Back in the Saddle

I updated that build thread the other day! 😉 Back to this build...! The cockpit was assembled and roughly painted: All quite minimal, but should be more than sufficient behind the windscreen! Time to get that excess resin removed from the windows. Here's the before image: Rather a lot to remove - it's hard stuff too... After quite a few minutes with my 240 grit paper, the worst of it was off: A few thoughts 1) Use resin much more sparingly! 2) Prime the outside of the fuselage before applying the resin, so when sanding it back it is easier to see when you have flush windows - the primer is stripped off, revealing the plastic again.👍 3) At this stage, join the fuselage halves - it prevents the flimsy structure from flexing so much! The fuselage seam lines can also be attended too at the same time. 4) Some serious polishing is needed to get those windows smooth...! In readiness for point #3, I fitted the cockpit. There were some dimples in the front of the fuselage and the cockpit tabs slotted into these beautifully: Time to seal it up!

Looking good - what material did you use for the belts? 👍

Incredible work, given the kit! Really excellent finish too on those panels👍

I spent a productive hour in the garden this afternoon with a bucket of warm water and a sheet of 240 grit paper. My mission was to remove dirt, decals and uneven paint! Here are the results: Note the scored lines showing the edges of the doors! Back to bare, black plastic! Looking very shiny and clean again! I'm leaving this to dry overnight in the airing cupboard (!) and if the weather is suitable tomorrow I'll coat it with primer and see how it looks.👍

Just a little update for you John - I can't leave you in suspense too much longer...! 😁 I was looking at the undersides of the wing whilst contemplating how best to attach the engines (more on that in a moment!) and noticed the unseemly gap in the joint between the top and bottom wing sections. Out with the filler, which was lavishly applied: As I mentioned earlier, my plan was to attach the front of the engines (the white sections) then add the black exhaust sections later, once everything was painted. I attached this on one side then noticed that the grey primer on the underside of the wing was visible inside the intakes - the area marked on the wing below: The engine was consequently removed and I will paint these sections white before attempting my plan again! Some 240 grit paper was briskly rubbed along the line of filler until it all looked smooth: A coat of primer will be next, to check all is well! One other issue will not be an easy fix... My amended nose section has the visor at the correct length, but somehow not fully 'up', as the edge of the windscreens behind it are visible - they should be completely covered: There's no easy fix for this, as the visor is embedded into the nose cone with milliput and glue - to get it out again will destroy it completely... I think I'll just have to live with this. Whilst taking the photo above, I noticed the sunlight on the upper wing: Lots of lovely detail there! Engine/elevon attachment is next and then painting awaits.👍

It looks like BA have leased a Cathay aircraft and slapped their titles on it! Thanks Colin! That makes perfect sense! 😁 Time to get the decals on the left hand side - I was waiting for the right hand side to dry before doing any more work, in case something slipped... First I used a pen to mark the location of the upper deck door, to aid positioning: Then applied the decals in this area, using this line and my previously drawn horizontal window line to help with alignment: I added the windscreen decal too - there was no real need to do this, as they will all be coming off again but I wanted to see how it looked! The decals are not applied very neatly, but are good enough for my current purposes, which is simply locating the doors accurately. The view from above - it all looks symmetrical: My waste bin makes a great model holder! 😁 Dymo tape was used to mark the edges of the doors and some gentle scribing occured: The centre of the door handles was also marked, to get the vertical alignment recorded onto the plastic. Next I repaired some damage on the fuselage. The tail cone had a split: As did the top of the fuselage: Plenty of glue was added and will be left overnight to harden.

Work has trundled along with this one, making gradual progress - the undersides were painted and masked, then the dark grey was sprayed on the upper surfaces. This is now masked and awaiting the final coat of green: The vinyl masks are the shiny bits! Hopefully decals and an RFI soon...

Time to get some decals applied! These are purely for guidance purposes and are completely sacrificial - they will all be removed before too long! The decal sheets were sealed and then the window sections were cut out ready for application (note my 1/200 decals too, used to help me orientate the various sections): A great photo to illustrate my problem - where exactly should the windows be placed? Time for some references... I found an image on Wikipedia showing the nose of the 747 and used this to determine where the windows were relative to the nose cone (slightly above the line extending back from the tip of the nose, in case you were wondering). I then found a suitable sized container and laid a marker pen on top of this, before drawing a line at the correct height all around the fuselage: Once the line was drawn the decals were applied with the windows placed directly over this reference: I'm particular interested in getting the cabin doors positioned correctly, so I can scribe their outlines into the fuselage and have a durable set of reference markers for later use. It didn't take long to complete one side: A Cathay Pacific/British Airways hybrid at the moment! Considering the green band was eye-balled many years ago, I don't think I did a bad job...😉 I'd like to think that if Tom hadn't mentioned it yesterday, I would have realised today that I was dealing with a -300 model! I will leave these to dry then apply the decals on the other side of the fuselage.

