Infinity Vampire F Mk.3 - RCAF 410 ‘Cougar’ Squadron

[r0t0rdr1ver]

 

It’s been a long time since I have posted any work here, but I am pretty excited to share this build. The Vampire is one of my favourite early jet aircraft, especially since it served with the RCAF.

 

I really want to build a 410 Cougar Squadron aircraft. There aren’t any decals for this scheme in 1/32 currently, but it’s fairly simple. My plan is to custom make some masks for the roundels, cougar, and numbers. The rest I will mask and spray. I’ll be using the 1/48 Canuck decal sheet for reference, really digging the blue stripe with red border, should look sharp! I may even attempt to foil this one, we’ll see how brave I am and how much mojo is left after tackling the build itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some minor progress so far, I have the cockpit mostly built up and ready for paint.

 

 

Judging from the experience up to this point, it’s going to be a bit of a love/hate build. Lots of flash, no alignment pins, some poor fit with fuselage joints, etc. but nice details overall. Simple kit with a low parts count.

 

Keeping an eye on Thierry’s build as well as Iain’s for some help and inspiration. Excellent work on their builds so far!

 

More to come soon.

[Rockie Yarwood]

Nice choice of markings!

[Uncarina]

Welcome back! It’s great to see you here again, and I’ll be taking notes.

 

Cheers,  Tom

[thierry laurent]

Excellent choice of markings! I'm really wondering if we will see aftermarket markings? 

There is a lot of flash that needs to be removed but you will see that the assembly of most large parts is ok if you cautiously clean them. Take also your time and dry fit a lot the LG bay walls parts. I also recommend lengthening each end of the strenghtening bar to add in the middle of each main LG bay ceiling. I didn't and will have to solve that with epoxy putty! Lesson learnt for kit number two!

[r0t0rdr1ver]

Thanks Thierry, I'll take a closer look at the main gear bays today and keep those things in mind.

 

Not a ton of progress, just lot's of clean up of the parts. One thing I did notice is that the area where the windscreen mates to the fuselage is slightly crooked, as is the panel line just forward of it (when viewed from the top). Perhaps once the windscreen is glued in place, it won't be noticeable, but I will have to rescribe that panel. We'll see. I'll post a pic later to show this.

Edited September 7, 2022 by r0t0rdr1ver

[r0t0rdr1ver]

Hopefully this explains what I’m seeing a bit better. Forgive the shoddy picture and graphics!

 

 

[r0t0rdr1ver]

I had a marathon day of cleaning flash and mold lines on parts, sanding, dry fitting, sanding some more, then gluing sub-assemblies together.

 

As Thierry and Iain have mentioned already, careful cleanup and test fitting will go a long way with this kit. A little extra care is needed when assembling the tail boom halves to ensure everything is aligned correctly.

 

Be very careful building the main gear wells, the instructions aren’t super clear on which parts go on which side. I had a couple mis-steps here, but managed to catch my errors in time before glue had fully set. Thanks to Thierry’s warning about the main rib that is glued to the roof on each wheel well, they are slightly short. I fixed this early on with a bit of styrene.

 

So far I’m fairly happy with the kit, it’s fighting me every inch of the way, but I think the end result will be worth it.

 

One issue I’m having is with the fit of the main bulkhead / wings spar / turbine face piece. I have some HUGE gaps. It’s almost as if this part wasn’t meant for this kit. Thierry, I see yours seems to have fit fairly well, did you modify the part at all?

 

Too tired to post pics, but I’ll get some up tomorrow.

 

 

 

[thierry laurent]

44 minutes ago, r0t0rdr1ver said:

I had a marathon day of cleaning flash and mold lines on parts, sanding, dry fitting, sanding some more, then gluing sub-assemblies together.

 

As Thierry and Iain have mentioned already, careful cleanup and test fitting will go a long way with this kit. A little extra care is needed when assembling the tail boom halves to ensure everything is aligned correctly.

 

Be very careful building the main gear wells, the instructions aren’t super clear on which parts go on which side. I had a couple mis-steps here, but managed to catch my errors in time before glue had fully set. Thanks to Thierry’s warning about the main rib that is glued to the roof on each wheel well, they are slightly short. I fixed this early on with a bit of styrene.

 

So far I’m fairly happy with the kit, it’s fighting me every inch of the way, but I think the end result will be worth it.

 

One issue I’m having is with the fit of the main bulkhead / wings spar / turbine face piece. I have some HUGE gaps. It’s almost as if this part wasn’t meant for this kit. Thierry, I see yours seems to have fit fairly well, did you modify the part at all?

 

Too tired to post pics, but I’ll get some up tomorrow.

