Welsh Models vacform 1/144 McDonnell Douglas MD-11 Delta Airlines

[Darren Rhodes]

Happy New Year all!

I'm going to start the New Year with a brave and possibly vane work in progress of the Welsh Models vacform 1/144 McDonnell Douglas MD-11. My last attempt at a WIP ended in disaster and the kit being binned. And work often interferes in my modelling time so if you're really interested in what is likely to be long-haul I would advise subscribing!

Excuses done, I thought it might be good to start with what a Welsh Models kit looks like. Because these are vacforms, the boxes are surprisingly large, yet quite thin:

 

 

Inside there are two large vac-formed plastic sheets, one containing the fuselage, fuselage bulkheads (4), a wing spar, tail fin halves, centre engine intake liner, engine nacelles:

 

 

The instructions state that these nacelles are for GE-powered MD11s and not for the PW-powered Delta variants and so are surplus. A separate smaller sheet provides dedicated nacelle and pylons for the PW engines (see later). I wasn't sure what the two small boxes were at the bottom middle, but I've just realised these are the nose and centre gear bays - the L1011 TriStar kit didn't include these so I was expecting to have to scratch build them.

A second large sheet contains the wings, tailplanes and redundant GE engine pylons:

 

 

Finally a smaller vacform sheet includes the Delta Airlines specific PW-powered engine nacelle and pylon halves:

 

 

Nacelle leading edges, engine fans and exhaust core plugs are provided in resin:

 

 

The undercarriage, winglets and flap track fairings are provided in white metal:

 

 

There's a bit of mould seam to clean up, but past experience is that after priming any casting texture disappears.

Instructions are sparse, yet provide all the relevant details:

 

 

 

Decals are by Two Six Decals. They are laser printed and a little soft, but based on my MD-90 build respond well to Microscale Set and Sol, settling down well.

 

 

Now for tedious part of vacforms, cutting out the parts and sanding down. Hopefully incremental progress tomorrow....

 

Regards,

 

Darren

[tomprobert]

This is a lovely kit, Darren. I've built one and have another in the stash. It won't give you any problems I can assure you of that!

Will be subscribing to this one...

Tom

[Darren Rhodes]

Thank you Tom much appreciated, especially as we both know what happened to my last WIP attempt! ;-)

I'm already slightly apprehensive having realised the vertical fin alignment is not a given, being a separate part and will be critical to this build.

Darren

[tomprobert]

I'm already slightly apprehensive having realised the vertical fin alignment is not a given, being a separate part and will be critical to this build.

Darren

My advice to that... measure thrice, cut once!

And follow the plans to the letter!

[jan_cz]

will be following this one! Good luck with cutting out the vacform pieces and keep us updated!

Jan

[PMG Offramp]

Darren,

Will follow this build for sure, this MD-11 is IMHO one of Welsh's nicest kit in 1/144, along with their great 747SP.

Welsh kits are very exciting to build, they just need more attention when separating the main parts from the vacformed sheets and sanding down the excess plastic, not forgetting strengthening the joints with plastic strips.

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Another watching Darren. I have the Finnair boxing of this kit and have not been game to start it yet.

[MikeW]

I am onboard too - when I started building airliners, so many were only available as vac forms. I had no idea how they worked, so held my breath and plunged on in, Tu-154, DC-8, Viscount, and then some resin things. I love how these can turn out though - so make us proud. ( and I'm really chuffed there is a proper cheat line in the mix )

Cheers,

Mike

[Alex1978]

I'm in as well,as I also have a Welsh MD-11 in my stash,this will be very interesting for me too.

All the best for your build,

Alex

[Darren Rhodes]

Thank you guys, much appreciated and honestly slightly surprised to hear so many of you also have this kit into stashes.

Right first update. All parts have been separated from the backing sheet. Here's the fuselage halves, bulkheads and wing spar:

 

 

Learning from my TriStar build, my first vacform, I've cut much closer to the parts this time round - I left almost 1cm around the parts previously and was sanding for months. The risk of cutting so close is an errant scalpel slip can take a gouge out of the parts - which happened in one instance, but a little filler will easily fix. I've also marked the area on the tail that should be removed.

 

And now after a relatively short sanding session:

 

 

Next up will be to cut out the nose and centre gear bays and install the provided bays into one fuselage half.

 

Regards,

 

Darren

[tomprobert]

Great progress, Darren.

You're making this look really easy, which is good because more people need to build vacforms - they're such fun

Tom

[Darren Rhodes]

Hi Guys,

 

Some more progress. I cut out the centre gear and nose gear bays that are clearly scribed on each fuselage half. I then installed the supplied gear bays, which simply butt joint on the inner fuselage wall - each gear bay is scribed to indicate the centreline and aid positioning in one fuselage half. If one was being pedantic, the gear bays are shallow, but I'm not exactly one for constantly picking up my models and peering at the undersides so I can happily live with this.

 

I then installed the fuselage bulkheads, initially tacked into place with superglue. I'm always conscious that superglue bonds can be brittle and potentially I have aspirations to send this as a completed model across to the States at some point, so I reinforced the gear bays and bulkheads with two-part epoxy:

 

 

And then I opened the cut-out to take the wing spar, which is also conveniently scribed to indicate where to cut. At this point I discovered the bulkheads were too wide, or perhaps I've over-sanded the fuselage halves. Either way some sanding and regular dry-fitting eventually sorted this out and so I have now have this:

 

 

Now the instructions don't indicate what nose weight is required and whilst this will sit on sturdy white metal gear, I don't want to waste unnecessary lead weight so I'm going to roughly assemble the remaining parts and tape together to determine the required nose weight, plus a bit for margin of error. That means sanding down all the remaining parts.

