Viking

I'm doing Zvezda's beautiful 767 kit, but really wanted it in American Airlines colours. Mr Chris Stingbag came up with some AA Titles and tail logos (Thanks Chris!) so I figured the project was a go'er. I've assembled the main unit, leaving out the clear windshield as it is such an accurate fit it can be popped in after all painting is complete. The first challenge is to figure out how to paint it. I didn't want to use decals for the 3 colour cheatlines as I reckon they will be too difficult to line up around the compound curves of the nose. Painting seems a better option, as all i have to is mask straight lines with the ever useful Tamiya tape. Its a bit odd I know, but I decided to start painting with these cheatlines. Its going to have a polished silver finish, and if that went on first I'd have to mask it which is not a good idea. Being a plonker I did the Boeing grey areas first and the realised they would be better done after the cheatlines as they edge on to them. I'll redo them next, then the silver. White sprayed on in the general area of the cheatline and then masked; Red & blue applied. When this has all had a day or 2 to cure, I'll mask over all 3 colours to the final shape of the cheatline, redo the grey, the corroguard the wings, and finally, do the silver. This is going to consume loads of tape! Cheers, John

Jeg er glad for å hjelpe. (og snakker litt norsk, jeg ble født er Oslo!) Skål, John-Erik

Thanks Moof, Those TWA T decals I sent you came from this kit! Cheers, John

Many thanks for the comments guys, I've at last realised that Ruben is the owner of the Lima November, the manufacturer [edit - of the decals]. So let me expand a little on what I thought of them, 'cos I was impressed and would like to give him some support. They were top class decals, with beautiful full colour instructions. I was worried that the white 'Norwegian.no' decals on the red might get a bit of colour bleed and look a bit pink, but as you can see they remained beautifully white and opaque. All of them went on superbly and settled with no silvering. The portrait on the tail came on a seperate small sheet with continous carrier film and needed cutting out. I awlays find it best to leave a little border of 1 or 2 mm rather than cut up close to the design, and it worked well. There are 4 different aircraft from the fleet to choose from, with different people on the tail. I got mine from Hannants. So there you go, a definate 'thumbs up' for the Lima November decals. Cheers, John Ps - I have no connection to Lima November, and no hidden motives. I just think that when I see a good manufacturer with good quality, I'm happy to let fellow modellers know.

Lovely looking plane, great job too. When I look at it, I can't help thinking that I wouldn't want to join the check-in queue at the airport, or the queue for passport control at the other end! Cheers, John

Lovely, thanks for posting those. Makes me feel all nostalgic! John

That is gorgeous, a lovely job. Mind you, based on my experience of the trains the tickets would have been horrificaly expensive, standing room only, with most seating first class (empty). (Q - Why are they called 'Virgin Trains' ? A- because they don't go all the way ) Cheers John

Beautiful. I've always liked the Delfin, its a pretty little aeroplane and your model is too ! Cheers, John

Hi Tack, Yep, thats the stuff. Looks like a good price too. I might get some more myself and cut them into 3 x 2 sheets, I think 6x 4 might be a bit large. Cheers, John

A rough mounting? been a while since I had one of those Cheers, John

Hi Ruben, Corrected injection moulded engines would be nice, I agree. The decals were beautiful, really good. the instructions are excellent, they decals themselves went on very easily, the colour density is perfect (i.e the white 'Norwegian' logos overe the red) with no colour bleed. The Edvard Grieg picture on the tail is incredible, its just like a photograph. I'd say these are among the very best decals you can get, alomg with Twosix's. Cheers, John

Nice tidy model, always good to see airliners here! (and WW1 kites too). Cheers, John

Thats really nice. Its a good looking areoplane and I really like those French markings, Cheers, John

