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Aeroclub
 De Havilland
Venom FB.1
Kit No. 432. 1:48th scale

Ted's Corner

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This is one of the easiest "Vacforms" I have ever tackled, I use the term vacform loosely as only a small part of the kit is vacuformed plastic, a greater part is injection moulded and formed in white metal. The vac parts are the two parts to make up the wings and centre section and construction starts with these, once removed from the backing sheet and the trailing edges have been thinned as far as possible you are advised to tape the halves together to fit the metal wheel bays in position. rear view After untaping, the Tail pipe unit can be placed in position and cemented using superglue and the wings can now be cemented together, a tip here I taped the nose halves together and placed the unit in position on the centre section before the cement dried to ensure the proper cross section while hardening. wing fences are normally a problem to cut and fit but not here, a razor saw cut on the marked position was all that was needed before inserting a strip of 15thou card which was sanded to shape when hardened off. While waiting I built up the booms and tail plane sections and  drew up a rectangle on a piece of cardboard  which was later used to check the booms and tailplane were at the correct angles and squared up nicely.
front view The nose section was now removed and worked on, the cockpit is pretty basic but then so is the real thing, pay attention to the position of the nose wheel bay as described in the instructions, I painted most of the details first and then assembled the rudder pedals and instrument panel. The remainder of the office furniture was added then the two halves of the nose section were cemented together and  cemented to the wing section. The metal intakes were superglued to the openings but they needed some filing and filler to get a smooth fit, when the booms were fitted I needed a little filler around the joins but it was only a tiny amount to make it good. As usual you get two canopies from Aeroclub and are so easy to cut out from the vac sheet I found the second was not needed, the fit is good and I fixed mine on with PVA glue and masked it ready to go.rear
The wing tanks were added and the little strips of plastic cut to fit on the inner edges as described then all the tiny fittings were glued in position ready for painting. I painted the white on the tip tanks first then the blue, when these colours dried out they were masked and the camouflage was sprayed freehand, a couple of coats of Klear were dusted on ready for the decals.

There are two sqdns markings supplied 45 and 118 sqdn with all the usual roundels etc.etc. when these were settled down another coat of Klear sealed them in and a final flatting coat was added to bring back an almost matte finish.
I liked this model it was easy to build and adds another item to my RAF collection.

Ted Taylor Aug 2003
 

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