Falcon's 1/48 scale vacform
Supermarine Attacker

by Hank Gruben

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This is the Falcon 1/48 scale Supermarine Attacker.

If one should chose, this stunning but unusual subject is a great way to attempt a vanishing form of modelling – The Vacuform kit.

I received this kit via auction from my favourite model store and was surprised at the quality of the vacuformed sheet that contained ALL the parts. Yup, one sheet about 10x12 inches holds all the parts needed for this kit. I also got a bag full of white metal parts (Ejection seat, wheels, landing gear, et al.) and usable decals.

When I build a vac kit, I score around the parts and leave about 1 millimeter around so that when I start the sanding process, I know when I’ve gone far enough when the edge starts to get thin and that extra millimeter gets sanded off.

Lets see, I used the instrument panel and part of the white metal seat but everything else in the cockpit was scratch built. The undercarriage bays and bay doors were also scratched, the tail hook bay and hook were scratched, the wing gun port and such were scratched…

Hmm. Other than that, it was built straight out of the box (snicker). Editor's Note - actually it comes in a bag...

The entire plane was painted in Vallejo color acrylic colors referenced from the Royal Navy colors in action paint chips. The decals were a mish mash because although the kit decals are usable, there aren’t many of them.

The entire model was given a semi-glossing and the bits like the aerial under the nose and the pitot were added.

Falcon really does make a great set of vac kits for the price…

 

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2004 by Hank Gruben
Page Created 18 June, 2004
Last Updated 24 December, 2007

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