I ordered Anigrand Craftworks XP-60C/E, and it arrived yesterday. It will be my first all resin kit, and I plan to make it a “what-if” build to jazz up the markings a bit.
One thing I’m not sure of is dealing with the vacform canopy. It’s cast OK (I guess), so I can see where the actual canopy is. But I’d love to hear from folks who have used vacform canopies before, and any thoughts on not messing things up. (I did order a spare!)
Wish I could help Jon, but I really don’t know much about them. Anybody?
I’ve only used them once, on my 1/48 Sea Hurricane, and I just used the sliding portion. What I did was stuff it from the inside with clay making it much easier to hold while I cut slowly with a new #11 blade and then sanded the edges straight. I then removed the clay, cleaned the part, dunked it in Future, masked, and lastly painted it as I would a kit part. To facilitate mounting it to the fuselage, I CA’d .01"x.03" styrene strips along the inside of the bottom frame rails only.
If you can see the line well that’s a big plus. Score the acetate just outside of the line enough to leave you room to play. A few passes with a new blade should rend the canopy from the sheet. If it proves to be a PITA just bend the plastic along the score line and it should pop loose.
Fit the canopy to the cockpit by carefully trimming excess closer to the lines and then test fitting. Once things look right you can start masking for paint. To me, this is the biggest pain. The frame lines on the plastic are usually very faint and not always very clear. I use small strips of Tamiya tape to frame all my canopys, not just vac forms. Use good reference to place the line properly when the molded lines fail you.
Good luck.
As a rule I avoid vac canopys unless I have absolutely no choice.
Both great ideas- I’m going to try those, especially the idea about the reinforcing rails, as I’m htinking of having the canopy open.
Great tips also! And I’ve done like you- avoided vacform canopies. For this kit though- there’s no choice.
Still- the whole kit is going to stretch my ability, so that’s a good thing.
Any more words of wisdom out there?
Jon,
my few cents about this subject. Recently I used those with my P-51 open canopy project. Tamiay did not provide this option so , I cat the canopy and tried to fit it over the fuselage. Sure enough it did not fit. I went to squadron and get vacuum.
I cat one using the curved seizors ($2.) and than trimmed with a knife and a sand paper - it is a real pain since it is very flexible and easy to destroy.
If I would do it again, I would mask it BEFORE i cut it off the set. Overal effect is really good however for my Spit I decided to save the "almost " destroyed canopy insterad of going with vaccum. Also vacuum do not have the armor included - another challange is how to add armor to the windshield [:)]
Greg
ps. its my 200th post [:)] !!!