Airfix 1/72 Concorde (A09005)

[Milo Black]

Heya

I'm mid-way through a build of this rather troublesome kit, which I've been recording for a GB on ATF. There's a lot of niggles with this kit, so I'm happy to post here as well if there's any interest. I'm not going to pretend that I'm the greatest modeller in the world - but it might give some advance warning of the pitfalls for anyone else taking on The Big White Bird.

Edited April 20, 2010 by Milo Black

[pacificmustang]

Yes Please Milo

[richellis]

Its not a bad kit. Its not a shake and glue kit. Ive built a couple and take your time and its fine. Im going to do one as a prototype, and the second as the proposed B type. Come on get some pics up!

[Pin]

The following thread shows some of mine and some other guy (korfu) attempts to build accurate Concorde from this kit:

http://scalemodels.ru/modules/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12854

In particular, we both tried to correct visor shape and reduce the size of windows

[GrahamS]

Its not a bad kit.

Really? The one you have must be a different one to the one I had! Nothing fit, and I mean nothing (as can be seen in the Russian site), couldn't afford the filler, gross inaccuracies everywhere.

As you say not a shake and bake. Shame as I quite fancied a 1/72 Concorde but decided too little skill and life was too short.

BUT would be good to see somebody make a good job of it.

Graham

[Paul]

I have one of these in the stash, check out this for 2 years progress!

I am determined to build it one day as I worked on a few concordes as an apprentice.

Maybe we need more of a mutual support group than a build thread!

[PHIL B]

Yes please Milo! I'd love to see it.

I can't believe we as modellers are so badly served with Concorde kits. In 1/144, the Airfix one looked great on my ceiling at age 12 but 30 odd years later it doesn't look as good. The Revell one is way better but there are some very funny looking bits.

The 1/72 Heller/Airfix one you guys already know about and I'm hoping this thread will tell us more.

Considering we're talking about a national icon, we deserve better.

Ahem. I'm all better now.

BTW, for Concorde modellers and enthusiasts, have you seen this restoration diary of Brooklands' G-BBDG? Waaaaayyy too much information to ever get a model finished:

http://www.concordeproject.com/photographs.html

Phil von WisheshecouldhaveaffordedarideinConcorde.

[Milo Black]

Okey-doke. Several commments here. Yes, it's nowhere near a shake-and-glue - and I'm making no attempt to correct any inaccuracies - I'll be happy enough to get it finished to a decent standard, so if things ain't perfect on the accuracy front, I won't shed tears.

Here's what's gone on so far:

14 March

This will be built in "Landing attitude" - wheels-down, nose fully drooped and on the stand.

Reasons:

1. Displaying it on the stand takes up less room on my display shelves

2. The undercarriage is too interesting not to do (I'm sad like that...)

3. If the wheels are down but the plane is in the air, we must be either taking off or landing, so the nose will be drooped and the shield down.

Box:

Sprues:

Decal Sheet:

I started by assembling the engines and flight deck:

and dry-fitting the main fuselage tube

After reading about some other builds - very helpful - I checked the fit between the cockpit and the front screen, and sure enough, it doesn't go. The centre console got moved back about 2mm from the locating holes - there wasn't room for more without moving the control sticks and front seats as well - and the corners on the front console got smoothed off. All good now. I also made a back for the main console from card, since it's visible through the screen - not as much of a problem with the shield up, but mine will be down.

[Milo Black]

16 March

Pre-painting of wheels and undercarriage, and much masking of the shield to do the canopy lines.

While paint was drying, I dry-fitted the cockpit and screen again, and found that I was still too tight, so took another mm or so off the back of the main console - now fits like a glove (well, as close as it's going to get anyhoo)..... it's all a bit, ahem, "approximate".

There are some ejector-pin marks in the backs of the seats - but so little of this will be visible through the glazing that I'm not going to worry about it.

The bulkhead behind the cockpit has a bit of bad moulding - there should be a step that locates into the back of the cockpit floor, but there's just a horrible malformed blob - so I dry-fitted it to the back with the nose section closed up, got it straight and marked it so that I can cement it into one of the nose halves.

I also started trying to get the droop-snoot mechanics sorted out - anyone who's seen or done a build of this kit will know that there's an ingenious crank system in the nose, which is intended to allow it to do the droop thing and move the shield up and down as it does so. The problem is that several of the levers are on the clear sprue - so somewhat brittle, not really up to the job, and easily brioken. In the builds I've read through, everyone has given up on it after breaking it for the fourth or fifth time and just glued the nose and shield into place - BUT I haven't broken it yet, so I'm still vainly hoping that I can actually get this to work as intended..... when it all goes horribly wrong, I'll let you know.

