Here
is my 1/72 scale Avro 707B by WhirlyKits. The Avro 707 series of research
aircraft was designed as the test bed for the delta wing design used on the Avro
Vulcan bomber. Three variants of the 707 were designed, the 707A for high speed
testing, the 707B for low speed testing, and the 707C a two seat trainer.
This
model has a vac form sheet containing the fuselage and wings with white metal
ejection seat and landing gear and a clear sheet containing two vac form
canopies. Apart from the ejection seat there is no cockpit detail, probably
because the intention is to build it with the canopy in the closed position and
when painted there isn’t much glass to see the inside through. Decals are of
the clear fix variety (I’d never used these before – more on that
later…..) Also included is a nice instruction sheet with a comprehensive
history of the actual aircraft, written building detail and a nice set of
drawings of how the finished model should look.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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I
started construction be removing the wing and fuselage parts from the vac sheet.
This was done buy drawing around the parts using a fine indelible pen, and then
using a sharp knife I cut along the pen line. This method ensures that you have
enough excess plastic to on the parts so you can sand them down without loosing
any of the actual part. When sanding, I would not recommend taping down a large
sheet of sandpaper to a flat surface and rubbing the parts across it, the
pressure that you use to push the part on to the sand paper deforms them and you
don’t get the nice flat edge you might think that you would. I prefer to sand
them free hand, inspecting the joint very often so as not to remove too much
plastic, you can also check for a clean edge by laying the parts gently on to a
flat surface as you sand. Using this method and some time and patience I managed
to get all of the fuselage and wing parts to fit together as good as any
injection kit.
Using
a profile gauge, I built up some bulkheads at regular intervals along the inside
of the fuselage, taking care to place one where the cockpit rear bulkhead should
be, and one at the rear to support the jet exhaust pipe. As the cockpit on this
kit was apparently designed to be displayed closed, there are no instrument
panels, stick, floor or anything; this all had to be scratch built, made all the
more difficult as I could only find a few pictures to help with the detailing,
so some artistic licence was applied. The scratch built cockpit was installed in
to one side of the fuselage. I also added some milliput and lead shot to keep
the nose down just in case it was a tail sitter; the nosewheel well was also
added at this point.
The
next step was to assemble the main components. Before gluing the fuselage halves
together I made up some tabs to help strengthen the joint and help locate the
two sides. The upper and lower wing surfaces were glued together and left to
dry. To help position and support the wing joint (the standard attachment would
be a simple butt joint) I cross drilled the fuselage in two places and inserted
plastic cross member’s that would go through the inside of the wing to help
keep them straight and rigid. The Avro 707B has a dorsal air intake to feed the
Rolls-Royce Derwent engine; this was a separate part that had to be blended to
the upper surface of the fuselage, a small portion of the forward edge of the
vertical tail also had to be removed to allow installation. As for the business
end of the Derwent engine, I used a length of brass tube to make the jet nozzle,
this was attached to the rear bulkhead with CA. The kit comes with a three
pronged pitot probe for the nose of the aircraft, the piotot’s on the fuselage
and tail have to be scratch built, along with a small tail bumper.
As I
had decided to display the cockpit in the open position, I had to cut the canopy
into three sections. I removed the main part from the vac sheet and then, using
the plans supplied, measured out the size of the rear section and the front
screen, marking them with an indelible marker pen. Then, being thankful that I
had a spare canopy in the box, I cut the canopy in to three using a razor saw
– it was an absolutely perfect fit the first time round!! (phew!) The rear
part was fixed to the fuselage. The white metal landing gear was assembled and
painted. The supplied vac part doors for the under carriage were completely
the wrong size for the front wheel and for the large part of the two-piece main
U/C door, so I scratch built replacements; I did use the supplied part that
attaches to the strut as it fitted ok.
After
filling and sanding was completed (no small task as you might imagine) it was
time to paint. First thing was to get a decent primer coat on – I prefer to
use Halfords auto acrylic primer. The main colour was quite difficult to decide
upon, as all of the original photos of the 707B I had available were black and
white. I did manage to find one colour picture of a model in a museum, I based
my colour choice on that and decided on Humbrol #109, WW1 Blue, this looked just
about spot on. When dried, I over coated this with Humbrol ‘Clear Cote’
Gloss. The panel lines were enhanced by running a 0.3mm pencil down them and
sealing it in with another clear coat.
I
painted the cockpit matt black and washed it with a light grey to make the dials
stand out. Next up was to paint and install the ejection seat, and the remaining
parts of the canopy. I detailed the U/C bays with brass rod and painted them in
shades of aluminium and silver; then installed the landing gear and the U/C bay
doors.
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Lastly
the decals were applied. As previously mentioned I had never used clear-fix
decals – I also didn’t read the instructions on how to use them…. I
detached a roundel and tried dipping that in water just like a water slide
decal, needless to day it didn’t work out. Then I found the instructions on
how to use them properly and the rest went on ok. I managed to replace the
missing roundel with one from a set supplied in FSM magazine about a year ago;
it was an exact mach for the missing one.
After
the decals were applied, every thing was sealed in with one final coat of Gloss
Clear.
I
really enjoyed building this kit as I had to employ quite a bit of scratch
building, and it’s probably the smallest model kit I’ve ever made - so far.
As
for an encore, what else could I build now but it’s big brother, the Avro
Vulcan B2 – I hope to be able to display them together; the 707B should fit
quite nicely under the Vulcan’s wing..!!
I
Hope you enjoy my model.
Karl
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