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Revell 747 questions


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I am currently planning/collecting models/parts for building 3 (make that 6 now. Update; 8 now) Revell 747s. The first is a 747-400 in Gulf Air livery, second a 747-600 conversion in BOAC colours and thirdly a 747-8i in an Air NZ completely black scheme (airlines have been updated). Here's my first question, should I fill the panel lines as they are quite obviously too deep?

I have on the go...

1. 747-400 Gulf Air

2. 747-600 BOAC

3. 747-400Y British Airways Landor

4. 747-Xstretch Thai Airways

5. 747-8i Air New Zealand

6. 747-8i Alitalia

And a hankering for more :yikes:

Update

7. KC-748 tanker. Possibly Iran Air

8. VC-25B Airforce One 747-8i

 

 

Edited by Abandoned Project
Update
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Most panel lines on real aircraft are only visible up-close or when they start collecting dirt.

 

A deep panel line on a model would scale out to several inches wide on a real plane - and who the hell would want to board a plane with those kind of gaps between the slabs of sheet metal? :worry:

 

Each to his own, but I would fill them!

 

Scott.

 

 

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I agree with Scott, though sometimes with airliners, due for repaint shortly one can discern not only panels, but even lines of rivets from as far as spotter's platform.

Try the following: put fuselage/wings/tail etc. of your kit near the computer screen. Find good high resolution photos of the subject of your build and scale them up/down so they appear to be the same size as your kit/part of the kit. You may take slight degradation in photo quality into account but generally those panels or details not visible on photos, should not be visible on a model. This rule, however, works only when models are observed from a certain distance. Closer look will reveal lack of details. Still, with models in 1/144 scale, especially those displayed in a glass cabinet, you are fine. Cheers

Jure

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

 

24 minutes ago, dadofthree said:

When I go to Halfords, apart from gloss white what other colours should I get for my 747s?

 

Racking Grey for the "Boeing grey" areas (wings, stabs etc).   You'll find it with the workshop paints which are usually shelved separately from the car paints.  

 

Remember that you can do "click and collect", certainly at the bigger Halfords branches.  It's a good way to avoid making a journey only to discover that the colour you want is out of stock.

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  • 9 months later...

The story so far....

I now have 4 (now 8 ) 747's on the go! (Am I a glutton for punishment?) It all started when Boeing launched the 747-8 to replace the 747-400 series and I wondered what had happened to the 5/6/7 models? A bit of googling and a few books later I had learnt the sad tale of some very large 'paper planes' that essentially were stepping stones to the 747-8. I do feel its a shame that nobody decided to buy a real 747-500/600 but then the history of the A380 is starting to make Boeing's decision not to build these or the MD-12 look like a good one (and NO! I am NOT going to whif an MD-12 as I as currently fighting the urge to get a 747-400F and start whiffing a 747-600F as well because that would be 9 747's I don't have space for hanging from the ceiling!). But I digress!

So now I have a 747-400 (Gulf Air), a 747-600 (BOAC), a 747-8i (Air New Zealand) and a 747-8f (Cargolux)

Edit; the Cargolux was abandoned in an effort to cut down the number of 747s in my collection but I gave in to temptation for more paper 747s

tn_b4fcb46a-230c-4599-b97f-2a0a5345137a. tn_a0998a01-7f44-4148-a4f1-6cb22c05c73d.

I also have my Halfords 'racking grey' and 'appliance white' along side the necessary paints from the usual suspects. Decals have come from various sources with Ray at 26Decals kindly adding some falcons for the engines to his Gulf Air 742 set for the 744, the very nice John at Oldmodelsdecals created a bespoke set for the Air NZ 748i, the Thai Air 747-Xstretch set from F-DCAL and the poor old 748f is is the only one using the kit decals ( I think that is why I abandoned the poor thing). I am considering getting PE for the 744 and 746 but not sure which set to go for and have seen that Hannants now have a very comprehensive set from Metallic Details in the future releases section. So my question is, should I bother with PE and if so which set?

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It's your decision whether to go with PE or not. Personally I would use it if it makes a significant difference to the model.  For example if the kit has no wheel-well detail a good PE set would be worthwhile but for things like pitots and antennae it's cheaper and no more difficult to make them yourself from thin plastic.

 

Just a thought about paint. You don't mention buying primer.  I think most of us would agree that priming before painting is pretty much essential, particularly when you've been cutting and shutting.  I usually use Halfords grey primer but their white primer is also good.  If you want something a little finer Tamiya primers are well regarded although significantly dearer than Halfords.

