J 28B - De Havilland Vampire - Special Hobby

The box is of the short-end-opening type, so it is not so practical for holding stuff. 

Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish versions provided. Not the coolest of camos, but it should be an easy paintjob. In the Swedish Air Force, the Vampire was called J 28B, where J stands for Jakt (hunter/fighter) and 28 is the sequence number of Swedish aircraft. B is the second version. 

Fret 1. Not a lot of parts, but the molding is simply beautiful.  

Fret 2. There are a few parts not to be used and some are pretty similar to each other, so make sure to pick the right ones. 

Fret 3. The transparencies are very clear but slightly distorted and some stress marks can be seen here and there. Half of the parts are superfluous. BTW, notice the transparent wingtips - it is for the position lights. 

Comprehensive decal sheets with stencils. Great printing by the way, but the Finnish roundels on mine were slightly damaged. Good thing I won't be needing them. 

I will build the Swedish 'Red Erik' from 1953 (sounds like a cool Viking name, but it is just because of the red letter E). Not the most intriguing of camos: olive green on top and sea gray below with a straight and sharp demarcation line. It should be a relatively easy paintjob, although with a serious overspray risk. 

If you are ever going to build this model, be advised that these twin tail-boom aircraft are the worst tail sitters ever - so every nook and cranny in the front needs to be filled with weights. Trust me, you will need every gram. 

There is some space under the cockpit floor, so let's begin with that. 

Fishing lead sinkers squeezed to flat discs with pliers ... 

... and superglued to the bottom of the fuselage. 

Cockpit floor and rear bulkhead attached. 

Internal turbine face added although absolutely nothing of it will be visible (unless peeking with a fibre optic camera through the jet intakes). 

Some more weights added behind the rear bulkhead. Don't skimp on this one or you will be kicking yourself later. 

Just making sure that the weights will not be visible through those tiny intakes. Nope, they are not. 

Some photo-etched stuff added to the cockpit. BTW, a lot of the PE details in this set are actually pretty useless, the original plastic parts are just as good. I will only use the ones that are visible and which make sense. 

The molded-on instruments on the dashboard are sanded off as I will be using PE for this. 

Some more weights attached behind the dashboard and inside the nose cone. Well, that is more or less all I can squeeze in! 

Internal parts primed ... 

... and brush painted with Tamiya acrylics. PE seat belts added, the shoulder harnesses will come later. Not going over the top for this model, just keeping it all nice and clean. And yes, the Swedish Vampires were not equipped with ejection seats. 

Fuselage halves joined and the photo-etched shoulder harness is added. 

Wing halves cemented together. 

The intake parts are separate pieces, but these are the first parts so far without a perfect fit. Some filler will need to be used to disguise the joins. 

For some reason an extra intake is provided that is not mentioned in the instructions and which does not even have a number on the fret. It doesn't fit anywhere, so don't try to use it. It is the one on the left. 

The intakes are faired in with some liquid styrene and when dry, sanded smooth. The left one is finished, the right one still remains to be sanded. As you can see, not a trace remains of the join line, you cannot even see where it was. 

Let's next fix the wingtip position lights! The instructions will have you paint the entire lamp housing in red or green, but on the Vampire, the housing was clear glass (plastic?) and only the light bulbs were colored. So this should be reproduced. If you care for such things. 

Well, it seems that I do, so I drilled a 0.5 mm hole from the inside to represent the light bulb. 

The hole is filled with paint (Tamiya Clear Red on the left, Clear Green on the right). 

Cemented to the wing tips, it looks quite convincing! The remaining parts will need to be painted along with the rest of the model of course, so only the housing will be left clear. 

Wings attached to the fuselage. The fit is actually quite good, just a tiny amount of filler is needed. 

The tail booms are cemented together and the stabilizer added between them. No matter how careful I was, as you can see, some filler is needed for the join between the stabilizer and the fins. 

The boom joins to the fuselage also leave some ugly transitions that need to be worked on. Check reference photos for the perky, slightly upwards position of the empennage. If it ends up sagging, it will look awful. 

Hey, it is starting to look like a Vampire! Some minor gaps and sink marks repaired, but nothing to worry about. Really. 

