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mitchem

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Posts posted by mitchem

  1. 11 hours ago, mitchem said:

    Thanks to everyone for the support. I must admit that the seating problem is doing my head in and I'm still not too sure whether to finish off the dummy seats or just leave them out altogether. Final decision will be made by the end of the day.

     

    My wife said I spend too much time procrastinating so she suggested I do some chores around the house today. I can always count on her to help me make decisions, so I opted to make the dummy seats instead.

     

    After my false start with the seats, I decided that mass production was the only way to get this monkey off my back.

     

    Plastic sheet measured out and scribed :

     

    aoYGEdjl.jpg

     

    Then it was a simple case of snapping the seats off along the scribed lines :

     

    PqPitHpl.jpg

     

    Round the corners off on the headrests before folding them a bit with tweezers. Glue them onto base strips at a slight angle and presto :

     

    Xz4WgHZl.jpg

     

    Paint half of them (because we're in a rush to test-drive them) :

     

    WtnpREHl.jpg

     

    Slot both rows into the fuselage and have a look through the windows :

     

    W2njJ8kl.jpg

     

    I think it would be fair to say that it looks more like a passenger jet now ?

     

    mike

    • Like 14
  2. 11 hours ago, keefr22 said:

    PS glad I don't have room for a 1/72 737, as Clive offered me his T-43 kit in order to build this;

     

    I wish he'd stop trying to sell the thing off - I may still need it for spares when I mess this up ! (I still feel bad that he bought it after seeing my kit at the club,,,,,,,,,🤣)

     

    Thanks to everyone for the support. I must admit that the seating problem is doing my head in and I'm still not too sure whether to finish off the dummy seats or just leave them out altogether. Final decision will be made by the end of the day.

     

    In an effort to keep the build moving along, I assembled the main undercarriage bay. Here are the components before everything got boxed in and disappeared from view :

     

    oEwon8pl.jpg

     

    I suppose I could have gone overboard by throwing a heap of lead wire in but I'm having enough trouble with the passenger seats as it is 😆.

     

    By the way, if anyone is looking for an excellent reference, I can thoroughly recommend "Boeing 737 - The world's jetliner" by Captain Dan Dornseif. As an added bonus, he has included some of his builds of 737 models at the end of the book - including one covering the very same BPK kit. (....and that's how I know that the orange and black bar running across the rear bulkhead represents the flap drive shafts)

     

    mike

    • Like 10
  3. Got a bit bogged down with photoetch........

     

    Finished off the seats, added them to the cockpit tub and took a family shot of the parts before I buttoned everything together (with nose weight added)

     

    Ix4s3Lrl.jpg

     

     

    Added the T-tail to the back and the front section...............to the front

     

    kmFYPYRl.jpg

     

    Then added the intake covers after spraying them with Xtreme metal Matte Aluminium - the intakes had already been painted with a brown colour.

     

    GPsvGHKl.jpg

     

    Just need to do a quick walkaround and fin-tune some joints and then I reckon I should be ready to slap some paint on this.

     

    mike

     

    • Like 12
  4. Thanks for the comments and apologies for having suddenly gone AWOL.

     

    A club-mate was kind enough to volunteer and have a crack at printing some passenger seats for the interior. I thought about it long and hard and my mind was swamped with questions like "How am I going to retrofit them now that the fuselage halve are buttoned up", "what are the seat dimensions in 1/72", "where is he going to get CAD designs for the printer", and most importantly "this could ruin any chance I have of completing the build within the deadline"....

     

    In the end, I was torn but I had to turn down his kind offer (BUT ONLY ON A TEMPORARY BASIS ! - I'm planning on having a crack at Heller's 1/72 707 next year....or the year after....or the year after......)

     

    Then I stumbled across Col's comment :

     

    On 3/20/2021 at 8:19 AM, Col. said:

    Tidy work and the fuselage windows look great Mike. Perhaps mocking up some basic bulkheads and seats can help fill the interior? Depends how much can be seen through all the windows but it'd be a shame to hide all your great work behind window decals.

     

     

    ...and it was  at this point that I completely lost the plot :

     

    022YWQpl.jpg

     

    Nothing fancy - just something to fill the void. Question was, would they fool anyone ?

     

    byUvvbll.jpg

     

    I think I might just get away with it ! 🤔

     

    In the meantime, I've cleaned up the undercarriage bay components and fitted them without committing any to glue. The tail cone has been attached, as has the APU exhaust, and then the front and tail have been taped into place to give the old mojo a kick :

     

    mpUBCL3l.jpg

     

    Onwards and upwards !

     

    mike

     

    • Like 10
  5. Bomb-bay door?

     

    I invested in the SAAF resin set from Odds and Ordnance, but the jury is still out with regards to the parts that will be used. One thing that wasn't open to discussion was the bomb-bay, but.....

     

    ...the resin bit was obvious designed for the old Airfix kit, and not only was it too long, but it also wasn't wide enough - this is not a criticism !

