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Airbus A350-900 (Revell 1/144) Flight Test Livery


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Well, it's a new year, so why not a new WIP? I wasn't initially going to do this thread, so I've already made some progress. I started by painting the inside of the fuselage matt black and fitting the clear window parts. Following this the main and nose gear bays and the flightdeck were painted and installed. After joining the fuselage halves, I fitted the belly plate and the wings. The fit has been very good so far - only two small patches of filler have been needed.

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A350 by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

The windscreen is very slightly under-sized, but after painting the edge with black paint, I able to make a good join using some microscale crystal clear. I cut the mask using the windscreen from a second kit.

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A350 Nose by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

I've masked the cabin windows with Microscale Micro Mask, applied using a short length of 0.5mm styrene rod mounted in my pin vice, which seemed to work better than a cocktail stick.

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A350 Windows by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

It's a bit of a pain having to fit the nose gear at the beginning, but it hasn't broken off.....yet! With some thought, you could probably modify it to fit at the end.

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A350 Nose Gear by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

It took a little bit of fettling to match the curvature of the fuselage and the belly plate, but with a little sanding and some rescribing, I'm quite pleased with the result.

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A350 Belly by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

I decided to add a little detail to the main gear....

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A350 Main Gear by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

I've been experimenting with various shades of Alclad on the engines.... More or less successfully. There are a couple of sink marks on the engine cowling to be filled.

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A350 Engine by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

I'm reasonably pleased with the engine fans, although the blade spacing is a bit uneven.

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Trent XWB Fan by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

As ever, Revell's painting instructions seem to have only a loose relationship with reality...

I have to say, despite some people's misgivings, the A350 is really growing on me! Thinking about doing a second in Virgin colours if my A330 decals will fit.

More as small people permit.....

Happy New Year,

Andrew

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Thanks Houston!

With a little help from Yo-Yo Ma and his cello, I have managed to finish masking the cabin windows. In the end it was a little easier than I had feared, but only time will tell how well it turns out.

Going to try and do some more on the engines and gear now, while that's drying.

Cheers,

Andrew

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Sorry if I'm being a bit thick here, but were all the cabin windows masked individually? Like one at a time, breaking one's back, and cutting seriously into cocktail hour?

I've been a confirmed decals for windows guy, but on these larger aircraft would like to try some 'real' windows, but have never understood how one gets the windows sealed into the fuselage, and then still gets a decent paint job on.

Will be following with interest. ( Great landing gear details! )

Cheers,

Mike

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'fraid so, Mike. Just with a drop of liquid mask onto each. Didn't take as long as I thought it might! I guess there are other approaches you could take. With my 787, I applied the mask before fitting the windows. Alternatively, some people paint the area surrounding the windows before assembly, and then mask the whole area - probably simpler if you think you can get a smooth blending-in when you come to paint the rest of the fuselage.

To be honest, I'm a bit in two minds still about using the window inserts at all - it could just be easier all round to use some clearfix or similar to make your own windows.

There's a build of the Zvezda Tu-154 on scalemodels.ru that uses a quite ingenious method for masking, but maybe beyond the skills of most of us.... Easy to find on google.

I did read about a chap on Airlinercafe who was selling some pre-cut vinyl masks for some airliner kits....

Cheers,

Andrew

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Well, I'm calling this one done, I think. Here with a quick coat of primer:

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A350 Main Gear Detail 2 by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

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A350 Main Gear Detail 4 by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

As far as I can tell the main strut should be a light gloss grey, and everything below the torque link is bare 'steel' coloured. Parts of the side braces are also a dark steel colour.

More to follow.

Andrew

Edited by Caution Wake Turbulence
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This is looking great, those brake lines sure improve the kit :)

I've thought about using clear decal paper to make the windows (strip of it covered by a coat of Kleer), sure I've seen somebody doing this, but never actually tried it.

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Today, I have been sorting out the wheels. The hubs are nicely moulded, but the tyres suffer a little from mould lines and sink marks, and possibly a little mould misalignment. Anyway, having managed to mount the wheels on the back end of a drill bit, I used my trusty Bosch cordless drill to improve them a little with some sanding sticks:

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A350 Main Wheels by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

I think I'll probably replace the kit axles with some brass rod too.

Thanks for looking.

Andrew

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Well, progress has slowed a little, but I have managed to start painting the wheels up. Here's attempt no. 1:

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A350 Main Wheel Painted 2 by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

and from a slightly different angle:

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A350 Main Wheel Painted 1 by Caution Wake Turbulence, on Flickr

By no means perfect. I've been experimenting a little and used Humbrol's Dark Grey Enamel Wash to grubby it up a little. I used some heavily thinned Tamiya acrylic to run into the edge of the tyre, but it seemed to want to run to the inside edge of the rim rather than the outer edge, so the wheel hub perhaps looks a little smaller than it should.

I am still debating whether or not to try and scribe some grooves into the tyres to add a little extra realism...

Hopefully some more progress by the end of the day!

Thanks,

Andrew

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  • 1 month later...

Still plugging away at this one. A little more progress on the engines - I think I've made a bit of a meal out of the intakes, but they should turn out ok. I decided to apply a bit of filler around the windscreen as there was a bit of a groove running around the edge. I'll hopefully add a couple of pictures later.

I've been a bit sidetracked by another build (LOT 787) which I've started in the meantime (don't you just hate it when that happens!) I tend to get a bit bogged down with engines and undercarriage - the rest is easy...ish.

Cheers,

Andrew

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  • 1 month later...

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