Kingston Vacuum Works Canopy Master By Michael Benolkin

For those of you who remember the Mattel Vacuform Machine (then you'll also remember that Paul McCartney was an a musical group before Wings), it was a great way to create custom parts for your models. Unfortunately, the size of the machine was very limited and plastic that would lock into the frame assembly was nearly impossible to find in later years.

A little over a year ago, we had the pleasure of reviewing one of Kingston Vacuum Works' vacuform machine (click here to see that article). The system is nicely thought out and simple - you clamp a sheet of plastic in the supplied frames using the binder clamps (also supplied). You set this assembly onto a pair of wood blocks (ditto) on the shelf in your oven (not microwave, thank you) and heat to the prescribed temperature. Once the plastic starts to droop, you put the hose of your vacuum cleaner in the receiver on the vac machine, center the mold master on the top of the vac machine, turn on the vaccum, grab the frame out of the oven (please use oven mitts or pot holders) and smash the soft plastic down over the mold master and onto the surface of the vac machine. The vacuum will do the rest. Once the plastic has solidified again, you can extract the master and trim out the part(s).

Kingston has developed a nice variety of vacuform machines to satisfy most modelers' needs - except one. Their smallest machine was still too large and required the waste of too much plastic to cast canopies. That is until now - Kingston has released the 'Canopy Master'.

The Canopy Master works the same as all of the other Kingston vacuform machines, except that it has a 3.5 inch by 3.5 inch working surface. This will allow you to use less sheet plastic on those smaller jobs. But why do you want one of these great tools?

For example, I was thrilled to finally get my hands on the new Eduard 1/48 Bf108 Taifun kits but I was a little disappointed that the canopy could not be posed in the open position. The same was true with the the AMTech 1/48 Ta183 Huckbein. Until now, your only choices were:

1. Build the kit with the canopy closed

2. Risk destroying the canopy by cutting the canopy open

3. Wait for an aftermarket vac canopy to be released

Now you can use the kit canopy as the master and make as many vac replacements that you need, when you need them. Kingston provides a generous supply of plastic with each vac table and you can use the sheet plastic that your local hobby shop carries as well.

Conclusion

This is a handy tool to have around when you're needing to replace or modify small parts like canopies. to either replace a damaged or too-thick kit part. If you're not content to build your models as they are out of the box, this is a great way to make quick canopies, hatches, doors, etc. This tool gets two thumbs up!

My sincere thanks to Kingston Vacuum Works for this review sample!