     

    Quick bit of work with a razor saw and we're all set to attach it :

     

    v3JgHbql.jpg

     

    Glued in with two part epoxy and gaps filled with Milliput  - job done :

     

     0IVnN0ol.jpg

     

    Did some work on the tail section and a last minute change of plan. I was going to open the airbrakes and embellish them with etched. Didn't happen :

     

    IWu7morl.jpg

     

    Tacked the tail onto the mid-section with tape :

     

    lAgBABql.jpg

     

    Sprayed some Mr Surfacer 1200 on the wings and tail to check some joints, and then tacked on the front section to see what it looked like :

     

    PcXELZlh.jpg

     

    I reckon that the guy who designed the Buccaneer must have left his ruler at home that day (thankfully !) 😆

     

    mike

    • Like 14
  6. Been fiddling around with some etched bits and pieces for the main undercarriage bays :

     

    UG7C593l.jpg

     

    ...and the cockpit :

     

    0xCGHlPl.jpg

     

    ..and then people started posting photos of their finished builds and I kind of got carried away by gluing things together without taking my time (or paying attention to instructions !)

     

    Main fuselage halves glued together and top of wings attached :

     

    hoqCKt3l.jpg

    HzzGnPbl.jpg

     

    ...and then I realised that I hadn't added the engine intakes to the kit before gluing the halves together ! 🥴

     

    A bit of head-scratching and judicious use of a dremel tool 

     

    QR2Ut56l.jpg

     

    and I managed to get them located correctly before tacking the front fuselage in place with tape.

     

    Sill going in the right direction.

     

    mike

    • Like 15
  7. 9 hours ago, stevehnz said:

    I'd originally decided this was too big but then having a soft spot for that tormented nation, I looked in & am pleased I did, the Air Zim colour schemes are certainly striking & your approach looks to be on course to produce a great result. I was interested to see some other photos of it on Jetphotos including one that appears to wear a different name on its nose, but a shot taken after the close up you have shown & before a photo in a later livery but with GZ back on its nose. Any idea what happened here?

    Steve.

     

    Thanks Steve. Not sure what happened there as the different name "Matojeni" ended up on Z-WPC. The name is linked to the Matopos Hills outside Bulawayo (Zimbabwe's second city), where I was lucky enough to live between 1970 and 1977. 

     

    Not sure what happened to the nose cone either, but it certainly looks like it was damaged at some stage, and then replaced with one that didn't have cheatline painted on it. (As I'll only be building one of these, I'll be aiming for the full effect 😆)

     

    mike

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1
  8. Many thanks for the kind comments.

     

    Eduard should be given credit for producing an excellent kit - very comprehensive and outstanding value for money in my opinion. I was sorely tempted by some of the schemes in the box, so I'm sure this won't be the last one I'll build.

    11 hours ago, Pete in a shed said:

    Very nice, the chocks and ladder are a great addition. I'll have to acquire some I think, they really set the finished model off.

    Pete

     

     

    9 hours ago, Alpha Delta 210 said:

    I agree with Pete that the excellent model is really made complete by the addition of the chocks and ladder. 

     

    Thanks. I hate to admit that I thought twice about the ladder and chocks because of their price. Having said that, the 3D-printing was exceptional and I'm sure I'll use more of LP Models products in the future.

     

    8 hours ago, Electric Indigo said:

    Impressive work in that scale! Did you paint the outlines of the canopy windows or are these decals?

     

    The framing on the canopy was painted. I tried to make some decals after watching a Youtube video but the compound curves got the better of me.

     

    mike

  9. Attention has been moved back to the clear strips in the fuselage sides. One of the reasons why it has taken me so long to build this kit is the concern over the see through nature of the windows. First prize would have been to have a fuselage interior, but life's too short. Obviously the panoramic window strips had to go, and after some head-scratching, I'm trying something I've never done before.

     

    Vinyl window masks were cut using a Silhouette cutter and these were then applied on the inside of the fuselage

     

    75ZyLFVh.jpg

     

    These windows are slightly bigger than the masks which will be applied to the exterior, but the process could still end in a disaster.

     

    Next thing to do was spray over the masks with Matt white :

     

    KEIVg7xh.jpg

     

    Once dry, the interior of the fuselage was painted with Matt black. The masks were then removed and the fuselage halves were taped together :

     

    zNPRcVih.jpg

     

    No seats + no passengers = not really what I wanted.

     

    I suppose I could always resort to window decals, but based on the scale, I'd rather try and avoid them.

     

    In the meantime, the crew are enjoying their new location at the front, but I've already had complaints about the draft coming in the front 😆

     

    Q6V18aGh.jpg

    NwVZPESh.jpg

     

    • Like 21
  10. On 3/1/2021 at 11:33 AM, Col. said:

    Nice progress. It certainly goes together better than their earlier 48th scale kit.

     

    I've had one of their 1/48 scale Buccaneers longer than I've had our kids. One day.........one day......... 😆

     

    On 3/1/2021 at 11:11 PM, Smudge said:

    This will look very cool in it's SAAF colours.

     

    What are you doing for decals, old Airfix or Xtradecal ?

     

    I've got the new Xtradecal set but I've never been a big fan of the "orange" nosecone on the original . Fortunately, our favourite website (and Facebook) were there to provide support this morning :

     

    SeEiwDkl.jpg

    • Like 4
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