Vacuform kits -- what ever happened to them?

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

Bear with me, I am not primarily an aircraft modeler.

I’ve been reading FSM since sometime in the '80s, and remember the ads and occasional articles for vacuform aircraft kits. I have always been vac-curious, and back in the late '80s/early '90s I picked up one (I can’t remember the manufacturer, but it was in a red label box, an SU-22 with metal parts). Now I know companies like Squadron still do vac canopies, but whatever happened to full kits? I see some on Ebay, but it looks like most of those manufacturers are OOP. It really seems that resin is taking over, and there’s more in plastic than there ever has been. But is there anyone still putting out vacs? I picked up a Yak-17 vac from a Polish company (don’t recall the name) and am having fun prepping parts, figuring out how to do details, etc.

While I have no argument that resin can potentially have very good details, an plastic injection molded always has an edge, but vacs always seem so “exotic” and I enjoy the occasional challenge!

Damon.

2

In the age of fast food and shorter attention span, even model building, a hobby going against the trend is not entirely immune. There are still a lot of large bomber subjects only available in Vacform, but how many modelers actually brave enough to attempt one? Now it’s all about this master resin or that edition PE. Hell, just look at the amount of moan on kit inaccuracies. (with hardly a discussion on what might be done to CORRECT such inaccuracies), and that’s on plastic kits with hundreds of parts…

I personally only have 4 vacform kits. Been thinking about building the flying pancake for 3 years now…Now if there’s an AM set for my vacforum kit…[:$]

3

Vacumform model companies exist. Specifically Execuform, Combat, Welsh, Sanger and Bioplan are either producing new kits or still have their original line of kits available for direct purchase. If you want more info on the entire subject drop me a line at matsman@cox.net

Richard

4

They’re still out there, and like you said, most of them are on Ebay… Personally, I like vacuforms simply because the subjects are of aircraft that no one was making in the 80s… Spitfire, Messerchmitts and Mustangs abounded, but try to find an injection-molded He-51 in 1/48, lol…

The vacs aren’t any “harder” to build than injection-molded kits, they’re just different, IMHO, and therefore require a few different techniques to be developed, not the least of which is getting good with an X-Acto knife, lol… Personally, I have about a six-to-one ratio of vac-kits to ER visits for stitches, lol…

I think the major problem with vac-kits was their own fault, since most were labled with the words “Experienced Modelers Only”… What they should have said was, “Some modeling experience required”… If you can use an X-acto knife and cut & sand sheet styrene, you can build a vacform kit… After all, once the parts are cut from the carrier sheet and sanded, assembly is pretty straight-forward… Panel ines are generally recessed and are way out of scale though, so filling and sanding, along with rescribing, is also required in most case… Shouldn’t be an issue though, since most injection-molded kits with recessed lines are almost as far out of scale, although the vac-forms tend to run to “Die-cast model”-sized lines…

Don’t expect a 14-page instruction book to be included… Exploded-view drawings’re the rule, not the exception, and you DO need a well-stocked parts box and a well-stocked decal selection is usually a good idea too, since many don’t coe with decals, just a suggestion on what after-market sheets to buy…

A first-time vac-builder also needs to use some common sense too… Sheet styrene is relatively thin, and will, over time, warp… Adding fuselage formers and main spars cut from the carrier sheets to fuselages and wings will go a LONG way in preventing that from happening… Using expanding foam in the fuslage will really make a difference too, and give the model some “heft” as well…

Currently, I have two on the bench, a 1/48 D4Y Suisei “Judy”, and a 1/48 He 51, both from WIngs 48… I WISH I’d bought a couple of the PB4Y-2 conversion kit for the Monogram B-24J back when it was still 1985 and affordable…

Bottom line is that if one isn’t comfortable with scratch-building anything, one should probably get a few vac-forms behind them… Then, the scratch-building skills you pick up will actually kinda “Double” in value when applied to injection-molded kits, and you won’t need a bunch money to buy after-market parts…