[Milo Black]

17 March

Tail section is built - bit of fun because the tail wheel well fits from the inside, so you can't really locate it until you have the halves of the tail section together, and then there's not enough room to locate it from the open end unless you are Edward Tweezerhands.....

... but I'd seen this coming, and threaded a bit of florists wire through the tailwheel mounting holes. That meant I could pull it into place from the outside, let the cement harden and then remove the wire.

After experimenting with clearfix on the passenger windows, I'm going that route (rather than acetate sheet) - hadn't used this technique before, but works like a charm.... I was only wary because I read a build (on another site) where it took the guy 30 minutes to do 2 windows.... I did three in about 30 seconds just to test, so no worries. That dry-run left the way clear to assemble the main fuselage halves.

Again, there's an issue with the nose-wheel well fitting from the inside - my solution was to cut off one side of the mounting guides for the front bulkhead (red circles)

and not fit it immediately to leave access. Now I've glued in the nose wheel well, I can fit the front bulkhead from the front. It's probably safe to leave this bulkhead out - it's completely invisible - but it's a big model, and I want to make sure that all the strengthening elements are in place, just in case.

18 March

Main assemblies:

(More to follow)

[Mike]

I don't know whether I'm just not very observant, but this is the first time I've ever seen one of these being built

[GrahamS]

I don't know whether I'm just not very observant, but this is the first time I've ever seen one of these being built

Probably less built than the real thing!

Graham

[Milo Black]

I don't know whether I'm just not very observant, but this is the first time I've ever seen one of these being built

There are a couple of other builds documented in different places - but by very good, skilled modellers If mine turns out half as good as some of the finished ones I've seen photographed, I'll be pleased.

[Karl]

I've got two in the stash - looking forward to seeing this

Karl

[Milo Black]

21 March

Wings and tail now on, and working on the joins with filler and sanding - you can see that the tail join needed some attention, and the left-hand wing-root is a bit suspect - filler on and ready to be sanded. Right-hand wing root is not too bad. There's no wing-root join underneath - instead, there's a horrible join half-way out towards each wing-tip - but the engines will cover a good chunk of it, and filler is sorting the rest. The fuselage top join wasn't too bad - nothing that CA couldn't handle.

I've removed the (very fragile) vane from the top of the fuselage - this is moulded as part of one of the fuselage halves, but was getting bent every 5 minutes. I'll reattach it when I'm right at the end and doing the last pass on pitot tubes and all the small details.

Next week some time, I should get brave enough to attempt the nose/cockpit assembly - and then we'll have the main airframe shape pretty-much complete.

22 March

OK, here's tonight's "Spot The Difference" competition....

OK, I made it easy for you. That's right - no pin!

Not being equipped with needle drills and fine brass rod, my solution was a heated sewing needle, like so:

I'll cut the end off when the cement under the clamp has set and put a drop of CA on the end to hold the free end still.

23 March

In an earlier post, I said

I haven't broken it yet.... when it all goes horribly wrong, I'll let you know

... and sure enough, I broke it tonight while trying to test-assemble the nose Ah well, did me best, innit.

I'm really looking forward to reading at some point that someone SOMEWHERE has managed to get this to work - the idea is good, it's just the execution that lets it down. I think you would have to scratch-build the mechanism in a different material - which is certainly beyond my meagre skills.

So, I'll be taking the route that everyone else seems to follow - decide how you want to display it and "hard-code it", i.e. glue everything into place and call it done. Shame, 'cos I was really pleased with the sewing-needle trick, which worked a treat.

Having committed to wheels-down ('cos I like the wheels) and on-the-stand (because the footprint is then smaller when it goes on my shelf and I have limited space), I *have* to have the sheild down and nose drooped - you would never have seen the plane in-flight with wheels down and sheild up.

Edited April 9, 2010 by Milo Black

[Milo Black]

26 March

Have now arrived here:

This is on the stand, which merges into the black rug - quite cool, actually

Evidence of filler still in various places:

Top fuselage join - Good.

Wing Roots - a rather wobbly join, so have added plastic card shims in a couple of places to boost the filler.

Tail join: still needs some work - didn't go together too well. The least said the better.

