Been wanting to do a model of the 720 for about 35 years !

Just looking for an excuse (and a decent model)



Lovely looking kit and a nice colour scheme too, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to get the old wax crayons out and have a crack at something a little more exotic .......... (shouldn't come as too much of a surprise)

Crayon and paper at hand with tongue hanging out the corner of my mouth - time to get drawing

Looking forward to seeing this kit built. I've shyed away from vac form now, I did my 720 out of the Revell E3 although didn't have enough courage to extend the inboard leading edges.

Have you decided on a theme yet ?

Hi,

I know where you're coming from with regards to vacforms although having admired your work on a number of occasions, I don't think you'd have a problem with them.

Anyway, I guess I'm going to have to come clean and admit to a bit of cheatage ! (Yes Jim, it's a vacform.....but not as we know it !)

Lift the lid on the box and you'll find that only the fuselage halves are vacformed - the rest is resin and white metal - Lovely !!!





You'll notice that I've chosen a colour scheme and although I've nearly finished the drawings, I'm still trying to iron out some colour-matching bugs - that's why you can't see them yet. (To be honest, I started work on them some time ago, and before anyone asks, it isn't a "?" logo jet ! )

All will be revealed in the next week or two. I'll post some more shots of the box contents on Saturday. (Keep your fingers crossed I can pull this one off, 'cos mine are. )

....start your engines !

Can I tell them Mike, can I, can I.....???!!!

Looking forward to seeing this one done, it'll be a stunner!

I still can't decide what to do, but I think the Aer Lingus Connie is still just about ahead of the field!

Good luck with the decals

Keef

Sure thing, but Post number 3477 will be your last

Oh no it won't - I'll tell 'em in the next one.....

That kit looks exellent, might have to try one of these as a first step into vac world (sounds either like a domestic or fettish club lol)

Now your teasing with these decals, go on, spill the beans.......

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaase

So what else is inside the box ?

Fuselage halves :



Resin wings and tailplanes :



White metal landing-gear :



Resin engines and fuselage bulkheads :



...and the old decal sheet (the new one is nearly finished !) :



and of course the Instructions :



All in all, very civilised and well worth having, if you ask me

(My kind of vacform - I just hope I can do it justice !)

That looks a very neat kit.

looking good, Im hoping to crack on with a welsh vac-form for this GB, so ill be watching....

Okay, so here's the plan (It's my avatar - I couldn't help myself !!!) :



Air Rhodesia Boeing 720-025 VP-YNM Mashonaland


Artwork is finished but needs some fine-tuning, so here's the "?" label ripped off :



Time to put the crayons away and start cutting some plastic.

Nice livery! Go for it! I'm interesting to see what this throws up, since I've never been brave enough to go vac-forming myself.

Nice choice of livery!

Stunning and unique, what a great build this is gonna be.....no pressure lol

Really impressed with those resin engines and wings. Can't see much of the fuselage, but I feel I'm giving in to the Welsh kit. Just ned to buy a new shelf now !

Cheers for the comment - hope I can pull it off.

With regards to the engines and wings, they are very impressive - no apparent casting imperfections whatsoever !




Been out and bought the Welsh Models Super VC-10 in East African colours for a rainy day as a result of the 720's quality - Same mixed media with only the fuselage halves being vacformed.

Okay, so on with the build.....

- Close up of the decal sheet. Couple of minor modifications need to be done before I put it to one side and concentrate on the plastic.




- Fuselage halves cut out from the backing sheet and sanded down ready for the resin bulkheads




- Resin bulkheads pushed aside in favour of plasticard ones (didn't seem to fit properly but that's more than likely due to my "skills")
- Milliput and lead weight added behind forward bulkhead and interior parts painted black, because...........




....I opened two scoops under the fuselage, and I'm planning on opening the cockpit windows out instead of using the decal windscreen (Hope you're happy Keef 'n Clive !!!)
- pilot holes drilled in the fuselage halves in order to attach the horizontal bits.




Close ups of one of the scoops......




....and one of the cotton-pickin' glue-trenches that resulted from gluing in the plasticard bulkheads.




Should be able to get the fuselage halves together this week.

Well done that man!!

Good start so far Mike, you'll be finished by the end of July at this rate!!

