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Welsh Boeing 737-400 Instructions issue (move to previous thread if necessary)


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Hi all

Please feel free to move this wherever you want as I have no clue where to put it!

I was building a Welsh Models Boeing 737-4Q8 in Alaskan colours when my progress ground to a halt as I did not have a clue what the instructions meant. The instructions said to 'superglue the metal undercarriage bays into place and glue the nosewheel bays to one half of the fuselage'. From the metal parts I have (picture will be given below), I have no clue which bits I am meant to glue onto the kit. Furthermore, as can possibly be seen from the pictures, when cutting out the fuselage and trimming it, my cutting went slightly wonky, and so is the only way to fix this with filler after the fuselage has been assembled. Any light on this instructions fiasco would be VERY greatly appreciated as I am completely dumbfounded as to what to do. 

Kind Regards and hoping for some salvation!

BetaSingh

P.S- How do you attach saved images on a thread, all I can find is the Copy and Paste?

 

No automatic alt text available.No automatic alt text available.

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Hi,

I might be wrong but it looks to me that you still need to sand the edges of the fuselage halves before you worry about the undercarriage bays or the bulkheads you have already put in place. Building a vacform kit requires a slightly different approach to an injection moulded kit. There are videos on the internet about how to construct vacform kits which might be worth watching.

 

Otherwise I'd recommend getting a Daco or Minicraft 737-400 and building that with the Welsh Models decals as you will find you'll have a much better model at the end of it.

Cheers,

Ian

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Thanks for the prompt reply

May I ask, which bits require sanding, as the small sticky out things on the model were deliberately put as strips to help join the fuselages together. I have since removed these as upon dry fitting the fuselage, it is evident they hamper the fit more than they aid it. Thus, I was wondering whether it is these you are talking about, or the fuselage in general, and in particular, which bits of the fuselage? I have also sanded the edges of the fuselage quite a lot, but I don't know whether this is enough. 

 

And furthermore, which of the metal parts would be the fuselage bays (bad pic, sorry), as I have literally no clue what the instructions are on about. 

Kind Regards

BetaSingh

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Hi.

Unfortunately, the instructions supplied are extremely poor for the novice vac-form builder, relying heavily on one's previous experience to work out the details. There appears to be very little in the way of specific information for individual kits within the Welsh Models range in fact, the wording varies very little between the various releases. It's a pity more detailed explanations were not included perhaps at the expense of some of the more obvious and unnecessary instructions. Disappointing really, considering the explicit wording contained in the "Limit of Liability" section which in many cases is repeated. :rolleyes:

Perhaps a better picture of the cast metal items in your particular kit would help us to give you some more constructive pointers, but I have to agree with Ian that either a Minicraft or Daco kit would be the best way to add a -400 to your collection. Both of which will fit your Welsh models decals. The decals are usually quite good I must add.

See what you can do regarding a better picture of the parts, including the underside of the wings, and lets see if more help can be given.

 

Chris.

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Have you laid the fuselage halves down on a flat piece of sandpaper and sanded the edges where the fuselage was cut from the backing sheet?

This video shows what I mean. Watch from about 1 minute in.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gH_wwfgQbxc

Hope this helps.

 

I see what you need to do regarding the undercarriage bays, it's a little difficult to explain it but I think the parts you are looking for are the circular parts just between the engine intakes and the left rudder in your first picture. You need to separate and clean these up then glue these to the inside of the fuselage halves where you have cut out round areas about half way along the fuselage bottom. These are not really accurate because the 737 main undercarriage when retracted is housed in a large open boxed area in the bottom of the fuselage and would be better represented by building a box like the one in reply #16 in this thread

 

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235033281-boeing-737-130-lufthansa-airfix-kit-modified/

 

Although John is building an Airfix kit he has scratch built the wheel bays and you might get a better idea of what to do with yours. The -100 John is building has basically the same wheel bay as your -400.

Your kit has two nose gear bays for some reason. You only need one, it is one of the rectangular boxes either side of the main wheels in your first picture.

Cheers,

Ian

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Thanks SO much guys for the help, really cleared it up. I would love to buy a DACO 737 kit, but unfortunately, my tight budget restricts me :( But seriously, thank you so much, all help appreciated.

Regards

BetaSingh

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31 minutes ago, Turbofan said:

Your kit has two nose gear bays for some reason.

