Softscience Labs 2.5

[Kitaholic]

Been toying with the idea of getting one of these so will be watching closely

[Dazzled]

Looks like a nice kit. Hope it builds well

[Stuart]

I've built a Sword kit so I'll be watching with interest.

[Marek]

I am just building Sword kit as well. For n-th time I find czech cottage industry very good in providing the right kind of entertainment for a modeller. I will be watching closely your build. both model and subject is extremely interesting.

[Softscience]

Back to the Whitley.


The engines, wings, and rear fuselage parts have had all seams filled and rescribed. 

The cockpit is a little toy-like, but should look fine under the glass. I still want to add some detail to the masking tape belts. I built the navigation table stowed and the nav seat in takeoff position.

Did not add anything to the radio room as none of it will be visible.

One of the reason I like building bombers is because I like to see the layout of the interior and the different crew stations.

This one is no exception.

[PaulBradley]

Nice!

[mjatx]

Stunning work on the cockpit. That one's off to a great start.

[Softscience]

This model is really starting to get on my nerves. Airfix decided to be clever by building the fuselage assemblies around the wing spar, but I'd prefer they had chosen good over clever. None of the spar business is visible, and there are equally effective means of achieving wing strength without breaking up the fuselage.

The forward and rear sections do not fit especially well.

Cutting off the front of the ventral turret ring helps



but its still far from perfect.



There are steps between the fuselage walls and gaps at the wing root and below, where the flaps meet the fuselage.

These wouldn't be much of a problem if there wasn't so much flexion at all the parts. Any puttying will just crack, so a different solution will be necessary. Melted plastic? Shims? I'm not sure yet. I'm tired of fitting things. I'm going to go build a tank!

[Softscience]

Pealing the roof back a little, helped a lot. It let me push the walls out to better match up with the wings and forward fuselage walls.

Now let's see how the roof fits after all this get fixed.

[skypirate]

Too bad about all the flexing. Lack of bulkheads?

cheers,

David

[Dirkpitt289]

That Spitfire is the cats .... behind...

[Marek]

Rafal, I guess they over-complicated this one a bit. On the other hand, you are going to end up with a model you probably waited for for years!
It looks good from my perspective already

[ShaunW]

In my experience the Whitley looks typical of some of the more complex new tool Airfix kits Ralph, plenty of really nice detail but not a lot of wriggle room when it comes to fit of the parts - I recall having a battle royale with the new tool Airfix Lancaster a while ago. It does look good though and you are doing a great job of taming the beast!

[Softscience]

Something a little different from me.

Due to very real stress in real life, I haven't felt like working on a stressful kit, so I set the Whitley aside again. I turned to this little Bandai A-Wing I got. It is a craft from Return of the Jedi. I remember playing the game X-Wing, where you can fly this thing. Its very fast, nimble, and looks pretty neat.

This was my first-ever scifi kit, and I really didn't many of the best-practices for the genre (like how the heck do you simulate engine glow????), so I built it like I would any other aircraft. The result isn't great, but it is done.

The kit is extremely simple. It is snap fit, and comes in several colors, it is more like toy blocks than a model kit. Nevertheless, detail is very nice, and it has some neat options such as landing struts up or down, multipose stand, and even a gun turret on a tower to pose next to (it looks a bit daft and takes up too much space). I painted mine using Vallejo paint, but only used glue on a few of the parts. Weathering was done with pastels and oils were used on the base.

I was hoping to post some WIP pictures along the way, but the built only took 3 short sessions to finish. Again, very simple - maybe not so very fun though. I probably will not be building anymore scifi kits in the immediate future, but I'm glad I gave it a shot. Different strokes for different folks, right?

[skypirate]

Nice change; well done!

David