One more thing, smaller isn’t “easier”, and this goes triple when comes to vac-forms… The bigger the scale, with vac-forms, the easier it is to build them, IMHO… 1/48 is good, but a beginner should go with 1/32 scale, at least for the first one or two… When it comes to scratch-building, the bigger the scale, the easier it is to fabricate a part…

5

Hans is right on all counts. While I’ve only built 4 vacs over the last 30 years, I’ve got over 20 in my stash because they don’t come in any other media. I never tried larger scales as I only do 72nd, but I knew to go simple for my first attempt and did the Go229 flying wing. 3 parts: upper, lower and canopy. I had to cut out the LG doors and robbed struts from my spares, but even compared to modern kits it holds up.

The skills I learned I still use for correcting a kit.

Tim

6

I should also mention that the way to properly sand the fuselages and wings ( and othe rlarge parts, loke engine nacelles), is to get some spray adhesive and glue a sheet of 120 grit wet-or dry sandpaper to asheet of glass… Don’t try to sand each major component by going along the edges with your hand… It won’t sand evenly…

Also, when you cut out a part, it’s best to use the back-point of a good #11 blade and hold the knife as close to the horizontal as possible without going past that angle to less than 90 degrees. 95-100 degree angle is good… This’ll allow you to cut much closer to the actual part, and means less sanding… Go slow and deliberate, each pass should have a nice, long “curlyque” of styrene behind it… That means you’re actually cutting the styrene, and removing material, not just pushin’ it aside and forming a ridge of plastic along the part’s edge…

It also helps a lot to use strip along fuselage edges t form a flange, to give the parts more material to glue to. Since there’re no alignment pins or thick material, a couple inches of strip in strategic locations will really help the strength of the joint…

Last, a good, “hot” cement (I use MEK, Methyl-Ethyl Ketone) will work best in getting the flanges glued on… You can use a “cooler” one in gluing the joints solid, once the other areas are set… Be advised though, that MEK is HOT… And while you don’t need an OBA and a paint-booth exhaust fan, a small fan blowing onto your back will do nicley in removing any fumes from your immediate area… While the fumes from MEK don’t bother me, respiration-wise (and I actually LIKE the smell), they CAN be bit irritating to the eyes (especially if you’re wearing readers or an optivisor) if the fumes get up in behind the lens, so moving air is a real plus…

7

Though they exist they appeal to an even smaller niche of the modeling community…those who are scale modelers not assemblers. They require more skill than even resin kits, and they don’t have the detail or either injection or resin.

I’ve built a few in my time, have a couple left in the stash. I had a huge collection and a few years ago I put them up on eBay and they sold quickly. I started them out cheap, but by the time the bidding began most sold for a handsome price. It was interesting to note, very few of the dozens I sold went to customers here in the US. Most went to AU and NZ others to the UK.

8

This thread got me wanting another vac… … Just grabbed a “buy it now” Wings 48 B7A1 “Grace” offa Ebay for 12.00…

9

More than “want” in my case…I’m breaking out an Esoteric kit, NAF-15, N-9H “Navy Jenny”. Looks easy as it has an option for an overall paint scheme of Navy Gray that has lots of variation as it was mixed locally. Hardest part will be rigging as there is at least a mile of it.

Tim

10

I think a mile of rigging is consevative, lol…

11

What happened to them?..well the dinosaurs died off then…

When vac kits peaked in the '70’s and 80’s model companies were slow in introducing new subject matter…technology began to make die-making easier and cheaper and companies could start introducing subjects that in the past only vac companies would tackle…these days we are over-loaded as modelers with subject matter we could only dream about 20-30 years ago being offered in injection-molded plastic. Limited-run injection molded kits are the new vacuformed…

12

I am talking the kit, not the real thing…[:D]

13

So was I…[;)]

14

I still have my ID Models 1/32 Lancaster ahead of me, and I’m still looking for the discontinued HP Hallifax. Why did the owner of ID have to die? I think he should be shot for that. Wish me luck on my Lanc, I’ll need it.

15

Vacform are not dead, they are still beeing produced. And still beeing developed, by companies such as Airmodel and Khee-kaa.