I've been asked to summarise the topic on correcting the 737-800 to contain just the relevent bits from the build, so here goes. I first searched this forum for comments on the kit. What I found was the people who know more about this accuracy stuff than I do, is that there are 3 major problems with it, 1) The window line is too low. 2) The winglets are way too short. 3) The engines are from the earlier series 737's with flattened rims and undersides. They look completely wrong. I've done all this by eye and make no claims for matching up with drawings etc. All I claim is that it looks a hell of a lot better and cost me almost nothing. 1) The window line. - easily sorted, just stick a strip of plasticard on the inside, slap on some milliput to fill the holes from the outside, and sand down. Use window decals placed higher up. 2) The Winglets. Revells winglets are way too short and stubby, but easily corrected. I nipped off the top of each one to give a firm joining surface. then cut a strip of 20 thou platicard about one and a half inches ling. Taking my scalpel I then rough formed it to an airfoil shape by scraping along both sides of the leading edge, and then both sides of the trailing edge. It doesn't have to be too accurate at this stage, it is just to reduce the amount of sanding needed later. Then cut no more than about half an inch of the strip off at an angle to match the Revell winglet, and glue it on with cyano. I used 'zip kicker' accelerator to instantly harden the joint. I've only been using this stuff for about a year, but it was a real eye opener to me. You get instant super strong joints that almost never break. You can start sanding the winglet extension to shape straight away. Left, modified but not yet sanded, Right kit part and strip yet to be added. Sanded to shape. I did the leading edge/top last of all once the airfoil section was done; how it looks; 3) The Engines. There are 2 ways of going about this, the method I used and one that Dave Swindell posted as an alternative. I'll post both so you can follow which ever suits you best. My method; I started with some thick plasticard & used my Black & Decker to drill a 10mm hole in it (yes really!). I'm not sure what thickness it is but guess at about 40 thou. Then I cut around the hole about 3-4 mm away leaving me with a rough looking ring. I made 2. These were the glued with plastic weld to the assembled engines (minus the kit intake rings), as was a roughly shaped chunk of 20 thou on the underside. All was left 24 hours to dry. Using wet and dry sanding paper wrapped around a dowel, I then smoothed and blended the inside of the ring. I first used a coarser grit and then a fine one. Then I improved the outside shape of the ring by sanding, but only to about 80% of the final shape. Next step was to plaster on some Milliput on the underside, leave it 24 hours, then get busy with sandpaper. I srcibed the main panel lines around the new underside with a needle to connect up with the existing panel lines. Finally, they were sprayed with Halfords primer, then appliance white, and detail painting for the rim etc. here's how it all looks on the taped together kit; Heres my unmodified engines on the Haribo 737; with the new ones; I later went back and sanded a little more 'flat' to the underside, as some flat should still exist as Dave pointed out. See photos of finished model below. Daves method The first step is to make a tube of thin plastic card the same diameter as the fan face and slightly deeper than the fan depth in the nacelle. This is glued over the fan face with the join at the top where it is less noticeable. Whilst this is drying tape the two nacelle halves together and file and sand the bottom inside of the inlet to make it rounder. Next assemble the nacelle except for the intake ring, gently squeezing the halves together should make the intake tube conform to the nacelle front shape. When dry trim off the excess tube flush with the nacelle front. Now take the intake ring and with some support from a pen or similar the triangular shape can be gently teased into a more rounded shape. Test fit against the nacelle until the interior shape matches the intake tube, then attach. This will leave a lip on the outside at the bottom, glue sheet plasticard onto the bottom of the nacelle to cover the flat area. This is then filed back to fair it in. Remove some of the plastic from the nacelle sides at the bottom to create a more rounded shape. Repeat for the other nacelle, taking care to ensure they match. This may sound awkward, but it is harder to describe than it is to actually do. Even if you don’t reshape the nacelle, fitting the intake tube will improve the look no end. [Edit 12-Jan-2018. These were linked directly to Dave's Photobucket account, so can not be restored by me]. Modified nacelle parts on the left, original kit parts on the right Completed modified nacelle on the left, assembling modified parts on the right Thanks Dave! STOP PRESS! RICHW has just come up with 3rd method! Rich's method The finished model. A few shots of my completed model, showing how much better all the mods make the kit look; None of this is that difficult to do but makes a huge difference to the model. I'd think Daves method might be easiest for the engines, I'm going to have a go with it on my next 737. [Edited for small update 19/08/2011] I've started another 737-800 and though this lttle tip might help. Fitting the wing to the fuselage can be troublesome as the main wheel bay catches on the fuselage opening. On the above model I made this mod, and have done it again on my next build today, but took a couple of pictures. On the left is the unmodified part, on the right how it looks after a bit of sanding & cutting. Basically all you have to do is sand the sharp edge off the rear of the wheel bay, and cut a couple of notches in the rear corners. When it is glued onto the lower wing, the whole wing unit fits into the fuselage much easier after doing this. [end of edit] Another one! Happy Modelling, John & Dave.