I’ve just remembered that AiM also produced a conversion kit, to convert this model into a -400 series aircraft. I wonder if they are still available…? I’ll do some research on this, as the -400 would make a far better subject. If I find one, I’ll just have to change the thread title again!😁

That’s a great question Tom and I’m really glad you asked…! I’ve had a proper look and it is the stretched upper deck version, so is a -300 series aircraft. I feel rather silly now, as I looked at the decals and based on those assumed it was a -200 model… VR-HIH is the aircraft on the decal sheet, which is a -200 variant. It doesn’t really change much, other than I’ll have to amend the registration to something appropriate.👍 Thanks for asking the question!😁

Thanks Dave. I've made a few mistakes already, the main one being doing all the windows at once - I should have left a few sections for experimenting with different techniques...! Your suggestion sounds good (I think it would have been better than what I have done!) but has a couple of drawbacks - the windows may end up noticeably recessed, expecially if the tape if pushed firmly into the gaps. This in turn would make polishing the windows tricky, unless a 'top up' of resin could be added...? Regarding the resin, it was one I picked up online: It was cheap and seems to do the trick! It does need a bit longer to cure than advertised, but I just left it on the windowsill all day and it was fine in the evening. 👍 The main issue is the size of the nozzle - it's huge, making finesse impossible. That's why it looks like the resin was applied by a toddler...! 😁 Here's the nozzle, alongside the tip from a discarded propelling pencil. For future resin application, I'll pop the pencil tip over the nozzle and hopefully have far great control over the flow: As an aside, I think the secret to this is control and positioning of the resin. Introduce it to the centre of the recess, let it flow to the edges and fill from the centre outwards - this prevents large bubbles getting trapped. A huge dollup dunked over the hole doesn't work! Unfortunately I only came to this conclusion after filling all the windows... For the rear section I added some tape in an attempt to limit the spill of excess resin. However, this was not easy to subsequently remove this, due to the resin: For a change of tack I cut out the cockpit pieces: They should go together nicely to form something realistic!

Impressive work, the AM items are really bringing this one to life.👍

Cheers Tom, I'm looking forward to it! It won't be to the same standard as yours (which looks immaculate in the KLM livery👍) but I'll give it my best shot. One of the many reasons this one was put onto the shelf...! Thanks for the kind words.🙂 Yep, it's a vac form and the first one I ever tackled. I didn't do a bad job, but some areas are screaming to be improved - more on that over the coming months...! As for displaying it, I have no idea where it will go once it's finished - I'm running out of space and it's huge! I made a start on this today, giving it a very hard stare to see what was needed. There are many tasks ahead which will be tackled in no particular order - I just want to get this model moving towards completion again. During my research on the aircraft depicted by the decals, I learnt that VR-HIH was actually a 747-200 despite the decals having '747-300' printed on them - the first job was editing the title of this thread! The paint on the model is old and not particularly accurate - the demarcation line starts well at the front but bows up like a banana towards the tailplane: As you can see, the tail cone has split open so will need repairing (and an APU exhaust adding). The tailplane is also covered in the remnants of decades old masking tape residue and will need stripping back... I need to establish some datums on the model, in order to get the demarcation lines corrected when I finally get to the painting stage. I decided that the window line would work well and I could scribe the doorframes into the fuselage at the correct points as permanent markers for later reference. Don't be distracted by the BA livery below, I simply used this as I had a copy scanned from 1/144 decals - I just doubled the dimensions and printed it onto decal paper. Some fudging will be required, as these are from a 747-400 but I'm hoping the main deck layout will be broadly similar: Another two sheets of A4 paper - this model is big! I also have some 1/200 decals on the paper for another project - they look tiny by comparison! Next job is sealing the decals and applying them in the correct place. Once that is done the doors can be scribed and the decals removed.👍

