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Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. Submitted for your approval tonite are pics of the Roden Boeing 720B, built by my friend Steve Bakke. Besides other things, Steve used to fly on Western between San Francisco and Seattle in the late 1960s while attending college. Aside from the aftermarket decals and decal windows, the model is largely out of the box. Photo etched pitot probes, comm antenna and drain masts were robbed from a photo-etched fret for the 737. Steve filled in the cabin windows with ApoxieSculpt (similar to Milliput). The red anticollision beacons came from ELF models in Ukraine. The fuselage solar cap was done by decanting Krylon Dover White and spraying it thru an airbrush after thinning. The bare metal areas were done mostly with Alclad. Steve says he used about 4 different shades on the engine nacelles. Steve filed off the embossed "pads" on the wing undersides, based on the tips learned from the recent Ethiopean Air Lines 720B build i've alluded to earlier. Steve mounted the engine pods to the wing, filled and sanded the seams and painted them on the wings. They were masked off before the wings were attached to the fuselage or painted. Boeing 707 gray was done with Model Master Enamel, thinned with Mr Color leveling thinner. The attachment for the horizontal stabilizer as it came in the kit was tenuous at best, so Steve re-engineered it by running a piece of metal tubing thru the stabilizer hinge point and making longer locating pins with brass rod. The HF antenna on the vertical fin was removed and beefed up with a metal pin to make it more Bonk-Resistant. I think maybe a market exists for a lost-wax cast brass integral fin cap/ HF antenna installation. The undercarriage has a few idiosyncrasies. The torque links on the nose gear strut are oversized and get in the way of mounting the nosewheel tyres, and on the main gear side brace/ actuator, the way its attached to the sprue makes things hard to tell where the part ends and the sprue begins. I think Roden did a good job capturing the "Clown Car" sized 720 main wheels. The photos were taken at the IPMS Seattle contest/exhibition held over the weekend, where it won a First in Civilian aircraft, despite some formidable propeller-driven competition from Pan American and TWA. The engine nacelles that you see here are the ones which come with the model. Roden seems to have learned from their gaffe with the oversized engine pods on the straight 720 and did not repeat it here. Both Steve and I agree it really "Looks" like a 720 and aside from some pretty minor faults, is miles better than any injection molded 707 that came before it in 1/144th scale. You would never mistake it for a McDonnell 220, that's for sure. Now..... I wonder if Roden would consider some Convairs?? Steve has been nagging me to build one in Northwest Orient markings but first i must molest fondle examine the VC-10 that just arrived in the post. It's the Ooooooooonlyy Way to Fly!! david