With the semester over and no teaching duties for the summer, I've been building like crazy (when I'm not wrangling the bushes or torturing the lawn).
Not so clean a build as my Hellcat, the Vindicator kit was nonetheless pretty straightforward. I made no modifications to the kit other than to leave off a few itty-bitty parts that would be hard to notice anyway, without a magnifier and an attitude.
The parts fit well, with a few exceptions. The flaps/airbrakes needed some trimming, the wingroot fairings didn't quite fit, and the bomb's tail assembly requires eight edge joints that never did come out right. The cockpit interior walls include joiner tabs for the fuselage sections ahead of and behind the cockpit. Leave those tabs about twice as long as they're drawn; it will make the fuselage assembly much easier.
The only assembly the gave me any real trouble was the pilot's windscreen. I scanned all the canopy parts and printed several copies. To get the windscreen right, I went through half a dozen copies, aided by a few unkind references to the kit designer's parentage. In fairness, the designer did nothing wrong, the windscreen is simply delicate and difficult to handle. I should have made a master and heat-molded it. [Tips on Making Canopies]
My Vindicator is definitely not a contest winner but it looks great on my shelf (from about three feet away) and I love that paint scheme.
Nose up, wings level, and pointy end forward!
--David
(Now for something completely different....)
Not so clean a build as my Hellcat, the Vindicator kit was nonetheless pretty straightforward. I made no modifications to the kit other than to leave off a few itty-bitty parts that would be hard to notice anyway, without a magnifier and an attitude.
The parts fit well, with a few exceptions. The flaps/airbrakes needed some trimming, the wingroot fairings didn't quite fit, and the bomb's tail assembly requires eight edge joints that never did come out right. The cockpit interior walls include joiner tabs for the fuselage sections ahead of and behind the cockpit. Leave those tabs about twice as long as they're drawn; it will make the fuselage assembly much easier.
The only assembly the gave me any real trouble was the pilot's windscreen. I scanned all the canopy parts and printed several copies. To get the windscreen right, I went through half a dozen copies, aided by a few unkind references to the kit designer's parentage. In fairness, the designer did nothing wrong, the windscreen is simply delicate and difficult to handle. I should have made a master and heat-molded it. [Tips on Making Canopies]
My Vindicator is definitely not a contest winner but it looks great on my shelf (from about three feet away) and I love that paint scheme.
Nose up, wings level, and pointy end forward!
--David
(Now for something completely different....)
