futured:



    Some detail paintings and constructions to be done and then decalling...

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    Erik Gjørup said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    And with this "first look" at the painted plane, the intakes look just right to me. Very nice Spiros.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    Thanks my friend @airbum!

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    Improvising...

    I am ok with the simplistic ficticious-ish cockpit, which will disappear under its small opening, the almost black base color and the closed thick canopy, which will distort to the point of believing that everything inside the cockpit tub looks as it should look underneath...

    I cannot say the same for the area on top...

    ...so, here we go:

    There's a cylindrical device behind the polot's headrest, connected with wiring that ends in two small "boxes"at the two sides of the rear coockpit wall. It is depicted at the Classic Airframes instructions pretty clearly...

    Hobbycraft provided a very generic rectangular box, to be glued behind the pilot's headrest, that I found too simplistic.

    So, I cut a piece of cylindrical styrene and glued it behind the headrest. I also cut two smallish flat pieces and glued them bilaterally of the pilot's headrest. Those boxes were connected with the cylinder by appropriately cut and bent stretched sprue, resembling the real thing more than before.

    The cockpit was painted a very dark grey (Hu32), with black panels and olive drab seat cushion to follow:

    I then turned my attention to the nose landing gear. This is the Hobbycraft "suggestion" (sic):

    This is the totally irrelevant reality...

    To remedy this, I first filed appropriately the wheel holding brackets and glued them at a correct looking angle...

    To fabricate the nonexisting scissors, I cut a small flat styrene piece for the top part...

    and glued two minuscule pieces of stretched sprue at an appropriate angle, to "form" the unsimplistic looking bottom scissors part. This is the final result:

    Less than perfect, but better than before!

    Cheers, great DH100GB!

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    Eric Berg said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    I agree. That looks way better Spiros. You're getting closer to the finish line!

    I gotta tell you when I first saw your photo above showing the white tac over the tan, I thought, what a great idea for baking a chocolate Vampire shaped cake with white camouflage icing. Hmmmm.

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    Erik Gjørup said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    Great save my friend! As usual you come up with a few snips and voilá, something completely different. Well done.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    Eric @eb801: Indeed it kind of reminds a chocolate Vampire!

    Erik @airbum: There are some oversimplifications or alternate reality representations that even I cannot live with...

    Thanks for liking, my friends!

    And an update:

    I added brake lines from stretched sprue at the MLG legs:

    I painted the "Aluminum" (=Testors Steel) the landing gear, wheel rims, wheel wells, doors' innards and intake trunking.

    The seat cushion was painted a light shade of green.

    Here are the results:

    The Vampire sports three very characteristic mini holes, one at the radome's foremost point and two, one at each wing, right outward of the intake. I drilled those out with my pin vise and carefully painted them Burned Metal:

    Burned Metal was also painted the exhaust nozzle:

    Cheers, DH100GB!

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    Decals on...



    ...trying to snuggle them down with Mr Mark Softer...

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    Eric Berg said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    So you used the kit decals which I assume represent Iraq insignias current to that time period? Never been a fan of HobbyCraft decals. Did these work smoothly for you after applying the setting solution?

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    Yep, I used the kit ones Eric @eb801.

    From net searching I found that they cover the subject more or less adequately.

    It has been stated that "black box" Hobbycraft kit decals (as my kit is) are good...

    Well, they looked good attached to their glossy backing paper, and they were easilly detached after 10-15 secs soaking in tepid water, They behaved ok, but the green insignia were stiff, having difficulty to adhere onto the curvy boom, being only partially attached .

    Mr Mark Softer came to the rescue, applying a droplet on the decal, waiting a couple of minutes to soften and very carefully fully attach it with a moisted qtip.

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    Allan J Withers said 3 years, 6 months ago:

    Nicely done Spiros, I like Mr Mark Softer as well !