After a whole lot of faffing about I've finally decided that I am going to do the Revell Connie in Aer Lingus markings. Unfortunately that means I'll probably have to lose the clear cabin windows as the Max Decals sheet uses decal ones, & there's a different spacing between them & the kit. She'll still have a clear flightdeck though....!!

Keef

Did you make those decals yourself ?

If so, how ? They look superb

......club competition will see that doesn't happen !.......


....and the rest of the unfinished builds covering our dining-room table - the family have to take it in turns to eat meals !




Cheers for that.

I did them over a couple of weekends using Photoshop and many, many curse words

Good luck with the build, mitchem. You've just decided for me what my next Welsh Models purchase will be!

Joseph

Good progress. I got my welsh 737-4 on wednesady, and I was pleased to see injected plastic bits for the wings and engines!

Would you do a thread at some point explaining how you did them ?
With so many questions to ask like how did you get the profile into a 2d image, how did you get the dimensions etc, etc.

Really impressed with them. I've never used photoshop, but would love to have a go myself at some point.

Thanks.

I would like to second that proposal please.

Thanks

Cliff

Yeah, what he just said.

I'd love to explain it in a step-by-step fashion, but it's difficult to put into words.

Those who use Photoshop know that it's all about using layers which are then superimposed on top of each other.

The Air Rhodesia decals were no exception and were made up of multiple layers which can be seen down the right hand side of the following screen-shot:



As far as the designs are concerned, it's basically all down to the ability to draw straight lines and getting the dimensions (and the colours) right. Not as hard as it sounds !

With regards to the dimensions, it usually starts off with a strip of windows. Cheatline dimensions can be gauged by comparing them to the windows, and then once you've got the cheatlines sorted out, you can gauge the dimensions of the doors by them. Doors are relatively simple to draw - four straight lines and a circle spilt into quarters.

Fonts are sometimes more difficult, but if you haven't got something similar to what you're looking for on your PC, you can sometimes find them on the Internet. As an example, the Boeing font was downloaded for free from some web-site, so with some manipulation, I managed to write BOEING720 in the right size and colour, and then add it to the cheatlines as an additional layer.

Another useful idea is to try and get a side-view of the aircraft that you're trying to model. The following pic was handy in trying to get the dimensions and positioning right, even though the resolution wasn't very high.



When it comes to side-views, I'm often surprised by what's out there in Internet land. I even managed to find port and starboard side-views on Airliners.net for a short-lived airline that's always been of interest to me, and they only ever had one DC-8 !

There was no excuse not to have a go. (Only about 100 excuses in the loft not to build it.....yet !)



The English font was available on the Photoshop software and coloured using the eye-dropper tool, while the Arabic font was picked off the photo using the magic wand tool.

I'd encourage you to have a crack at making your own decals. The satisfaction of making something unique is often greater than making the model itself, and if I can do it, anyone can. (Hell, everything I know about Photoshop is self-taught - I couldn't even read Photoishop for Dummies without subtitles !)

cheers

mike

(Word of warning - don't be fooled by my decals. They may look the part, but they invariably require quite a bit of trimming and fiddling around with to get them to fit. )

Mike

Do you have a prefered make of decal sheet for printing on to?

Cliff

Hi Cliff,

I've only ever used Experts Choice Clear Decal Film so I can't really comment on other brands.

(I do know that I've struggled with their white decal film though).

mike

Yes, me too

Cliff

Thankyou, that was really useful. I can imagine the satisfaction of creating ones own decals, I can't wait to see this finished, something to be really proud of, home made decals and a vac form kit....yikes !

Yeh, show-off isn't he.....

Although Photoshop is a brilliant tool, I prefer to use Adobe Illustrator as my preference to making decals.

Small (and overdue) update because I've been admiring everyone else's work and trying to complete some other projects.

- Fuselage halves together
- Glue trenches filled
- Cockpit windows cut out (I know of two people who will be happy)
- New cockpit frames installed





Quite pleased with the frames - only the second time I've tried to do something this daft, and only the first time it's worked !

More work to be done on the fuselage before I have a go at the horizontal bits

Back at last after messing around with a club competition and trying to finish off a few odds and ends.

Been watching all the civil stuff rolling off the production lines here (well done to all - cracking jobs ! ) and it's given me some motivation to get back to the 720.

I've glued the resin engine components together and then pinned and glued them to the wings. Small gaps in the engine pylons need to be filled before the wings are glued to the fuselage. In the meantime, I've temporarily pinned them to the fuselage just to have a look.