Windshield added with Mig Ultra acrylic glue. There is also a cute little gun sight under it, but it is not visible in this photo. There is a slight gap between the front of the windshield and the fuselage that needs to be filled in. 

Landing gears added - make sure to get the correct alignment! I won't bother about brake lines and stuff for this one. It is all too small to be visible anyway. 

Yay, it is standing on its feet without falling backwards! That's a relief! The canopy is just added for the photo.  

While the cement was curing, I assembled the underwing fuel tanks. Sanding together such items always takes a lot more time than one would think.  

Wing tanks and most of the underbelly stuff added (only wheels, main wheel well bay doors plus some actuators remains). I usually add the wheels after the main painting, it's a million times easier. 

The extra, unused canopy is temporarily attached to the model with acrylic glue to protect the cockpit from paint. I could have used the actual canopy for it, but thought it would be easier this way. 

The model is then rubbed clean with IPA alcohol to remove fingerprints and handling dirt. Otherwise the primer may not stick properly to the plastic 

Windshield masked off. Yikes, I nearly forgot to mask the wingtip position lights! 

Primed with gray UMP Ultimate Primer (H&S Evolution airbrush, 25 PSI, medium nozzle). I just love this primer! 

A few small filling errors appeared, which were quickly sanded smooth and resprayed. Now let's wait a few days before it is time for the first paint layer. I have had the masking tape rip off the primer if not absolutely 100% cured, so I am not risking it again. And I just noticed that I had knocked off the thin part of the pitot tube on the left fin. Bugger. 

The underside color is mixed from these two colors: Tamiya XF-19 + Tamiya XF-23 (60/40 mix). It seems to correlate quite well to my reference photos. 

Gray-blue underside color sprayed on - H&S Infinity airbrush, 15 PSI. And yes, I had a small mishap with the airbrush as I was filling the cup, I am usually not that messy. 

It may look a bit too gray in this photo, but is slightly more bluish in real life, just like it should. That's what I love about Tamiya paints, they are so easy to mix to whatever color you need. Now let the paint dry properly before doing any masking. 

Masking off the underside... a lot of tape is needed for those twin booms! 

Making sure that the masks cover everything not supposed to be green. 

Green sprayed on. I used Tamiya XF-62 Olive Drab and filtered it slightly with diluted XF-81 Dark Green to tone down the yellowish tint. I want to keep the weathering to an absolute minimum on this model. 

Unmasking is for me always nerve-wrecking - but it worked out just fine! Phew! The canopy is just placed there for the photo. The green turned out a bit too brownish, but let's go with it anyway. 

Model coated with a protective layer of AKI Gauzy Agent clear coat applied with a broad paintbrush to help with the decalling. It is just a utility coat and does not have to be polished to a perfect shine. 

Starting the decalling phase. I am using scorching hot water and Mr Hobby Setter Neo to fix the decals. When dry, I add six or seven consecutive applications of Mr Hobby Softer Neo to kind of melt the decals. This technique makes them look almost painted on.  

Finally a slight weathering with Tamiya Panel Line washes (gray/black mix) to bring out some of the details. I also addded some Tamiya weathering pastels for some brown streaks. BTW, I also flattened the wheels a bit as you can see. 

Weathered and finished! I really want the Vampire to look clean and well maintained, so only some moderate dirt and chipping was done, mainly on the underside. 

The canopy is not yet glued on, so I can pose it open or closed as I want for the photos. It will be cemented on later with acrylic glue. 

Hangar shot. (Base: Coastal Kits) 

Soviet style apron, Swedish aircraft. Well, what do you know. 

Peeking into the cockpit 

Lukasz' hangar again. 

"Tryck ej här" means "Do not push here" in Swedish. 

More do not push. 

Maybe too clean? Let's say it is brand new from the factory. 

The Swedish insignias are not quite as bright and gaudy in real life, it's only the LED's that make them look like that. (Base: Coastal Kits) 

Actually readable stencil, at least in the macro photo: "För brådskande räddning krossa huven" - "For urgent rescue, break the canopy". The tiny white stencils are in English, and were thus not translated to Swedish (as they should have). 

Winter, just like outside my hobby room window. (Base: Coastal Kits) 

Evening shot