Whirly

Glad you liked the subject, thank you all for the positive comments! Actually they DID lift, even using Post It instead of masking tape For a moment I felt pure terror, but luckily the decal film is quite robust and I managed to recover the fragment and put it again in position. You'll understand that I need a relaxing project for the following build with very little decals to apply Currently I have an F-RSIN ATR42 in my shelf of doom which I would like to complete, but not in the immediate future. Cheers Fabio

Hello, sorry for another long absence. I really welcome all your positive comments and I'm glad you are liking the end result like me. I posted some more images I took later in the RFI section, just to give some relevance to this wonderful Group Build! Fabio

Here is my 737 I recently finished for the Boeing 737 Group Build. It was a great experience and I saw many excellent models being built, I only regret I couldn't find more time to comment on the other threads, I merely finished my build before the deadline! I saw the real plane in november 2010 at Victoria Falls airport, during a trip I made to South Africa and Zimbabwe. It was love at first sight and I just had to build it but, as you know, sometimes things don't go so smoothly and I managed to do it only eight years later. If you do a Google search you'll find that Z-WPA is still going strong, though in a much more plain livery: there are even a pair of trip reports on Youtube. I made a few changes to the basic kit: I used Authentic Airliners resin engines, the nose was cut and replaced with a resin copy of the DACO 737-400 one. The main wheel bay is scratchbuilt and surface detail rescribed on wings and tailplanes. Wing vortex generators and landing lights are from Authentic Airliners decals. Livery is from classicairlines.com. The build thread is here: Thanks for looking!

1/144 Airfix B737-200ADV Air Zimbabwe Z-WPA Victoria Falls airport november 2010 Authentic Airliners resin engines. the nose was cut and replaced with a resin copy of the DACO 737-400 one. Main wheel bay scratchbuilt and surface detail rescribed on wings and tailplanes. Wing vortex generators and landing lights from Authentic Airliners decals. Livery is from classicairlines.com. Thanks for looking!

OK, I'm calling this done: the U/C was completed and I added the wing root lights with decals from Authentic Airliners. No more time since tomorrow I'm off for some family commitments. Here are a pair of images, more in the gallery. Great to be part of this GB, I got the push I needed to do this model which had been lurking in my stash for many years. Pity I couldn't devote more time to read about all the other builds, I'll save them for more quieter times!

Steve,Pete, thank you for your valuable inputs! I'm now settling on these choices, based on their likely availability in 1/144: white car Mercury Monterey 1965 gray car Ford Country Wagon 1966 What do you think?

Hi RAY, the decals somewhat survived: I had some damages on the right side and I managed to patch things up as best as possible. My mistake in the painting fase was very unfortunate and I should have paid more attention to the exact positioning of the decals using a photocopy for masking. Anyway I love this livery and it is coming out really well!

Some work on the u/c. I used the mains more or less out of the box but had to adapt the nose leg to the much deeper bay coming from the DACO kit.

Repair done, I had to insist with the white coats to cover the mistake and this will show with more paint ridges... Masking removed and main decaling completed.

Now on to decaling... The left was completed and I found out a big goof... the demarcation line between white and metal is placed in the wrong place and doesn't match the cheatline! On checking better I even found there was some asimmetry between the two sides. What I was thinking when I placed the masks???? No other option than attempt a risky repair. I used Post-it notes to cover the already applied decals to minimize the damage.

Hello, I'm back! Seeing the due date rapidly approaching I tried to accelerate work on this baby Boeing. Here is the painting completed, some problems discovered while removing the masks but there's little I can do without harming all the metal finishes, I'll have to accept the compromise... Here is a close-up of the Authentic Airliners vortex generators. They are an extremely fine product and a really better replacement for the molded detail.

Thank you RAY, I also experimented with lacquer thinner from a paint store and got a quicker drying time but the paint seemed to be more prone to orange peeling. Actually though the problem now is with the Alclad chrome: the black coat underneath developed a ridge over the masking tape and any attempt at restoring the finish would remove the metal paint. I fear I will have to leave it as it is but I really don't like it..

Hello, thank you for the appreciating words, I'm liking too how the model is coming out. I had little time for modelling in the past few days but most painting has been done and I hope to finish in time. First a good coat of Tamiya gray primer was applied and I was really happy to see that very little needed fixing. Next step are the wings, paint tin ready for spraying! Xtracolour Boeing Gray went on well but it took ages to cure completely despite using Mr.Color levelling thinner which is quite hot as a solvent. Then the white fuselage was tackled with Vallejo White Primer, I'm quite happy after treatment with polishing cloths. The most difficult step was masking for the natural metal lower fuselage since the white demarcation follows exactly the shape of the three-coloured cheatline but shifted of a few mm. I'll see the result later after removing the masking tape. This is the last coat of Tamiya acrylic black in preparation for Alclad Chrome. It needed several coats increasingly thinned to reach the "glass look" needed. And here is the result after application of several thin coats of Alclad. It's the first time I used Chrome and I struggled to let it out of the airbrush nozzle despite being nearly water thin, perhaps the metal particles are quite big? Opinions and suggestions are welcome for future applications. Next step is removing the masks and, all things going well, complete the multi-coloured wings then go straight to decaling. Cheers Fabio

Hello, longtime since my last update...here below the reasons I was just finishing the last joints.... When my eyes caught something not right: Needless to say I couldn't live with such a gross mistake, so in the past few days I have sawn off the exhausts, reattached them on the right sides, filled, sanded, filled, sanded until satisfied (or fed up) and yesterday evening I applied a coat of primer. Will see what came out.

Hello, I have finally completed this model and I would like to give it a suitable base. I found a source for cars like these but I'm not too expert on brands and years of manifacture: perhaps someone here can help me to identify the exact models? Many thanks Fabio