I personally like vacforms, I have build a few and got a few in the stash. As said by other, they might look intimidating but there not that hard to build. They just take a bit more time, patience and problem solving skills.

16

I could be off, since I’ve never built a vacform kit. As far as I can tell vacform kits simply haven’t kept up with the rest of the industry. Resin and short run plastic kits used to be pretty crude, but modern ones can easily compete with mainstream plastic kits. Vacforms on the other hand look about the same as they did in the 1970s.

Comparatively short run plastic and resin kits have come way down in price, not cheap by any means but much cheaper than they were. Vacforms are still priced as they have always been, fairly cheap if you just get the vacformed parts, and pretty expensive it you get the resin and white metal detail parts.

I just bought a 1/72 Special Hobby Hawk 75M (Chinese P-36 with fixed landing gear), its retail price is $18, a 1/72 Academy P-40E has a retail price of $12.50. Overall quality is similar, but the P-36 has far more small detail (includes resin and PE “aftermarket” detail). If you add an aftermarket detail set to the P-40 (True detail has one for $6) then the price about the same.

The only vacform I’ve recently been interested in is Combat models 1/72 B-23 (a twin engine bomber that competed against the B-25). Just the vacformed plastic is $37.95, a generic “twin engine” detail set adds another $15. That puts in in the same price range as Hasegawa’s B-25 kits ($50) and from what I have heard the detail, even with the added kit is pretty sparse, while the Hasegawa kit has very good detail.

17

There’s no contest when the vac form kit exists in plastic kit form (or resin, but with resin cost comes into play). They solely exist for the more obscure subjects, and I see a lot of medium/large bombers of ww2 and beyond only existing in vac form. Vac form kits are never meant to be built straight - it always challenges the modeler to research and scratch parts, skills that picks up rapidly through a few attempts or after acquisition of key tools/materials.

18

I acquired my vac kits when a resin or injected kit did not exist. Some have since been released as resin, but other than Special Hobby’s F3F series, none have been released in injected form. The same kits in resin are upwards of $50-$80 and while they have great detail, biplane wings in 72nd tend to be heavy and not well supported by the struts (my opinion/observation only). Esoteric (the majority of my vacs) all have white metal parts such as engines, landing gear and plenty of strut material for spares once “done”.

As to detail, generally in 72nd most “detail” should not be readily visible. A light scribing where a panel should be is all that is necessary, subtle use of color variation to highlight differing underlying materials. I get enough satisfaction out of completing a unique subject, to a high degree of quality (to me) and don’t need all the rivets to be visible. I realize some modelers want that and I respect their desire for detail, it’s just not for me.

Tim

19

My first contest winner was a vac… A 1/48 Avia S-199, back in '88/'89 or so… Only way to build that bird other than a vac was to convert a Bf 109G with scratch-built parts, either from resin or vac-forming… My skills weren’t up to mold-making yet, but I HAD to have an Israeli Messerchmitt after I saw the real one during a trip to Tel Ariv… (I really liked the irony of a German fighter with the Star of David painted on it. It seemed so fitting) It was the only S-199 there too…

It was super-expensive for the day at 18.99 (A 1/48 Monogram fighter of similar size was running about 3.50, and Hasegawa was still the king of kit costs at over 14.00 for the same), but it was worth it, and I made more money then than I do now…

The cost probably came from the metal landing gear and decals being included… I didn’t need those parts (who doesn’t have at least one set of styrene Bf 109 struts laying around?) or decals, but oh well… It was the only game in town, at least until Hobbycraft came out with an injection-molded one in the early/mid 90s… I still had the vac model when that happened, so I didn’t buy it when it was available… Wish I had now, since I’m wanting to start a collection of Me/Bf 109 variants… At least I got the two Hispanoschmitts (MesserHisp?) though…

20

I picked up a number of vacuform kits over the years and have yet to build any. What appears to be the most challenging one is a Contrail Hampden in 1/48 scale. Most of what I have have oop for a long time. [8-|]