Revell Boeing 747-8

[FergusKenny]

Hi,

I've been working on this boeing for about 2 weeks now. I wanted to put more of an effort in it than when I done other models. I'm using Revell aqua paints which I think are amazing - much better than enemals.

Anyway, I made a mistake with the engines - I primed and painted then realised that you'd see the seem, so I removed the paint/primer with some nail polish remover and a few cotton buds and re-primed.

I primed the fuselage - looks great after being primed (kinda feel like not painting it all!) - but what I'm looking for is tips on painting the underside of the fuselage. There is a light grey colour that almost runs up to the nose and I was looking to find out whats the best way to mask/paint curved area's?

I'll upload some photos if you like. I may have to re-do the wheels after reading a tip on painting wheels

Cheers,

Ferg

[Gimme Shelter]

pictures please.. yes yes yes

[Caution Wake Turbulence]

Hi Ferg,

The best way to mask the curves on the fuselage is with a narrow strip of masking tape - the sharper the curves the narrower the tape you'll need - around the nose and tail ends I'd probably go with around 1mm. Then all you need is a steady hand and a good eye - it doesn't matter if you don't get it spot on first time, just take the tape off and try again. When you're happy just use wider strips behind it to build up the width. Just make sure all your tape is nicely smoothed down - rubbing gently with a toothpick helps too.

Another thing worth trying, once you've masked your first colour, presumably white in this case, is to spray a light coat of the same colour over the masked edge. This will help seal the edge and stop the grey from bleeding under the tape. I've only tried this once to be fair, but it worked really well.

Andrew

[FergusKenny]

Thanks for that - I'll try that. I've some tamiya tape that should do the trick. One of the things I was thinking of doing was using a small emery board (nail file thing) and trace the outline of that for a nice smooth round tip - use a pencil, mark the outline and mask - I'll try it anyway and give it a go!

Ferg

(want to get as much done right as I've a Bismarck 1/350 to do next)

[pinky coffeeboat]

Hello ferg,

If you're painting the underside grey for Lufthansa, you could try this technique I used (or not, its up to you):

With the fuselage perfectly level, take a pair of compasses and, with the lead set at the mid point of the leading of the wing and the point of the compass on your flat workbench, lightly move the compass point along the bench so that the pencil lightly ("lightly") marks the fuselage. If done correctly, this will trace out a perfectly level straight edge that when it goes around the nose, will flow around with the correct positioning of the dividing line. For the rear fuselage, set the pencil to trace out from the trailing edge of the wing, lightly trace along the fuselage and around the underside. The key is not to squeeze the compass together but to keep it at the same spacing all the way along.

This will produce a very light guide that you then use to mask up to. As Andrew suggests, thin strips of tape will give you the flexibility you require.

Study some photos to get an idea of what is required; the paint demarkation runs parallel to the ground even when it runs around the nose/tail. I tried unsuccessfully to mask it with thin strips of tape, finding that the tape would try to follow the natural curve of the fuselage and slope upwards. Edited to explain that what I meant was I used tape by itself to mask the dividing line before trying the compass thing...

The underside colour is apparently a very close match for Revell 374 (edited to correct the paint number) satin medium grey. Thats what I used and although it may be a 1:1 match for LH grey, for a 1/144 kit, try adding one or two drops of white/light grey (Rev 371). The tail is matched by Revell 54 "natchblau". This is the current blue colour used by LH (as distinct from Revell 350 Lufthansa blue which is a good match for the previous LH blue used until about 10-15 years when they changed to the current blue which has a very slight purple tinge to it (very slight)).

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Jeff

Edited March 11, 2014 by pinky coffeeboat

[FergusKenny]

Cheers Jeff - I'll give that a go. I already bought the paints, so I've gone with Lufthansa Blue (as per Revells guide) - seems a very deep rich blue - needs a little bit of thinning all the same.

Great link is: http://747-8.lufthansa.com/#/b747/experience

Edited March 10, 2014 by FergusKenny

[RocketSurgeon]

Hi, I have a the same kit ready for painting. A word of caution about the colours. Revell's Lufthansa blue (RAL5013) is not the colour Lufthansa uses on it's planes. It's very close but not the same. I don't even know why Revell picked that colour to be named 'Lufthansa blue'. The correct shade is RAL5022 and that's a perfect match for the kit decals. I think it's 54 midnight blue on Revell's palette. The underside is RAL7001 and Revell gives you the correct shade.

Ops... guess I should have read the previous comments before posting. Sorry mate.

Edited March 10, 2014 by N5016R

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Love to see pictures as well Fergus, I really like the Lufthansa scheme. I am currently putty together a Zvezda kit of the 747-8 ( in the scheme in my signature block)

Seems every one has covered how to mask the lower fuselage grey. i use the thin tape method myself as it allows you to bench the tape to a certain degree.

[FergusKenny]

https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/120048585@N07/

Few photos, but I've done this via mobile so may not work...

[FergusKenny]

Hi,

I made the engines and I filled in any little gaps etc. However when I sanded down the excess to smooth out, there are little scratch marks (I painted over them, but its not great result). Is there a good way to fill these in i.e clear nail polish or something similar (even tooth paste...)?

Thanks!

Ferg

[Caution Wake Turbulence]

Hi Ferg,

What grade of sandpaper are you using?

