Whirly

@trickyrich @Col. thank for your kind words! Unfortunately the Minicraft kit is not one of their best and gained a bad reputation over the years. Among the many possible corrections I collected the following from other modellers' builds who were so kind to report their impressions for posterity: - the fuselage is about 5mm too long aft of the wing, somebody even wrote the excess is in the tail making also the fin chord too big; - the engines point upwards so the pylons need reshaping; - the nose is not entirely right in its peculiar shape; - the top of the fin slopes downward instead of being level with the ground; - the worst problem is reportedly the different thickness of the port and stbd wings, even the wing fairings would be different making the whole assembly very prone to asimmetries and bad fitting. I'm not totally convinced of this last terminal flaw: from my observation of the parts and quick dry fitting I can't see those horrendous defects, but maybe I will change my mind after sitting at the desk with a well lit working area and checking again. For sure the kit has very coarse moulding, thick trailing edges, approximate details, ecc. ecc. BUT if you wanted an injection kit of the 757 before the fantastic Zvezda kit, it was anyway better than the terrible Eastern Express one (which is said to be a bad copy of the Minicraft kit itself, what perversion! ). I don't know yet what corrections I will use in my build, I will need much patience to make everything fit and give some refinement to a very poor kit, so probably it will depend on how much inspiration will remain in my heart after applying those basic improvements!

Hi all, I enjoyed so much the first GB that I joined the list for this one immediately after it was proposed! Again I have too many fitting kits to start, this time I made a decision to enter first an airliner, maybe this will be easier to finish and give me additional time for a second entry. So, my plan is to build the much cursed Minicraft B757 (not Zvezda, I still have to buy it) because I have it in my stash and this is a good excuse. Perhaps I will do some shape improvements, but we'll see. For sure the livery will be this: I made a return trip on it in 2006 for a holiday in Minorca. I have very good memories and the plane was quite comfortable compared to the run of the mill Airbuses and B737s. Cheers Fabio

Really nice couple! I especially like the turquoise one since it is so beautiful and a perfect match to the registration decals. May I ask what paint did you use for that?

Hello everybody, first a belated thank you to @Anthony in NZand @85sqn for their appreciations. Then I have to apologize for the lack of updates: as it often happens, real life got in the middle and I had very little good modelling time in the last few weeks, even considering the welcome extension to end of May. So, despite seeing no real chance to finish it by the due date, here is the latest progress. I pondered a little on the u/c legs and decided not to use the kit supplied items: they are (quite) a good shape but this white metal is more like butter than metal and I doubt they would remain straight for any lenght of time. That said, I replaced the offending items with Strutz brass aerofoil filed to shape. It is not totally correct but will surely be much stronger! Then came the wing fences. Nothing is supplied and working with thin plastic sheet was a no-no since they are so small. The old photo-etched ladder set came again to the rescue and after some cutting and filing managed to obtain more or less the shape needed. U/c and fences are now in place and tidied up. This took a lot of time unfortunately but couldn't find a better way. I shot a good coat of Mr.Surfacer to even up things and then started with a thin white layer followed by the red orange. Image is crap, too little light, but it came out quite good. This move was intended as a morale booster since I felt in muddy waters for too long and needed something encouraging to look at. Problem is that I still have to furnish the cockpit, solve issues with the new canopy and install it! Then there is the crooked propeller etc. etc....... Thanks for looking!

Great tip, I will keep this in my mind when I decide for a buid! Thank you

This is interesting, I often wondered how difficult would be building a polar plane starting from the much more buildable Zvezda TB-7 kit (radial engines) apart from the obvious lack of specific decals. Could you please be more specific about AModel's kit modifications? @TonyOD Apologies for the thread drift, you must be applauded for tackling such a difficult kit!

Really very nice build Einar! It is a complex kit and you made justice to it with fine painting too. I have the same kit but I'm a bit scared by the amount of work you have to put in it even for an out of the box build. I would like to attempt modifying the body to a shorter RM since it looks better to my eyes, seems a relatively easy mod and I'm sure somebody already did it just here on BM, but what really put me off is the lack of any 'aftermarket' advertising: I browsed through hundreds of old images but never found something I could cobble together and print myself...