Lovely job Rich, I never knew Aer Lingus had Tristars. John

Beautiful model Ruben, I can only image how much work that was. Cheers John

ooh, lovely model of a lovely airliner! John

This is Revells 1/144 Boeing 737-800 with Lima Novembers decal sheet fpr Norwegian's Edvard Grieg (which are superb). Norwegian are a low cost airline and have painted up a number of their aircraft with tail designs of 'Real Norwegian' and a picture of said famous person. I like all types of music except rap, (music with a silent 'c', I've been told) and Griegs Per Gynt is one that probably everyone would recognise if they heard it, but not neccesarily be able to name it. I've always liked it, so of the 4 that Lima November do, Grieg was my choice. Mind you, with that registration being more appropriate to a 'Carry on' film I would have half expected Sid James or Frankie Howard's picture on the tail. Shame they weren't Norwegian! There are 3 faults with Revells kit as it comes out of the box, The windows are too low (easily solved by filling them and using the supplied window decals, The winglets are short stumps rather than graceful 'blades', and the engines have the flat cut outs underneath of the earlier 737's, which need bulking out and sanding to a more rounded shape. All these corrections have been done on this model. Thanks for looking, (go on, have a go at building an airliner John

All done now. The engines are on so I'm calling it finished. I'll post some more on 'Ready for Inspection'. Got to try and show the rest of the modeling community that airliners make nice subjects! Heres a couple for now. Cheers, John

Phwoooaaarrrrr!!!! That is bloody gorgeous! I take my hat off too you Chris, that is a brave conversion & beautifully done. Cheers, John

As Kev1n says. I belive it was developed to get the scratches out of real aircraft perspex canopies. Mine is slighty different from pads, it came (from Aeroclub) as a set of 5 cloths getting gradually finer grade. An example here on my Zvezda 767 which I have started thanks to Mr Stringbag coming up with some decals! I've done the fuselage seam with medium & fine wet or dry paper, then 10 minutes with the micromesh cloths. Gives a lovey finish, this is just the bare plastic; Its really smooth & shiny, I don't think the photo does it full justice, there is no trace of the seam. Cheers, John

Hi Dave, Yes I think it was the camera, I had it on macofocus to stop it blurring, and it seemed to make the nearer intake look much bigger than the one behind. Which is why on the latest photo I reveresed the positions of the 2 engines. The daimeters are the same as I stuck my plastic ring on the original cowling and then sanded it down to match. Cheers, John

Nah, you tweaked my curiosity to see If I could improve some more. I've got a week off work, and plenty of spare time (as is probably apparent from my post rate shooting up!) Heres what I have now, with a more pronounced 'flat'; But not as awful as the unmodified Revell ones; I'll hang them on the 737 this evening, John

Thanks for the kind comments Bradley & Bexy, I hope this thread helps to show its not to diffucult to correct. I've reworked my engines a little based on Daves correct comments that they needed to be a little flatter underneath. I've sanded them a bit more underneath, which of course has meant that I had to strip some paint and re-prime and repaint. Its done now, they just need to go on to the completed airframe. All decalled & assembled, but engineless! I'm not sure I've gained much, but thought it was worth a shot to try and further improve those engines. And I've ordered a set of Kalula decals from Draw, so I'll be doing this all over again, giving Daves method a try. Cheers, John

...and Dave beat me to it there as well! You are correct dave, I should have explained more. I did almost exactly as you say! I didn't scan the window template, just masked the lot. Otherwise, Cyano, sanding, micromesh, job done. Cheers, John