 

 

 

Hi,

 

No I did not have a major issue to add the bulkhead part without modification. However, locating it correctly asked for some dry attempts to get it right. The instructions are unfortunately rather vague regarding the correct location of the internal components. I took care as, initially, I had put the part upside down! Fortunately, I'm always checking far more than once before using the glue. I also sanded all the edges to get perpendicular ones. As you saw, I'm using thick glue to secure such large parts. This solve all the seam issues and result in rock solid assemblies where you cannot see them. At least to me this is the best approach. However, there is a caveat. You must be sure that you're not doing stupid things as removing the parts to mate them correctly later is actually close to impossible! One important thing: use the air intake to be sure you will position the bulkhead with a correct vertical angle.

I will have some large seams to fill in between the fuselage halves and the air intake parts but this is not very surprising with such a design. Moreover, this will be quite easy to solve with epoxy putty. I did not comply with the assembly order as I think it is preferable to add the full intake just before glueing the fuselage halves.

 

I had the same issue than you with the LG walls! In spite of the dry tests, I succeeded in mixing at least two parts I had to remove to use them later on the other side! As I was not very confident, I had only used Tamiya thin glue to have the opportunity to correct. This was the right strategy!

 

As I already wrote, this is not a shake and bake kit but up to now I did not have any issue that is terribly difficult to solve for any cautious and experienced modeller. And, by the way, for a very large majority of LSP kits, I do not believe they are made for people who do not have a serious experience of modelling.

 

Hth

 

Thierry

[thierry laurent]

On 9/8/2022 at 5:11 AM, r0t0rdr1ver said:

Hopefully this explains what I’m seeing a bit better. Forgive the shoddy picture and graphics!

 

 

I had a look at that and this is quite easy to solve: simply sand cautiously the front of the starboard side to extend a little bit the area where you will glue the windshield front. For the panel line, I think it is better to have a look at that later, when the fuselage is assembled. Even when the gunsight will be added, I'm wondering if the rear side of the top instruments will not be slightly visible. Moreover, some pther components should also be visible under the windshield. I'm still assessing what to add...!

[Alain Gadbois]

Very nice choice of markings! Wil follow with much interest!

 

Alain

[r0t0rdr1ver]

So, the pictures don’t seem to show much progress, but there is literally a weekends worth of work in these photos.

 

 

 

Wheel bays assembled. I opened up the holes in the walls as well, only to realize later these seem to be covered up on the RCAF Vampires. Oh well, they’re staying!

 

 

 

 

 

Started grinding away the nose where the nose gear bay will sit, just some minor cleanup to do. The plastic is very thick here, and I wanted to achieve a more realistic thickness, so out came the dremel. I don’t plan on fixing the placement issue with the gun ports, too much of a mojo drain for me I think!

 

 

 

All major subassemblies have been assembled and cleaned up. I figured out the issue I was having with the main bulkhead / wing spar. I glued the top fuselage halves together using a flat surface, but there is meant to be some dihedral to the final assembly. Hence the bulkhead wasn’t anywhere close to fitting properly. Lots of careful bending at the seam line, brute force and quick setting cement did the trick. It looks awful, but will work. Just a note for those building this kit, be sure to glue the bulkhead in at the same time you’re joining the halves!

 

 

Next up is detailing the cockpit and sprucing up the wheel bays a bit so they can get paint. Then I can install the cockpit, button everything up, do a final sand / rescribe any lost detail, and start slinging some primer. Hopefully no more nasty surprises!

 

More to come....

[thierry laurent]

Ouch!  No more nasty surprise...?

 

Actually, you should not have grinded the LG bay edge!!! Actually the LG front bay already needs to be extended at the front. Now, you will need to extend it everywhere and will have a seam to remove close to the rivet line... And if do not do it, the bay will be located too low and this will be visible in the cockpit as the top is going through the floor...!  

I will post today some pictures showing how I had to solve that. 

 

Thierry 

[npb748r]

1 hour ago, r0t0rdr1ver said:

Just a note for those building this kit, be sure to glue the bulkhead in at the same time you’re joining the halves!

thanks for the tip off, keep going - it's looking good.

[r0t0rdr1ver]

8 hours ago, thierry laurent said:

Ouch!  No more nasty surprise...?

 

Actually, you should not have grinded the LG bay edge!!! Actually the LG front bay already needs to be extended at the front. Now, you will need to extend it everywhere and will have a seam to remove close to the rivet line... And if do not do it, the bay will be located too low and this will be visible in the cockpit as the top is going through the floor...!  

I will post today some pictures showing how I had to solve that. 

 

Thierry 

 

Thanks for the nasty surprise! All jokes aside, I couldn't leave the edge so thick. Once I clean up that seam, I have some Archer rivets I can use to replace the raised detail. The nose gear bay was another pain in the rear to get together, but I'll have a look later today to see how I can fix the issue where it joins with the cockpit floor. I had no idea it would be an issue!

[CarstenB]

@r0t0rdr1ver any progress on this kit? I am curious to see the progress and the other obstacles you have to take. I know what I am talking about. Hahahahaha