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techniquest

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About techniquest

  • Birthday 21/09/1957

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  1. This is the first time I've built an F-RSIN kit and, having read several things about their models both good and not so good, I approached this with a certain amount of caution. That was a wise move - this is not a kit for the faint-of-heart; it doesn't fall together like today's Zvezda or Revell kits that we've maybe got used to. Couple that with the fact that I wanted to model this unique aircraft in Heavylift markings as EI-BND rather than the Transmeridian markings that come with the kit, I was soon to discover further problems on the way. For me, the easy bit is the fact that F-RSIN has got the shape of this aircraft dead right; the bulging upper fuselage, nose profile and somewhat squashed-up fin look excellent (in my eyes, but I'm not a Britannia / CL-44 expert). Where it starts to get tricky is with the plastic itself: all the parts are on one sprue and everything has a load of flash and a bumpy, irregular feel. There are no locator pins for any of the parts, and the whole things lacks any finesse that would be demanded in a mainstream kit release these days. This isn't a mainstream kit, however, so work needs to be done - a lot of work; approach it as if it were a vac-form with the pieces already cut out (or mostly so). Nothing fits well, so have the putty handy! There were a couple of actual faults in the mould; one of the wing halves had an irregular trailing edge, the bulge in the centre of the bottom fuselage behind the wing was cut short on one side, and one of the fuselage halves was about 2mm longer than the other. Irksome, but easy enough to deal with. I decided to strengthen the fuselage halves with pillars made from scrap sprue, which really helped with the alignment and integrity when putting the two halves together. Freeing some of the smaller parts from the sprue was akin to an archaeological expedition to get past the bedrock of flash - particularly the propellers and wheels - but to be honest, that's been part of the fun with this kit and the sense of achievement when I got all 4 propellers free without losing a single blade was immense. The instructions consist of a single underside 3/4 diagram of the exploded parts with lines indicating their intended position. As I said, I wanted to model this kit as the Heavylift EI-BND incarnation of this unique aircraft, and I found a company that did them: Airline Decals, a cottage decal outfit based in the USA. However, I bought these a little too hastily as on the website, although a nice photo of EI-BND is used to promote the sheet; the sheet itself is for CL-44J EI-BRP, not the Guppy (grrr). This meant I had to do some resizing of the fin decal and print out my own EI-BND serials. Anyhow, in the end I'm happy with the results. I couldn't find any photos of the tops of the wings, so I've played around with artistic license here as the info sheet that came with the decals was no help whatsoever, nor were the F-RSIN instructions. The model was initially sprayed with white primer, then base silver (both rattle cans). The various metal tones and the pale grey underside were then hand painted, polished and dry-brushed, weathered and so on.
  2. I used this shade as it is a 'darker' white (if that makes sense), but unfortunately not dark enough for the white on the decals to show up. I didn't want to go any darker as the aircraft isn't grey. It is the same colour on the wings.
  3. You've made a really good job of that, and an interesting decal choice too. Well done
  4. Excellent work; and may I say that interior looks fantastic!
  5. This is the Revell 1/144 scale A319 kit built as one of the BA 'Dove' aircraft (in this case G-EUPA) using decals by BSModelle for the main scheme, and by Authentic Airlners for the cabin and cockpit windows. The kit goes together well with no major issues; the BSModelle decals are excellent - easy to use, forgiving if you need to move them about a bit, and good to bed-in. The model was sprayed using a Halfords rattle can (fuselage) and hand-painted (everything else).
  6. Unfortunately the CL44-0 Guppy kit contains Transmeridian decals not Heavylift. Hopefully a decal manufacturer will come up with some after-market...
  7. Hear, hear. I think it's a cracking line-up for Airfix this year. I wish I had a tenner for every time I've said (or heard said) 'I wish they'd re-release the Dominie and Jetstream'.
  8. Haha, no I'm not Dan, but he was kind enough to send me some drawings which helped me with the paintwork and missing parts & panels.
  9. Just about finished, this is my Sword 1/72 Harrier T4N built to represent XW268 as it sits today at the Norwich Aviation Museum, Norfolk. The kit has been chopped about as appropriate and there is the addition of an Airfix IFR probe which was kindly donated to me. Ignore the base, as this is just something rough for it to sit on until I can do a better one! The model has been painted by hand using Humbrol enamels and Model Color acrylics. The tarp over the cockpit area is a piece of 5p supermarket carrier bag over a plastic strip frame. I had all manner of problems with the Sword kit not least the undercarriage. Overall, very few parts actually fit; though to be fair, in the end, I didn't use much filler. That being said, there were a few times when it nearly got thrown against the wall. The decals are from the kit, spares box and home-made.
  10. Please excuse my total ignorance, but what's a 747-600?
  11. This is my ESCI 1/72 Matador that I built a couple of years ago. A bit of a fiddly old kit, but I like the result.
  12. Photobucket doesn't work (they obviously want to go out of business). Would have liked to see your 'wip' on this model.
  13. There was a decal made for the A330, but that was Brasil Decals which are just as hard to find as Gio. It was with the Star Alliance A340 and the number is BD-144/66.
  14. Karlo - there are reference photos all over the place; just google 'Bronze Tiger Typhoon' and a whole host of images should come up. Here are some: Typhoon Tiger The colours I used for the main bronze were Tamiya copper (XF6) mixed with a little clear orange. The claw marks and tiger eyes were home-made decals. Have a look at the links here for both mine and 'Takamota's' original threads about our builds. Bronze Tiger Takamotas Tiger
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