Swiss DH-100 Mk I

This is all Thomas´ fault! His build of Special Hobbys De Havilland DH-100 in swedish livery (J 28B - De Havilland Vampire - Special Hobby | Album by Mimoid (1:72)) prompted me to act against my serious intention not to start another "in-betweeen-project" until finishing some of the already started ones.
So, here I am. Let´s see how I got there... 

Special Hobbys DH-100 are nice kits, but they do not fall together like the Mystere did. The classic layout of two wing halves (upper and lower) results in rather thick trailing edges. So I thinned them. Same I did with vertical and horizontal stabilizers. 

I refrained from aftermarket sets for the cockpit as not much will be seen with the canopy closed. The build is straightforward. Instrument decal is ok - but not more than that.  

I tripple checked the seat as it looked pretty bleak but the early versions delivered to Switzerland had no ejection seat. I only added some seat belts from my spares.  

It took quite a lot of tweaking, sanding and dryfitting before I was satisfied with the fit and applied glue.  

I read Thomas´ build log too late again and missed his advise on tailsittingprevention. Yes, I had added weight (all of the nose cone is filled with lead) but that was way too little. So I had to improvise. White glue was poured into the center of the wing root and lead granules were pushed into it. I stuffed in as much as I could - double checking, that nothing could be seen through the air intakes. 

Hurray. No tail sitter anymore (even with the booms added 😉 ) 

The air intakes are rather demanding pieces to clean up - and about the only ones with considerable flash and mold lines. One is done, the other due. 

attaching the wings required some careful scraping and dry fitting too. This way I could achieve a fit good enough to leave no gap on the top sides. At the downside the left gap could be filled with superglue and at the right wingroot I added some styrene too.. 

The air intakes were a small challenge but finally I managed.  

The Nose cone required some filling and sanding too to achieve a flush fit. 

Special Hobby provides clear wing tips to ease masking of the position lights. This is a nice feature but unfortunately not correct - at least not for the Swiss version. Here only the light bulbs were colored and the clear parts were - well - clear.
I cut out the position lights to drill a hole for the bulb. But those pieces were too fiddely to handle for me. So I took pieces from clear plastic sheets, sanded the connecting areas, drilled the holes for the bulbs and colored them.  

I used Ammo of Mig Ultra Glue to attach the pieces but this glue did not hold nothing. So I broke the shaped pieces off again and used regular superglue to fix them. Now I could sand them to shape. 

I am happy with the result. 

I messed it. In an attempt to improve the exhaust section I did not pay attention when sawing off the exhaust and got off track. 

After rebuilding it with sheet I now ruined it again while sanding. Grrr. 

Repair attempt with sprue-gue.  

Now with the (shortened) Pavla exhaust in place. That is the way I wanted it to look like. 

Looking for, and finding, and fixing blemishes 

Holy Moly! I knew NMF to be demanding, but this demanding?!
Will have to redo. 

Better, but still not there yet. 

I toned down the shine of the aluminum and varied the color a bit. 

Clear coat and decals next. 

Decals are done. 

I was considering to paint the red parts but then decided against it. The decals worked without issues. The big ones settled down nicely with Micro Set and Sol. 

Some fading and weathering will follow a clear coat. Taking shape. 

a plain wash with diluted enamals did not lead to the desired effect, so I took a heart and did my first attempt with the oil rendering technique. 

My girlfriend complaines that it looks too dirty now, but I quite like it (Memo to self: clean and new plane for girlfriend) 

If I still like it in a few days I will seal it and finish the build by replacing the canopy and adding the missing details. 

I stick with it and thus sealed it. 

Removed the temporary canopy. The correct one is just loosly fitted. 

Added the landing gear. Kits struts with resin wheels as I lost the front wheel of the kit.  

Particularly the front wheel seems to be on the bigger side and required adjustments of the strut. 

I used gloss varnish out of habbit but a matt one is probably better. 

Now only the canopy needs to be polished, its frame painted and the two conterbalance weights at the stabilizer added. Unfortunately I lost one, so will have to scratch the second one as the spare box did not provide something useful.  

A little base should complete the build. 

At last I started a little display. 

Finally some progress here. Only the static gras remains to be applied at the base. 

As this plane was stationed in Dübendorf I was looking for a picture with the characteristic Hangar of this airfield. It is printed out on photopaper and glued to a wooden sheet. 

The two parts are connected via magnets 

Trying to get a close color match for the transition to the background.  

Quite close, I'd say.  

...but to the invisible part of the background. Grrrrrr.
Anyway. But not too bad.
I finally call the base done. 

Finished. 

The grass received some matt varnish as it´s sheen was a bit unnatural 

The last two details had to be build as I lost them or cut them. 

The pitot tube was an easy fix at the tail part of the left boom and was fashioned from slide to fit-aluminium tubes. 

the counter weights of the horizontal stabilizer proofed to be a real headache and delayed final assembly considerably. But now they too are done and attached. 

Photography still needs some improvements. Depth of field and lighting are not perfect yet.
But these will be measures for models to come. 

And a few more pictures with the nice Dübendorf Hangar in the background. 

Not a quick build as I hoped despite being a newer Special Hobby release. A notorious tail sitter too.  

But I am happy with the end result and able to overlook the flaws.