With hindsight, I should have attached the tail to the fuselage tube before mounting on the main base piece - this would have got the tail join a bit neater..... but might have stuffed the wing roots, so swings and roundabouts, maybe.

The nose was buttoned-up tonight but is still taped while it dries, and only taped to the main airframe - I'm going to clean up the joins and sort out the rather "jazz" fit around the front screen before finally attaching it as it will be easier to work on as a "small thing" rather than as the pointy end of a "big thing".

This is the first time I've had this completely together, so have inevitably just been asked "Where are you going to put that when it's done?" by The Good Lady Of The House.

Solve one problem at a time, I think - finish it first, then think about the display space.

31 March

Still grinding on with this - have been doing prime>sand>fill>lather>rinse>repeat for the last few sessions, but coming together. Will post pics when there is some noticeable change.

Another "That's Just Plain Wrong" moment - this kit has several - is that the top edge of the engines is stepped at the front (see 14 March pics of assembled engines), presumably to locate onto raised steps in the wing underside when attaching them - but since the raised steps aren't actually there, I'll need to build back the sides of the engines with plastic card to get a flush fit.

I've decided to leave undercarriage and fine detail off this until I have done most (if not all) of the decals - since it's such a big beast, I'm likely to break stuff when decalling it otherwise, so I'm trying to minimise the number of repairs required.

[thx6667]

Probably less built than the real thing!

I built three! G-BOAF ended up with Concorde@Filton with her 1:1 counterpart.

I have some interior shots of G-GOAF if you want them Milo.

[Milo Black]

This is now up to date, so all updates will be "live"

I got a little sidetracked over Easter weekend with the Starter Kits GB, but bits of sand-and-fill were still getting done.

Now there are two coats of white matt primer and one coat of gloss white on the airframe - I don't have the facilities or skills to do airbrushing, and it takes a little while with a brush - and I've got the gap-filling fillets on the engine housings blended and painted in.

Last night I got the engines attached - the plastic-card fillets filled the gap well. I still have some small cracks down the sides, but nothing like I would have had otherwise.

So - next thing is to fill the cracks where the engines join, is rub-down the paintwork, and get a second coat on. Then I need to add some of the detail parts and it's ready for decals. Hoping to get to this stage by the weekend - will take some progress pics then.

[Milo Black]

I built three! G-BOAF ended up with Concorde@Filton with her 1:1 counterpart.

I have some interior shots of G-GOAF if you want them Milo.

Nice one, Jonathan!

I'm building mine as BOAE, since I had the privilege to fly on this very machine in the 90s - so it will also be in BA "blue tail" 90s livery. I'd still love to see your shots of BOAF though

[thx6667]

Somewhere I have all the pics to my build, I might post them up in a concurrent thread, may be use.

[Milo Black]

Love that cockpit - that were PROPER flying, that were

[woody37]

I've got behind on this thread, love those build piccies. Getting a Revell 1/144 off Rich on Sunday, need to get the 707 finished now to make room !

[Mike]

I've got two in the stash - looking forward to seeing this

Karl

Gimme one!

[AntPhillips]

I had both Airfix and Heller kits at one time, and started the Airfix one, but had a nightmare with the rear fuselage joint, ended up binning the basic airframe and sold my other Heller Air France kit off with the remaining parts as spares and the choice off BA or AF decals. I'm pretty sure someone on Britmodeller bought it.

I have read elsewhere that it uses less filler if you join the nose, mid fuselage and tail parts together as seperate halves and then just join the fuselage as you would a normal kit.

I might well treat myself to another one at some point in the future, but only once I have the space to display it properly.

[atdb27]

Bit late on this one but nice to see how you are doing.

I made one some years ago for a mates 50th pressie in the Landor scheme and a reg he had flown in.

It is a big kit and needs much patience tlc etc.

I found the use of black plastic around the engines a real PIA to spray over!!

Did have fit issues with the fuse being in 6 bits - 3 sections.

My next one I have vowed to assemble 1 side to ensure all joints are flush and then join each (now) 1/2 together.

Easier to fill a middle seam than how Airfix suggests IMHO.

Somewhere it has been noted that the NLG is in the 'wrong' position'? Too far fwd/back can't remember now?????

I also on my model did Krystal Clear post painting/decaling.

Now did any Co do BOAC decs in 72nd?

Which is why the a/c were registered BOAA - onwards so that the 3rd a/c would have reg G-BOAC!

Good build and I'm following with interest.

Adrian