1/144 B747-400 Air France, Revell

[Jeano]

Hi all,

I'm starting my first work in progress to present you the build of the 1/144 747-400 from Revell. As many of you already know, there are a lot of issues in this kit. I'll be correcting some but not all. Moreover every part had to be cleared from the plastic as it was pretty badly moulded …

I'll try to be pretty accurate with the small details … I've already gathered many pictures of the actual plane.

The decals are from F-dcal, and I'll probably be going for the F-GITH "license plate".

I began by separating the nose from the rest of the fuselage in order to be able to work on it properly. One of the main issues is the nose profile, which is really ugly in revell's kit. I found on the internet ways to modify it. This helped a lot : http://floatingmid.com/nosemod.jpg

I also heard the nose was too thin, but I let it as it was. I sanded down what was probably supposed to be the pitots. I will have them in the PE set I ordered … The scribing does not look good here but I arranged that.

No filled windows for this one. I'll use clearfix.

The joints are filled …

I cleared a lot of plastic around the tail … I'll have to add some details here though.

When I glued the nose and the rest of the fuselage back together, I had a bad surprise : the nose was thicker than the rest of the fuselage … With a lot of filling and sanding I now have a much better result.

Winged added. Not shown here : I tried to reduce the thickness at the back edges. Looks pretty good now. I cut a hole for the nav lights.

One of the other main issues is the wing angle. It is to flat and should be more inclined. I chose not to modify that because I felt I wouldn't have the skills to do it … and because I was a little bit impatient too …

Here's a pic I took of the tail of a 747-100 in Le Bourget museum of aviation and space.

I think I have more work to do with the fuselage joints … I glued plastic card in the inside to strengthen them. A lot of filler had to be added on the joint between the wing and the fuselage to make it "smoother". When I'll receive the Photo Etched set of details I'll start the landing gears and the engines.

Jean

Edited December 18, 2014 by Jeano

[Alex1978]

Impressive start on a not so impressive kit.Well done,it looks already very good.

I have that kit too under construction and I am still fighting with the nose section as I also want to redo the thickness of the frontsection to get it look more accurate.I left it on the shelf for a while because it didn't work out as I wished for.Seeing your progress here gives me the drive I need to continue.

I will be looking forward to your work in progress

[MikeW]

This is good stuff - never seen the whole front end removed like that. Keep the updates coming.

Cheers,

Mike

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Nice progress Jean, The Revell 744 has it's issues as you are showing but can be made into lovely model. Looking forward to your progress.

[A6-EHJ]

I will keep an eye out for your updates! Great start

[HOUSTON]

Awesome start

[phildagreek]

Liking it.

[Jeano]

Thanks everyone !

I got the photo-etched parts from Extratech ! Unfortunately there won't be much updates these days because I'm not at home ...

I also want to redo the thickness of the frontsection to get it look more accurate

If you're talking about sanding the length of the "nose tip", putting some filler inside and sanding the plastic until it breaks trough, then rounding off, is very effective. Although I have to mention I put some epoxy behind the filler, in case it would shrink (the plastic is sanded to a very thin point).

[Gimme Shelter]

a nice and interesting topic to follow and I shall heed your notes when I get around to building my trio of Revell 747's

[Jeano]

Some very few progress here.

I started the nose gear, and there's a lot of work tiny to do. As I said, I bought the extra tech detail set for realism. It is very precise and accurate. Much more than the stock parts.

It is very tricky to fold these little parts. One square is one centimeter.

The whole sprue is very badly molded. The tow halves of each part are slightly shifted. we can see it here on the wheels.

highlighted :

Edited January 14, 2015 by Jeano

[Jeano]

I'm not done yet with the nose gear. I need to clean it up a bit and add some wire.

I started modifying the angles of the wing tails elevators. I can't find out on what occasion it is like that but I though it looked good so I reproduced it.

Balsa wood is added as a joint. I could have used plastic though.

The edges are thinned to be sharper. I'll add some filler.

[MikeW]

The attention to extra detail here is amazing - enjoying this.

Cheers,

Mike

[feoffee2]

I to am loving this

[Jeano]

Yeah thanks ! I began cutting the inboard aileron on the left wing. It really takes a while !

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Any progress on this build Jeano?

[Teeradej]

Very smart tweak. Repositioning of elevators is a nice touch.

[Jeano]

Today's september the 15th, and it's been 1 year, 7 months and 29 days that I haven't updated this post... 

 

The main reason is the fact that I was studying and I had not much time ... :/

 

ANYWAY

I'm back with more time on my hands, more tools, and I'm going to finish this build.

In all this time, not much progress has been made :

I painted the vertical stabilizer, to check how glossy the paint would come out.

 

 

Then I started to take care of that windscreen

 

And I used putty to fill some sort of gap .. the fuselage was going very straight and I was afraid it would be visible after I sprayed the paint ..

 

This can be some kind of homage build since Air France's last 747-400 landed for the last time in January.

It was quite sad to see this big buddy getting scrapped in Tarbes-Lourdes Airport 

 

 

More soon

Edited September 15, 2016 by Jeano

[At Sea]

Interesting, looking good.