The Atom Furnace: Vampire - T.11/J-28C

VAMPIRE

No, not that vampire but this...

The DeHavilland! One of the first of the Jet fighters coming out of WWII. I'm not a jet builder, but this intrigued me. Plus I have a strange idea about what I want to do with this - more on that as I progress.

Here is the kit, but I don't plan on my build looking like this. First off I must thank myself for purchase via Amazon. Upon inspection, even though the parts sprues were in a sealed bag, two pieces were missing. I was able to make a replacement order which will arrive only 4 days after this kit arrived. All I have to do is drop off the return kit to UPS by March 23rd. Going through Airfix may have required a month of waiting for spare parts. In this I was able to begin the build now!!

As usual the interior is first in the instructions so I applied the instrument panel decal!

Next was more interior work while on the sprue. A couple of things here. First you will see that there is only one pilot seat installed - yes, that is one of the missing parts. Second the interior paint is in accordance with instructions-sort of-I used a gun metal mix instead of the called for matt black (I am used to the typical interior green/zinc chromate of WWII aircraft). This was outside of my comfort zone, but I hung in and added some color as I usually do.

My first DIY.

I painted some wire with flat black and drilled out the four gun ports in the underside nose panel. Sliding the wire through the holes and gluing down with cyano gel....

....I get the look of the four guns on the exterior! The Vampire has to be able "Bite" after all😈

The pilots are painted in accordance with 1950s period. Silver helmets and gloss visors.

While waiting for the replacement kit to arrive I searched the instructions for assemblies that could tide me over. The twin booms was one of those. Boom halves needed to have pin release extrusions shaved from the vertical stabilizers in order for the parts to mate flush with no seams. Tail pieces were then applied. Thin cement works well for this assembly.

I finished with the landing gear legs, nose wheel and wing tanks - all in accord. with instructions. I can build no more until the replacement kit gets here (today, I hope), but there was one more thing.....

....Panel washing!!! I used thinned mat black that could flow easily down the lines by touching the brush to line intersections. Over-wash was quickly wiped away and then a light scraping with the edge of the xacto blade.

The replacement kit has arrived so I painted seat number two along with the control yokes and installed them. I seated the Pilots are and panels and bulkheads are then fixed to the cockpit platform - ready for fuselage closure.

Assembly goes quickly now with the wings and engine, except this time I remembered to drill out holes for the drop tanks before closing up the wings.

The boom assembly with gear legs fits snuggly into the wings, but!!!!!!

I snapped off the plastic pitot and had to replace it with a piece of gauge 26 wire. Things Happen!!!

The half dozen lead shot sinkers (7grams needed) glued into the nose before fuselage closure makes sure that the tricycle gear sits firmly!! The tires and wheels were painted on the sprue and fixed to the landing gear legs. The anti-glare has been applied to the nose.

BTW, I did not want to emulate the box art, but rather a camo style fighter. I will use a number of decals included but not the orange stripes. My Vampire will be a hybrid - maybe out of Australia or New Zealand. I am having my brother print Tasmanian Devil decals (Warner Brothers). Although Taz appeared in only 5 features between 1954 and 1966 the timing is correct to be used on a fighter plane of that era! I think he will look good on the nose!

Started panel painting on the underside with "Sky" The tedious part is picking out the rivet pattern after painting. They are tough to see!

SEE!!!

The camo went on faster - fewer rivets!!!

With painting completed, I put down some decals. I now must wait to get the ones my brother is making before I can dullcoat. In the meantime I will be working on the canopy framing.

The windscreen and rear piece frames are painted and installed. I used some masking on the windscreen but the framing was well molded and the edges were easy to hand paint. The center/hatch portion can be mounted closed or open. Although the plastic is clear I will mount the hatch open since you get a good view of the interior detail. A word of caution. The no-step areas marked out in yellow are solid decals and as you can see the centers did not seal down well and look opaque and don't show the underlying color well. My solution was to draw the xacto tip across the center in parallel strips and reapply Micro Sol.

The results were good!

Now for the whimsey. My brother's decal creation from the internet image was pretty good. I simply cut out an oval shape and applied. It is a good thing I did not attempt to cut out the image as the film is a bit thick and tends to curl under as it comes off the paper backing, but once applied I was able to maneuver the oval to get the edges down on the fuselage. Micro Sol to the rescue again. Now I have my Australian De Havilland conversion from Vampire to Tasmanian Devil.

Pilot call sign - "TAZ" of course! Now for some finish photos!