[bzn20]

Just a variation on the compass method. I find the compass starts to move in any of the 5 pivots. To best describe google ........scribing block. If you don't want to buy one. all you need is a block of something with a good base (wood is easier) an upright fitted in the block to hold the pencil and a clamp for the pencil. As long as the object is level (in this case) and obviously the table top is not stepped, no chunks missing etc. You just slide the block and ...there you go! The first time I used a real scribing block in training and we had limits of +/- .01mm on mild steel and .02mm on Al alloy sheet, that accurate enough?

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Hi,

I made the engines and I filled in any little gaps etc. However when I sanded down the excess to smooth out, there are little scratch marks (I painted over them, but its not great result). Is there a good way to fill these in i.e clear nail polish or something similar (even tooth paste...)?

Thanks!

Ferg

Best thing to do is use a fine grade of sandpaper to get rid of the scratches. Trying to polish the scratches out will take forever. You can polish the surface once all the deper scratches have been sanded out.

[FergusKenny]

I used a nail file (emery board) that I picked up in the pound shop. I used the Grey silk on the under side of one of the wings (correct colour as per Revell) but its nowhere near the silky grey thats on the plane - I was annoyed at that - but as per a comment above, I'll have to mix in some white or another light grey to get a close match.

Thanks for the comments guys

(I'll try sort out the pics from home)

[pinky coffeeboat]

I use the foam backed nail buffers from various places (Primark, Boots, Superdrug etc..) but don't use the more coarse emery boards. When the surface is smooth I rub the join on my jeans or with a paper towel for that final shiny smoothness. Micromesh paper is a good alternative and many packs can be found from various sellers on eBay.

With the grey paint, I noticed the same thing (hence my recommendation to add a little light grey or white). The paint settled beautifully and I contemplated not adding a gloss coat, but I did and that darkened it even more. For my next LH aircraft I'll take my own advice and lighten the paint a bit.

Good luck,

Jeff

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Fergus,

There was a discussion about the grey for the wings in another thread.

BTW the grey for the wings is called Boeing grey. There is no straight Revell match but Humbrol 147 is pretty good.

Here is the thread

[pinky coffeeboat]

Fergus,

There was a discussion about the grey for the wings in another thread.

BTW the grey for the wings is called Boeing grey. There is no straight Revell match but Humbrol 147 is pretty good.

Here is the thread

Very true indeed, but if Ferg is making a Lufthansa 748 then, as with all their aircraft, Lufthansa paint the underside of the wings the same colour as the lower fuselage.

Jeff

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Very true indeed, but if Ferg is making a Lufthansa 748 then, as with all their aircraft, Lufthansa paint the underside of the wings the same colour as the lower fuselage.

Jeff

Thanks for the clarification Jeff, I was not aware of this.

[pinky coffeeboat]

Thanks for the clarification Jeff, I was not aware of this.

No problem.

It might be a "euro white" scheme but I find it one the neatest there is especially since Lufthansa keep their money makers very clean. Most of these overall white schemes are just how they leave the paint shop with minimal effort (standard wing finish, paint it plain white and with name written large i.e. Iberia (yawn......dull)) but LH have the entire upper surfaces painted white and from the leading and trailing edges down, everything is painted grey, finally all over coated in a clear gloss coat. Maybe not particularly adventurous, but like I said, compared to many others, they've put a little bit of thought into it.

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

No problem.

It might be a "euro white" scheme but I find it one the neatest there is especially since Lufthansa keep their money makers very clean. Most of these overall white schemes are just how they leave the paint shop with minimal effort (standard wing finish, paint it plain white and with name written large i.e. Iberia (yawn......dull)) but LH have the entire upper surfaces painted white and from the leading and trailing edges down, everything is painted grey, finally all over coated in a clear gloss coat. Maybe not particularly adventurous, but like I said, compared to many others, they've put a little bit of thought into it.

I agree, the Lufthansa is simple but effective. I have been thinking about what models I can do in this scheme, I have the Lufthansa Cargo decals for a DC-8. I might invest in the Draw Decals for my Zvezda 747-8 in the future.

[FergusKenny]

Well....after what I wanted to achieve in building a really nice model (after years of not doing one), I'm just at the finish line.

I will post a link to photos as soon as I can, but after spending so much time on preparing the wheels and stuff, when it came to glueing them...one of the pieces broke - so I just gave up on it for a while out of frustration!

Ended up having a closed undercarriage at the end. There are things I didn't do correctly - I ended up using the white gloss paint for the fuselage - but it was giving me brush strokes, no matter what I done - I could not get rid of them.

I sanded down the fuselage slightly and bought an enamel spray from Halfords and sprayed that on the fuselage instead. I had to wrap tamiya tape around the engines before I sprayed and once that was done, I had miss 1-2 small spots of the grey under carriage, so I had to mix up some Grey gloss with some matt again and repaint the undercarriage. Once that was done I sprayed a light coat of Winsor & Newton gloss polich before applying the decals.

There were decals that were for the windows, but after going to so much trouble building the plane - which was a very good neat building, the decals were the wrong size for the windows and did not fully cover them - so I have to paint the windows where the decals didn't cover. Once thats done - I'll give another coat of Winsor & Newton gloss finish and leave it at that.

(and paint the stand the plane sits on!)