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Hi fellow modelers, Here a project I've finished in 2017 but I thought you might like to see.. I've transformed a damaged old 1:72 KLM travel agency Boeing 747-400 model into a shiny 'new' Ed Force One. Enjoy, and... Up the irons!! It all started in june 2016, when Iron Maiden did their ‘The Book Of Souls World Tour’. I saw a lot of pictures about the Boeing 747-400 Ed Force One, but never thought of having a model of it.. until Amsterdam was the location of their next concert, and the 747 would land and stay overnight on Schiphol Airport. I had a day off from work, nice weather, so I went to Schiphol to try to get a glimpse of the Ed Force One. And that happened, I had a nice place at a secured gate somewhere at a cargo platform: I waited for some hours, and finally... YESSS😬😬!! Bruce Dickinson himself and the band arrived, and Captain Dickinson held a short talk to the groundcrew. I zoomed in: ...and he entered the plane, starting procedures and checklists for departure. Imagine you're the lead singer of the great Iron Maiden, and, why not, you fly your own World Tour 747.. EPIC!!! Finally Ed Force One departed.. ...and on my way back home I just knew it. I had to have a model of this beautiful bird. A BIG model!! So at home I went to the attic, because there I had an old damaged 1:72 model of a KLM Boeing 747-300. A travel agency model, belonged to someone who offered it to me for about 50€ so I bought it from him. Didn't do anything with it, but now it was useful for my project.. Damaged flap hinge: A broken and badly repaired engine: Bad applied decals: ...and the cockpit window decal is applied out of line: So time for a ‘Heavy Metal’ overhaul! I also had a 1:200 Hasegawa Boeing 747-400 without box an without decals. As the ‘Ed Force One’ decal sheets come in scale 1:144 and 1:200, I thought of making a 1:200 version too for a friend of mine who is a real Iron Maiden fan. Here’s the scale comparison of the 2 models...: So I contacted Ben Sweezey from V1 decals, and asked him if he could enlarge the 1:200 sheet for me to 1:72.. he was enthusiastic about the idea so I ordered both decal sheets for the 2 kits. And they looked great: Test fit of the ‘Eddie’ tail: So the sanding of the 747 started.. lot’s of sanding paper, as this is a model with 1 meter span and 1 meter length: ..and she’s ready for a primer gray base color: But first I scratchbuilt 2 wingtips, as the model 400 has added wingtips for better fuel efficiency: First a primer gray coat: Smooth and ready for spraying. I used only spray cans Tamiya paint for this project, as it’s a sleek desktop model with no fine details, so the effort of spraying this big model with a little airbrush is not done. Too much refilling and diluting paint, a spraycan is easier. After that, white for the body and tail ( the Eddie tail decal is partly transparent so the white color highlights the lighter skull colors): Copied the decal sheet on paper, so I could safely test fit if everything fits well. And this way I could precisely put marks where the decals need to be applied on the big white body surface, because there are no more reference lines or windows from the old KLM livery: Masking tape. Lots of it, and plastic bags for the bigger surfaces to spray ‘corroguard’ grey walkways on the wings: It’s not the exact color, but it is a hard to find paint as corroguard exists from grayish anti skid material. It seems that it even has little glittering parts in it, so it’s difficult to make it exact as the real life color: Yes, the underside of the wing had also ‘corroguard’-like plating.. which I don’t understand why? I wanted to give the engine exhaust platings a shiny chrome-like look, so I bought a Molotow Chrome marker as a try-out to see if it’s really as chrome as they say. But it was quite an expensive marker, and I never saw a chrome marker before (the result is always silver/aluminium look) so I tested it.. ...and I was amazed! Really shiny result, real chrome-like color. Nice ! Then it was time for applying decals. BIG decals.. VERY big decals! So I prepared a big bowl with water, my tools, decal set and I started the job. The first decal.. look at the size! Applying long stips of windows-decal, quite a challenge to get them in a straight line! The decals look impressive at this scale. Soaking the big Eddie tail decal: As you can see, it was too large at the top of the tail. So after drying i cut it to shape carefully. The complete tour-info as nose art A much better cockpit window decal : Almost finished! Still got some engine work to do: Painting the engine fan blades and intakes: Painting the spinners, and time to apply the Eddie decals on the engines: A cat for scale comparison.. Final inspection by our cat Bella: That’s a different engine then the old KLM one ! Putting it on a better quality black stand. Ready! And here you see my next project.. A 1:72 Boeing 747-123 SCA with Space Shuttle. I will make a new topic for that I hope you enjoyed this 'makeover'! I think Mr Dickinson will approve it

Well, it's been sitting in my room for a couple of weeks looking dejected after my criticisms of the kit on first glance and I finally decided to make a start on this basket case. Firstly, a note on my skills as a modeller. I don't do this very often; time and circumstance mean that I am busy with other stuff, but I have deliberately made time to build this. Also, I haven't made models consistently for around 15 to 20 years and I don't have an air brush, so I will paint it by hand and rattle can, so don't expect excellence; mediocrity is a skill unexploited in forums like this, I feel. So, here 'tis. Crank up the volume... "Here is the soul of a maaaan. Here in this place for the taking. Clothed in white, stand in the light; here is the soul of a maaaaaaan...." As Bruce Dickinson warbled his way through the first bars of If Eternity Should Fail I contemplated my options with this kit. There are many issues that should be tackled properly, accuracy and fit problems that those of you with an eye for perfection would fix, but I'm not one of you. I have made the decision to turn this into a (rather imposing) desk top model with a custom made stand, so accuracy issues won't be top of the list, although some things will be unavoidable and won't be ignored. The box looks suitably fancy and the photographs on it give useful reference for finish, but there's plenty of stuff on the net on this aircraft anyway, including Iron Maiden's own site. At first glance, there's lots of flash on the sprues and as I commented when I got this, the sprue thickness is a bit overdone in parts. Boy, I'm glad I'm not tackling the undercarriage. Sink marks, circular mould spots, surface blemishes, excess flash; this kit could have come from the 1950s or 60s. As I mentioned elsewhere, the first thing I noticed was the nose shape; the 747 has a straight nose from the windscreen to the radome; as you can see here the kits' is not. I'm not sure at this stage whether I will actually alter this or not. I was hoping this would be a OOB assembly, but oh no... So I'm inclined not to tackle this as, where do I stop? There are so many issues I've found so far with accuracy. Another glaring issue is with parts fit; for example, the holes for the hori stab don't line up with the part. I'll cut the pins off and make new ones with dowel. Also, the hori stab butts up to this bit of it that sticks out. Why didn't the kit manufacturer just butt it up against the fuselage? The hori stab, as on most big jet airliners is variable incidence and there is a flat plate here that's not represented, although I see some detail lines on the decal sheet that are vaguely meant to represent this. I began with removing parts from the sprues and because of the excessive flash, each one has to be trimmed and sanded individually. The hori stab was glued first, which revealed big gaps in the leading and trailing edges and these were filled with putty and sanded - twice. The next bits were the engine exhaust cores, which were painted black (after the obligatory sanding and trimming of excess unwanted sticky-out bits). Next I'll be tackling the fuselage and main wings. If you are following this, please be patient as I won't be adding to this every day... "Reef in a sail at the edge of the world, if eternity should fail. Waiting in line for the ending of time, if eternity should fail...