The Little World

I am proud of myself for having the discipline to keep to my resolution; I used Tuesday club meetings for most of the Vautour construction. The landing gear and doors finished the structure and it was ready for the camera.

The paint finish is Mr. Color for the grey and brown but a special mix of Tamiya blues for the rest of the upper works. I have a large bottle of it for use in future builds. The days selected for spray painting at my home were carefully assessed for temperature and humidity – I really did not want anything to go wrong with the layers. In the end, they have worked well, and the scarcity of the decals needed meant that I could get away with no gloss coat over the colour. It’s sealed with semi-gloss Mr. Color clear No.46.

And thanks to the net for pictures of preserved Vautours in France and Israel. The museum examples explained the flash-hider structures over the guns for the European models – fortunately they are not needed for the ’67 June version of the plane. Horrid rectangular metal boxes over the nose guns that must have played hell with the airflow.

Speaking of airflow, look at the wing fences. They are made of PE brass and terrified me when I saw them on the fret. I could see bad results in my mind’s eye…in the end they are the nicest detail. The PE solution is perfect as long as you get them off the fret cleanly and set them in with medium Zap. I am less sanguine about the exhaust vanes but they did go on in the end.

The cockpit is excellent, for all the PE and separate parts that went into it. I have no desire to cut apart the canopy to display it, but had this been provided in the kit I should have opened it.

I consider the day and the weeks spent on this model a success. It will go on display in a clean condition at my Schmatterim AFB.