 

HTH

 

Dave G

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I didn't realise that I had to mention primer, sorry! Yes I have both white and grey primer and matt black for the interior as I'm going to use the windows on the 747-8i and 747-8f. On the point of cutting and shutting I have some P38 filler.

On the point of PE how on earth do you bend engine fan blades? Thanks for the reply and advice on PE sets.

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4 minutes ago, dadofthree said:

...

On the point of PE how on earth do you bend engine fan blades? Thanks for the reply and advice on PE sets.

 

Never tried so I have absolutely no idea other than saying very, very carefully!

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Some excellent advice from the guy's,I'm not usually a civil aircraft builder but built Revell's Cargolux 747 last year using halford's primer and

glosses and foung after a few coat's of both the panel lines are not really an issue so don't create a lot of needless prep work for no real difference

in appearance.

DSCN4036_zps5afgjerx.jpg

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4 hours ago, stevej60 said:

Some excellent advice from the guy's,I'm not usually a civil aircraft builder but built Revell's Cargolux 747 last year using halford's primer and

glosses and foung after a few coat's of both the panel lines are not really an issue so don't create a lot of needless prep work for no real difference

in appearance.

DSCN4036_zps5afgjerx.jpg

Thanks for the tip, I shall keep the filling to what is needed then. It was your 747-8f that persuaded me to get my own jumbo freighter. It looks fantastic, I do hope mine comes out that well. 

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In the process of collecting paint I found a fly in my ointment in the shape of revell's 371 paint not being available locally and having trawled through many conversion charts the only alternative listed being humbrol 196. I found this was only available as an enamel in my local model shop. Not to be outwitted the manager visually matched the humbrol 196 lid to the glass bottom pot of tamiya XF-19 sky grey.

HTH

Or not as the case may be 

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I don't know if it's of any interest but there is a thread about improving the Revell 747-400 running on Airliner Cafe at the moment.  A member called stevej  (not our stevej60) has converted the 748 to a 744.  It looks like it was a lot of work but the result is excellent.

 

Out of curiosity what is the Revell 371 for? Revell painting instructions should never be taken seriously. They tend to specify 371 for almost any light grey and there are often more accurate alternatives available

 

 

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Revell specify 371 as their Boeing grey for landing gear and bays for both versions of the 748 while the 744 has 374 for the bays and 99 aluminium for the gear. The books I have for reference all show the 744 with Boeing grey gear and bays, so that's the way I'm going to do them. I'm already planning to get a set of SAC 748 legs for my 744 as I already have a set for my 746. The kit parts in the Edforce One are so good they practically beg you to buy a stand and build it wheels up! Not sure how to fit them but I might convince myself that a metallic details PE set is in order for the landing gear bays and a small amount of surgery will sort it all out ;)

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On 1/7/2018 at 8:28 AM, Mjwomack said:

This'll probably start a long discussion about gray, but for Boeing gray I'm always happy with Hannants Xtracolour, we'll...Boeing gray

Please no !!  That was done to death a few years ago. I gave up Xtracolor Boeing Grey because of sporadic availability, not to mention the ridiculous cost of getting it by mail. It's up to the individual modeller how he or she finishes a model but the general consensus seems to be that Boeing Gray is very close to FS 16515 Candian Voodoo Grey for which Racking Grey, available from your friendly local Halfords, is an almost perfect match.

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4 hours ago, Mjwomack said:

This'll probably start a long discussion about gray, but for Boeing gray I'm always happy with Hannants Xtracolour, we'll...Boeing gray

Where do I start with the list of technical hitches......

1. £6.00 postage for a single tin,

2. Its oil based not water based,

3. None of the paint comparison charts list it as an alternative 

4. The last conversation I had involving grey was in 1990 and featured John Major! 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On Tuesday, January 23, 2018 at 8:31 AM, techniquest said:

Please excuse my total ignorance, but what's a 747-600?

It was a super stretch that did not quit make it to production along with the 500 which I think was an upgrade of the 400. 

 

Personal thing here, it is GREY.:dalek:

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Thanks Britman and Skodadriver for the answers. The 747-600 was Boeing's attempt to meet the market demand for a bigger, better aircraft to cope with increasing passenger numbers. Unfortunately it was unable to offer the improvement in range that the airlines desired. Both the 747-600 and 747-500 got as far as scale models at the 1996 Farnborough air show but they provided ideas that were later incorporated into the 747-8 series. 

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