Vickers Bullet with skis - 1/48 kit bash

[Dirigible-Al]

Thanks Des for shifting this one.
Cheers Martin.

Now I have done most major parts and hope that over the X-Mas period I will attach most of them together. I tackled the undercarriage next. Although I am pleased with how the wing struts came out using cocktail sticks and thin copper wire I had an issue replicating this on the undercarriage. Even using the thickest copper wire I can get away with it is still too flimsy for my liking, any thicker and they will not match the thickness of the wing struts. If I had brass that would have done a treat but I do not and don’t want to delay this just for the sake of waiting until I am able to stock myself with some. Wrapping thin plastic card around still came out too thick so I turned to a beer can. Of course I had to drink the contents first but once that was done I cut out with scissors squares of metal. The copper wire was spun into a straight rod, bent to shape and the beer can metal wrapped around the copper, this was then superglued and held in a makeshift clamp. Despite the copper being soft, with the beer can metal wrapped around it is incredibly rigid and strong, I will definitely be using this method again.

Only other addition was the leather on the turtledeck which was made out of Milliput. I will work on the wings next, it will be nice to get them attached.

Thanks for looking in, Alan.

[Des]

Great idea using the beer can metal, it will be very strong.

Des.

[Dirigible-Al]

Cheers Des

I got some time off this week and put a few bits on then knocked a couple off by mistake. The wood in front of the cockpit opening was done by the method shown on this site http://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=178.0 by Eric Larson. I must say this was really easy and I liked the way the paint could be moved around and mucked about with without any worry of it drying. Windscreen came from some clear plastic packaging that happened to be nicely rounded. For the two filler caps I just drilled 2 holes and stuck some copper painted stretched sprue in and trimmed off the top.

 The fuselage and wings had the internal structure drawn on with a 2B pencil and I then painted over it to leave its faint outline underneath. I noticed on photos that there is dark shading on both the top and bottom of the wings, this may be because the snow underneath reflects up just as much light and what shines down so I replicated this with the pencil and painted over. Although I am delighted with the result you cannot see it very well in the pictures. The rib tapes are a darker colour and are very proud so I put strips of masking tape along where they should be and painted darker beige in between using thick paint so it had some thickness when dry. Stitching was done with a pencil but after seeing it in these photos I thought it was a bit strong and washed over it with beige to lighten them.

 The gun came from the scrap box and is either an Eduard or a Roden piece. I have no idea what the stick and ball thing is that protrudes out of it but I made that from copper wire and the ball was made by repeatedly dipping it in super glue and then finally in silver paint. On the real thing there is some kind of metal plate stuck over the gun trough. I used sticky backed foil for this, first I dulled it up to match the other silver bits by rubbing it with wet ‘n’ dry.

 I attempted to do the red star with masking tape and spray gun but cocked it up and ended up just painting it on. On the underside of the wing I pencilled the star and painted over though this does not seem to show up on any of the photos. The window in the top wing is also clear packaging plastic cut to shape with strips of coloured masking tape for the wood bits. A load of turnbuckles were put in and then on went the top wing. To get it on straight I made some cardboard right angled triangles and glued them on a base. Once it went on I realised I forgot to put in the exhaust outlets so that will be a hell of a job now. Another boob was the knocking off of the rudder and stabiliser which has left some tidying up to do.

Thanks for looking in,
Alan.

[Dirigible-Al]

Hi All

Other than a bit of tidying and tarting up this is finished. This last stage was not that difficult because most of the parts had been done and it was like putting a kit together. The only bits still needing scratch building were the skis and these were made out of plastic card. The red stars came from a Smer decal sheet from the Avro kit and were then cut down to size and painted over (although I wish I had just painted them on like the ones on the wing because their scale thickness makes them look like steel plates). Control horns are copper wire with tiny triangles of plastic card glued to them and the rigging is fishing line. The exhaust outlets are made from the interior part of a disposable pen heat stretched to the correct thickness.

This is now the second Smer kit bash that I have completed although I must say in this case it may have been quicker if the whole thing was scratch built since it was so radically different from the SE.5a and the Camel. The only real downside is the time it has taken up, it was about 2 years ago when I completed my last aircraft and that took nearly a year to build. The lesson I will take with this is that a small subject does not necessarily mean a quick build. I still look forward to the next kit bash but that will be a more simple conversion and as to scratch building I will in future attempt larger subjects so I get more value for my time.

Thanks for looking in, Alan.

[RAGIII]

Awesome results on a difficult kit bash! It may have taken a while but I enjoyed every update!
RAGIII

[lone modeller]

Only just found this - that is a real little gem. I do like conversions in any scale - although this may have taken a long time the effort was well and truly worth it. A great model and a very different topic - a winner all round!

Stephen.

[BigBlue]

Like Stephen, I just stumbled across this and I'm in complete agreement.  Very clever work, and a terrific result!

Chris

[Dirigible-Al]

Thanks Rick, Stephen and Chris
This is the first build I have completed on Des's site so I certainly did not want it to be a lemon. I will now move on the Drachenballon I started 2 YEARS AGO! that one also needs to see its last post.
Thanks to everyone else for your input over the last 17 months, Alan.

[lcarroll]

   I'm a little late to the party Alan, but add my compliments for a nice job on a difficult Build. A rare subject to add to your collection and, as Stephen has said, "a real little gem". Well done!
Cheers,
Lance

[Ernie]

Brilliant work on an unusual subject.  Well done, Alan!

Cheers,
Ernie

[ALBATROS1234]

very nice,this was quite a creative solution to the lack of model for the vickers bullet. i like it quite a lot.

[Dirigible-Al]

Sorry I have been off-line for a bit.
Thanks Albatross1234, Ernie and Lance for your kind comments.
Alan.