Ian

That's what was puzzling me as well, hence the suggestion for the additional picture of the wing underside.  :shrug:

I guess you're sorted now then. :thumbsup:

 

Chris

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Luckily (and slightly mysteriously) I have a Welshmodels 737-500 in my workbench pile. I say mysteriously since I don't remember planning to build it since acquiring the Daco version a couple of years ago and I'd thought it's gone back in the loft! Anyway, here's a couple of quick pictures (so apologies for their size) to help identify what you are looking at:

 

The Landing Gear bays:

 

resized_98c059ab-ed62-4dee-af20-22a724ab

 

The blue areas need to be removed (which I think you've already done):

 

resized_bb25e91e-1058-4dbe-8fe4-b37dea35

 

 

As a guide when sanding the fuselage, you'll know when enough material has been removed when a fine strip of plastic starts separating from the part. I also run a pencil or fine marker around the parts before cutting them out to help gauge where enough material has been removed. You might just be able to see this on the upper forward fuselage:

 

resized_7651c3f6-5fd8-4e7b-9889-ce4f8a87

 

Here's a link to my last vacform, the Welshmodels 757 built in the Airliners III Group Build. Hopefully you can still see the pictures as they are on that now infamous hoster that starts with 'Photo' and ends in 'bucket'...

 

 

I hope it'll be of assistance with your 737,

 

Jonathan

 

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Thanks ALL for the help, but, just to clarify, when sanding, I just rub the fuselage against some sandpaper?

Also, as when cutting the fuselage, I accidentally cut into the plastic a bit meaning that the underside of the fuselage is not straight, is there any way I can fix this?

Again, thank you SO much for the help

BetaSingh

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Yes, the usual method is to rub the fuselage halves on abrasive taped flat to a board. You do need to ensure even pressure though, and check regularly, to make sure it is all flat. The marker pen/pencil line helps so much although personally I prime the entire vacform sheet in grey so that there is a clear grey/white border to sand to.  Do look at the guides that have been posted too. John (Aeroclub) Adams has some excellent instructions and tips such as using abrasive on T-profile aluminum. 

If you do oversand a section, put a backing piece in on the inside and fill over that.

I would suggest finishing any first-time vacform regardless of outcome as you do learn by experience and you can get so many of the pitfalls (and cures) out of the way on one model. You can always replace it with another kit for the example in a collection if desired.

Personally, I rather like Welsh Models, my collection would have several gaps without them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The supplied decals were just unusable, so I contacted Welsh Models who kindly have sent me a spare Hapag Lloyd set of decals, but I was wondering what colour the engines were, as on airliners(dot)net, the colour varies from a dark grey to just plain white, so I was wondering whether anyone could shed any light on this. 

Regards

BetaSingh

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14 hours ago, BetaSingh said:

The supplied decals were just unusable, so I contacted Welsh Models who kindly have sent me a spare Hapag Lloyd set of decals, but I was wondering what colour the engines were, as on airliners(dot)net, the colour varies from a dark grey to just plain white, so I was wondering whether anyone could shed any light on this. 

Regards

BetaSingh

It is a case of checking your references. Pick a rego number and trawl Airliners.net or other similar sites for pictures of that aircraft.

 

Now, I have had a look through the Airlines.net images and indeed the colours look different, BUT you can't really go be the images to get a true colour due to lighting conditions on the day and how the image was post-processed. That is why it looks like a wide variety of colours for the engines. 

 

My opinion is that the engine colour is the same as the wing which would be Boeing Grey. If you look at the nacelle colour and compare it to the pylon and wing (where possible) colour in most images, they look the same. Here are a few examples

 

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

 

I noted that the HL 737-800s had white nacelles

 

Hopefully, the Welsh decal comes with an instruction sheet that would suggest the colours to be used.

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You are right! Thanks for finding such great photos, really does seem obviously grey now! I shall tr6 and paint the engines like I did the wings- mixing revell light grey and normal gray.

Thanks a million

BetaSingh

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  • 2 months later...
On 01/04/2018 at 22:38, stringbag said:

Hi.

Unfortunately, the instructions supplied are extremely poor for the novice vac-form builder, relying heavily on one's previous experience to work out the details. There appears to be very little in the way of specific information for individual kits within the Welsh Models range in fact, the wording varies very little between the various releases. It's a pity more detailed explanations were not included perhaps at the expense of some of the more obvious and unnecessary instructions. Disappointing really, considering the explicit wording contained in the "Limit of Liability" section which in many cases is repeated. :rolleyes:

Perhaps a better picture of the cast metal items in your particular kit would help us to give you some more constructive pointers, but I have to agree with Ian that either a Minicraft or Daco kit would be the best way to add a -400 to your collection. Both of which will fit your Welsh models decals. The decals are usually quite good I must add.

See what you can do regarding a better picture of the parts, including the underside of the wings, and lets see if more help can be given.

 

Chris.

Having just bought 2 737 kits I would say the instructions are very poor, for the money I paid I would expect a little more. 

 

Julien

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