Thanks David, it adds something to the diorama without stretching my building abilities too far! A bit more to report but unfortunately not enough progress to get this one finished before tonight's deadline... not particularly surprising given my track record! I can however confidently state that this GB was one of the most enjoyable ones I've ever done - it was great to get the creative juices flowing. Thanks to @Bertie McBoatface for instigating the whole thing, it's been a blast.👍 So onto the diorama itself. The wing roots have had some enhancements added but there is still more to be done here: We now have ribs and a gap for the intake ducting but a few more details would not go amiss. The pod has had some flaky 'fabric' added, courtesy of a piece of tissue paper and TET: And the base now sports a puddle in the pothole! This was added during my experiments with resin whilst filling in the windows on my A350 build: So close to the finishing line, with just a bit more tinkering required and then a coat of paint! I will possibly stick another update or two below for posterity and once it's done, a link to the RFI. Thanks as ever to everybody involved for another fun GB! Cheers all

It's that time of year again when I review the models that have been languishing on the SoD for too long and need a bit of TLC to get them over the finishing line! I must have been doing something right recently, because there's only one left now and it's the one I've been putting off the longest - the behemoth that is the mighty 1/72 747-300! Bought over 30 years as an 18th birthday present, started enthusiastically and built to a varying standard... it needs some significant work to bring it up to scratch and this winter is the time to tackle it! Disclaimer - it won't get finished during this GB! I am waiting for some replacement resin engines which are due next summer but I hope to fix a few of the other flaws before then. Just a single picture, to show where it's at, with a couple of other 1/72 models for comparison: The green paper is A4 sized in case you were wondering! Progress on this one will be slow but steady over the next few months and hopefully a vast improvement by the end of the GB!👍

Thanks John, it would have been far easier if I hadn’t slapped the resin on like cheap aftershave! Much sanding awaits and it’s tough stuff to remove…

Thanks Bertie - it’s certainly a battle! Do you have any pictures of your BAC Vedette? I would be curious to see how that turned out! Apologies for replying in a separate message, but I couldn’t do it on my last post as your reply was on a different page to the others! Good to see you back👍

Thanks Mike! 👍 Thanks John. Hopefully your 3D prints I’ll be a huge success. If my solutions work for you, copy away! It’s a large beast! 😂 Funnily enough, I did a bit more work today. I’m getting the front of the engines ready for attaching to the wing - hoping to post a couple of pictures soon. Please do - I’d be very interested to see these.👍 Thanks Paul! I may have a couple too many on the bench, but most are 95% done so I can justify opening a new one! 😂 It does seem strange that it is so inaccurate…

Time for an update, which will initially be the opposite of a masterclass - more a case of how not to do something! It's been a bit of a learning process, but that was the whole point of this build...👍 Firstly the window openings were sealed on the inside with tape, to stop the resin leaking away: The tape was pushed very firmly against the plastic to make a good seal. Then the resin was added, working on just a few windows at a time. This is my first application: As you can see, I managed to inadvertantly introduce plenty of bubbles at this stage! Cocktail sticks were invaluable and used to gently tease the bubbles out and persuade the resin to flow into those areas. All went well for about a minute, then the resin started to cure - a bit more quickly than I had expected... When I next tried to manipulate the bubbles, I ended up dislodging the resin completely: That blob was left to one side and fresh resin was added to fill the recesses in the windows. I also added resin to the middle section of the fuselage. There were still some bubbles here but not as many as on the front - an improvement! 🙂 After a much quicker bubble rectification with a cocktail stick, I had a vaguely decent central section: Just the rear section and other half to go!

Your very welcome, hope you enjoy it! Cheers Mike, it will be a worthy addition! It’s a very graceful looking airliner.👍 I can show you how I build mine!😉 Each one is (hopefully!) an improvement on the one I built before, so we’ll see how this goes…! Thanks Don. Funnily enough, work on the windows began yesterday, using resin that cures under UV light. I will leave the fuselages sides on the windowsill today and hope to provide a decent update on this one soon!

Done! 👍

Excellent job, well done👍

It is! I think the Venom had something similar too, but can’t think of any other aircraft with an arrangement like this…? Cheers Paul!👍 Thanks Pete, I thought it looked suitably authentic too!

Time to hide the engine with a tarpaulin! I cut out some tissue paper and draped it over the engine: I sealed the paper using varnish, which also helped to work it into the crevices. Then it was time for paint: It still looks a bit 'fluffy', so I will seal it again. Apart from that, I think it looks like an engine under wraps! The next job is enhancing the wing roots - here's how they currently look: Intake ducting, ribs and other details will lift these to the next level - a job for later...

That's the plan! 👍