I'm thinking that the nose contours could do with some sharpening up - advice welcome please.



Thanks

mike

Boeing noses -hmmmmm!!

Difficult to tell from your pics Mike, the top one looks fine in plan view, whereas the second one looks a bit 'off' - but then that could be the foreshortening of your pic?

The 'cheeks' under the side cabin windows may be a bit chubby?? Compare with this shot;

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Eagle-Air-o...047B/1696245/L/

But then it looks OK compared to this one!!

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Middle-East...023B/1746449/L/

There's some good straight on side views on A.net that show the profile like;

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-Viking/...-022/1746044/L/

I know this is a 73, but it's really good to show the side profile shape!

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Southwest-A...-7H4/1763762/L/

Personally I think I'd leave it alone - it's nowhere near as noticeably bad as the Minicraft 707!!

Keef

Edit : comparing pics again, could your centre windscreens do with being a touch deeper at the central pillar?

Mike - after you finish the 720, perhaps you could go for this one. Only thing is, it needs finishing....

http://cgi.ebay.com/BOEING-707-QUANTAS-FRO...ts_ModelKits_JN

Forgot to say in last reply, the 720 is looking very nice - whatever you decide about the nose!!

K

"- Cockpit windows cut out (I know of two people who will be happy)"

only if there is a fully detailed cockpit in there....

as the the nose shape, if it look right to you then it is right

Thanks for the input Keef. I've compared the model to all of the links you posted and it's not as bad as I thought. Having said that, the nose doesn't look as pointed as it should from the top, but that could have been from vacform inexperience. Perhaps I didn't sand down enough of the mating surfaces around the nose prior to joining the fuselage halves - nothing that a couple of swipes with sandpaper can't solve

With regards to the central windscreen pillar, it could do with a bit of modification, but there isn't much plastic to play around with when you're trying to get the angle right. (I'll give it a go and see what I can do.)

Of course, if I hadn't cut the cockpit windows out..........

Heavens above !

I'd rather have a go at making one out of Milliput - at least I'd have some change leftover

Cheers kev1n.

I'm trying to get back to 1/48 scale desperately because my eyes have been struggling to cope with detailing in 1/72 let alone 1/144.

Sometimes you just have to leave things to the master ! (I guess I'll always be a grasshopper! )

magnifying glass?

master - lololololololololol....no I'm not - trust me, I'm not

Inching along ever so slowly.

Done some work on the engine pods before I glue the wings to the fuselage. Not the construction method I would normally follow, but I'd realised that once the wings were attached, there'd be no way I could mask the engines up for painting without trouble.

Thought I'd use Alclad2 again (after having had a bash with my Aeromexico DC-9), but this time, referring to the good General's article in Model Aviation World.

On with a gloss black primer, followed by Aluminium, Polished Aluminium, Steel and Burnt Iron. Plenty of masking tape involved and perhaps not exactly 100% accurate, but it looks okay to me........and that's what counts.



Next thing is to get the wings attached permanently and fill in the minor gaps.

mike

Looks good to me too. Coming along nicely.

Cliff

Thanks Cliff - just hope you don't run out of popcorn and lose the will to live before the end of the show

Hi Mike,

Engines are looking good - especially so given the disaster you mentioned tonight! And looking at your nose in the plastic - it looks absolutely fine to me!!!

Sorry for not replying before, but my e-mail notifications to some threads appear to have gone a.w.o.l. again!

K

Minor update : Managed to get the gloss appliance white on the fuselage top without the orange peel finish - proof (if there ever was any needed) that one really, really thick coat will unlikely be able to do the job - lesson learnt !
Major update : Managed to get a funky new cutting mat - just in time to start cutting up masking tape for the tricky job ahead.



Loads of work ahead, but determined not to rush it.

((Still not too sure about the nose, but it's too late now !)

That white looks the dogs.

That cutting mat makes my eyes go funny....!!!

Nice white!!

K

Looking superb so far

Cliff

And you wanna sit back and watch my builds Mike? This is simply stunning!

I used to fly the Viscount with British Air Ferries (BAF) and a Captain flew with then used to fly these (or maybe the B707) with Air Zimbabwe. He was very quiet and didn't say much on those long night freaighting flights. But I do remember, halfway to Glasgow one night, in a strong Rhodesian accent asked "Mark.... Did you fart?"