Hi Alan, no need to check: I'm pretty convinced by your recollections. I also found this recent post where the builder added some red to International Orange which seems quite correct to my eyes. By the way, I appreciated your photo contributions: I plan to build soon a Red Chequers Harvard in the Group Build so they will be most useful!

Hi Steve, thank you! Looking ahead to the painting stage: the instructions specify Grey 16440 and Orange 12199. The latter seems too orange compared to images but I know reds and oranges can be really treacherous in photographs. Anyone who have seen this paintscheme in the flesh can confirm the correct hues?

Some more progress to report, however at glacial pace! The canopy was treated just like the front fuselage, much filing and sanding will follow. I added some furnitures to the cockpit for a start: a central console, a rear shelf and a "bulkhead" behind the seats. Now the fin... I sawed away the front part since it is thick like a brick. I patiently shaped some brass sheet from an old etched ladder with a much better effect as you can see with all glued and treated with Mr Surfacer 500. Then I finally glued the wings to the fuselage with a couple of metal pins to reinforce the joint. Unfortuantely there is a big difference in thickness between the wings (which are already less than refined) and the stubs on the fuselage, so I had to remove a lot of material with a scalpel and a riffler file to level the joint. The underacarriage mounts too need some care. I removed the plates under the wings as they were an obstacle to refining the wing roots and appeared anyway wrongly shaped. Then I roughly cut the shape of the front u/c "well", I will refine it later. And finally the wing landing lights, I'm quite happy of the result. Thanks for looking!

Sure they help, thank you Alan!

Boy, what a fight this kit is! Seems the width problem is just a minor issue counting all the details to rebuild/add. I managed to add the tailplane after much refining the joint and checking countless times the relative position of fuselage and fin. Lacking a good three view to aid alignment of the pieces is a real problem. I cleaned up the metal seats and cockpit parts, that's all is provided. Much more is needed with that big clear canopy! And then the wings. Oh dear! Incredibly thick, I worked a lot to refine the shape of that horrid soapy plastic. Panel lines are nearly invisible, maybe better given the delicate nature of the subject so I hust filled the few traces remaining. Much to add here too: big wingtip lights you can see in raw status, then we need a landing light in the left wing and those tiny wing fences... I see the deadline approaching, hope to gain speed. Thanks for looking!

Thank you Anthony! A big scale scratchbuilt would be really nice, biggest problem I fear is finding correct plans: all the drawings I saw over the net are wildly inaccurate. Maybe you have one of those treasured Australian books with better drawings? Yes Steve, this seems to be the consensus from the little experience of other modellers I have found. Checking with images of the real plane seems to confirm that. Thank you Pat. I have a plan but it's only in my mind, will see how well it develops in reality!

Thank you @Corsairfoxfouruncle ! @LDSModeller Hi Alan, I'm glad there is some interest in this airplane: it is quite confusing to sort through all the variations and you just showed in a few images the main ones. I plan to do it in the first Red Chequers livery as per your first image, later yellow/black colors are ruled due to being CT-4Es. Anyway, before speaking of painting schemes I discovered there is quite some work ahead. @Rob S pointed me in the right direction noting that the fuselage is way too narrow, unfortunately he is right and a quick check with images of the aircraft confirmed that. I think it is a mistake related to the only three view available which is completely wrong and the master was done following it.... So, armed with thick plasticard, I added 3mm to the fuselage width to see how it looks. Not bad. I considered that going this way I will have to make a new canopy, but since mine are already beyond redemption... I pressed some Milliput inside to have a starting point, will see how to procees once it is dry. And here is the current status, covered in filler awaiting for sanding. I had to enlarge also the engine face so I went completely through opening the cooling apertures, I will add later a new base for the spinner. Thanks for looking!

Hello, this is a late entry for a subject very rarely seen built in modelling forums. I had this kit in my stash for nearly twenty years and I thought this could be the right chance to finally build it. Let's start with an overview of the box contents: The package is really rich, but coming to the really important things you need a good stomach! On top of this I have two fantastic canopies, still perfectly transparent after all this time but... badly crushed! Unfortunately the flimsy box did nothing to protect them and when I received the kit (second hand) I could do nothing to replace them from the manufacturer since the kit was already out of production. So plan A always was to mould my copy after duplicating with Milliput the original shape as best as I could. More of that later. Ok, this is the starting point and here below you can see the main pieces after a quick clean up. Thank you for looking!