 

Regards,

 

Darren

[MikeW]

Valid scientific theory that - One I live by. Determine the amount of nose weight that is needed, then add a smidgeon.

Fuselage is looking good.

[stringbag]

You seem to be making short work of this one Darren

Add my name to the list of watchers please.

Chris.

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

.... At this point I discovered the bulkheads were too wide, or perhaps I've over-sanded the fuselage halves. Either way some sanding and regular dry-fitting eventually sorted this out and so I have now have this:

...

Darren, I had the same issue with my 1/72 B737. I found the bulkheads needed additional work to get the fuselage halves to come together.

[Alex1978]

Looking great so far.

Your build gives me the drive to start on my Welsh MD-11 too now,as well as on my Authentic Airliners MD-11.

[kev67]

Great progress

[Radleigh]

Must admit, I would love a MD-11 built up but it's not going to happen any time soon lol

Looking forward to seeing this

[Darren Rhodes]

Greetings folks, and apologies for it being so long. Lots of excuses, work, being seduced by other kits and being daunted at the task ahead. However, I think there is a glimmer of light on the horizon.

 

Having cut out all the pieces, I was a bit dismayed with the engine bits. How on earth can these be made to look like a PW4460?

 

 

Dry fit highlighted a number of issues, the exhaust plug protruded too far, the plastic portion of the nacelle is larger than the resin forward part and flexed badly, but worst of all the engine core is far too short and would be highly visible:

 

 

 

This was make or break for me, I thought about the Bra.Z resin alternatives, but thought that a bit of cop out. I sourced some plastic tube to extend the engine core all the way inside and added plastic wedges until the exhaust plug was in the right position. I also wrapped some thin (20 thou?) sheet inside each nacelle, added the resin front end, queue lots of filling and sanding. My filler of choice is super glue mixed with talc. Best sanded wet, it sands smooth, doesn't shrink and is hard enough to scribe.

 

And here's the end result, not perfect, but far more engine like:

 

 

 

 

With this done, I could return to finding the nose weight required. And the answer is 22 grams. Which gives this:

 

 

That's a set square in the middle to represent the pivot point. The flap track fairings are white metal and being behind the CoG, are taped on the top of the wing at the right location. Starting to look like an MD-11 now.

 

I added plastic tabs in-between the four bulkheads, top and bottom, using off-cuts of plastic from the vac-form sheets, but forgot to photograph this, sorry. I lined the opposite fuselage half, opposite each bulkhead, with two-part epoxy and then used plastic weld to glue the fuselage halves together. After the first round of filling and sanding, I have this:

 

 

Regards,

 

Darren

[MikeW]

Engine on a rock, McDonnell Douglas were certainly beach adjacent - so authentic in my eyes

Seriously though - looking good.

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Nice job on the nacelles Darren. Again Welsh had issues with the engines on the 1/72 B737s. The intake was about a mm smaller in diameter than the rest of the nacelle (which in this case was also resin). This was communicated to them and was fixed with a new mould intake piece.

I wonder if the MD-11 intake has the same issue?

Ray

[The 3rd Placer]

Signed up, nice progress so far.

Ryan

[Darren Rhodes]

Haha, thanks Mike, like the rock analogy, though I suspect that just highlights how dirty that piece of blutac is! ;-)

TrojanThunder, thanks, yes I would have said the resin intake was 1mm smaller all round. I'm always nervous apportioning blame as I might not have sanded the vacform parts correctly. Sand and fill, all part of the process!

Welcome, Ryan, glad to have you aboard :-)

Darren

[Darren Rhodes]

Greetings and belated Happy New Year all, 

 

Shocked to see it's almost a year since I last posted any progress.  I kept getting distracted by too many other kits, however having got the Qantas A380 finished, I realised my work bench is still too crowded with part built kits so I need to frame myself and get back to this.  

 

And surprisingly the issues that ground me to a halt last year seem nowhere near as bad as I recalled.  So I now have the main fuselage and wings assembled, primed, scribed and fuselage top coated and a couple of clear coats:

 

 

The fuselage was primed with Zero Paints White Primer, top coated with Zero Pure Brilliant White and then clear coated with Alclad Aqua Gloss.  Needs a bit of polishing, but progress.  The tail fin and centre engine is a nice tight sleeve fit onto the fin base, so I will attach it at the end. Thereby the centre engine won't get in the way of clear coating, decalling and polishing. 

 

As for the centre engine/fin, the first lot of filling and sanding is done and the primer coat is on. Needs some polishing and re-scribing. The intake sleeve is just dry fitted in these photos and it looks like the intake ring is a slightly smaller diameter, but some sanding of the outer engine should easily fix that.  The intake sleeve was a pig to get reasonable as it was two vacform halves with long seams and a white metal intake ring = more seams.  It's painted Xtracolour Boeing Grey inside and once permanently attached and sanded, I will mask and paint the intake ring Alclad Aluminium. 

 

 

 

As I'm doing the Delta wavy gravy/beach towel scheme, next up is to paint the lower fuselage aluminium and then the light grey wings and wing/fuselage fairing - so lots of masking ahead for the weekend!  

 

Regards,

 

Darren

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Nice to see further progress Darren 

 

With the MikroMir/Eastern Express kit now out I wonder how many of these will be dumped on Ebay and sale tables?