Eastern Express 737-300 - The adventure has stalled.

[POTKC]

Because EE kits are very cheap and easy to get where I live (Moscow), I elected to go with an EE 737 over the Daco model as my entry to the Airliners GB. This starts next week, so I'll have to ask someone to move the thread, but one of the GB hosts (Specifically Ray/TrojanThunder) approved my idea of starting the thread early. I got into the build so whole-heartedly that I forgot to take box and sprue shots, but here is what the box looked like (Photo from ebay):

And these are the decals I will be using:

Sorry for the bad photo. They are from Ascensio, and seem to be of very high quality. I'll be building the plane as YL-BBL, as that is the one I flew on a few months ago. The image below shows all the parts that I have already worked on (since the photo was taken, I've assembled another horizontal stabilizer). Unlike the Revell kit (and pretty much all airliner kits I have seen), the horizontal stabilizers are made of two halves, like wings usually are. This makes for a lot of sanding to make the mating surfaces as flat as possible and attach perfectly, however annoying seams are still created.

As seems to be a recurring problem with EE both fuselage halves are warped outwards like bananas. When placed together, they meet either in the middle, or only at the nose, or only at the tail (depending on how they are held), however never at more than one of those spots. I tried heating them in hot water, doing so while taping them to a wooden board, as well as taping them together into the correct shape and heating them with a hairdryer until they were too hot to hold:

Nothing worked. The plastic is too sturdy and temperature resistant. This would be a massive plus if the parts weren't warped. Anyway, I gave up on the whole 'fixing the problem' idea, and instead glued in the nose weight and nose gear bay, as well as two sprue offcuts to help with aligning the fuselage halves properly, as all aligning pins are missing. All of this can be seen below:

When the time comes, I'll have to glue the fuselage bit by bit, carefully bending it into place.

Edited November 20, 2016 by POTKC

[Turbofan]

Wow that nose weight should keep from tail sitting!!

Nice looking decal sheet from Ascension I'll be interested to know how they perform.

Good luck with your build.

Cheers,

Ian

[POTKC]

Thanks Ian. The nose weight puts the center of mass (well, without wings, engines, h-stabs, etcetera) slap-bang in the middle between where the main gear and nose gear goes. The bolt really isn't as heavy as it looks, but yes, I agree, its more than sufficient!

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

First time I have seen the EE kit, the fuselage parts looks very similar to the Minicraft parts.

[POTKC]

First time I have seen the EE kit, the fuselage parts looks very similar to the Minicraft parts.

I'm pretty sure the EE kit is partial based on the Minicraft kit.

[Teeradej]

Looks challenge to build. Good progress so far.

[POTKC]

I glued the fuselage halves together bit by bit, it took about an hour. The fit is atrocious, as can be seen in the following two pictures:

(Not pictured: All the frustration, tedium and foul language it took to get everything together)

You can probably also see that I have attached the transparent cockpit part. The fit is also terrible, with an half-millimeter step on either side of the transparency down to the main fuselage halves.

So...I have lots of fun time with Tamiya putty ahead. I still haven't glued on the wheel bay part of the fuselage, which goes into the gap in the wing root. I've already tried to dry-fit it, and it looks like I'm trying to fit a random-shaped peg into a not-so-rectangular hole. 1mm+ gaps in some places, and huge overlaps in others. Carving, sanding, and puttying lies in store. That one part will be an adventure in itself - the thread title is becoming more and more relevant.

All of this (and more) will come at the end of August, however, as I am flying back home to the US on Wednesday and will stay in the area for six (seven? I can't count) weeks, mostly to visit family and finally have a holiday, but also to pick up some Braz 737NG winglets, which I'll then have to shorten by 2.1mm to represent the winglets present on some 737CLs. After all, the kit doesn't include any, and what I'm trying to build is this:

(Photo courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation)

As Teeradej said, this is quite a challenge, but a fun one - and after all, who likes boring perfectly-fitting models?!

- Alexander

[The 3rd Placer]

Man that cockpit clear fit is horrible, as I am going to build the same kit...I'm worried!

Nice fix on the warped fuse.

Ryan

[Skodadriver]

Watching this with interest and admiring your tenacity!

As I said elsewhere I've never seen the EE 737s in the "flesh" and it's instructive to compare the pictures with the Minicraft kit. At least EE have included the air intake on the rear right fuselage which Minicraft missed.

I really enjoyed using Ascensio decals on my Yak-42D a couple of months ago. However trying to use decal solvent with them is a waste of time (and money) because they just don't react to it. I used Greg Drawbaugh's trick of pressing them into place with a handkerchief dipped in just-off-the-boil water which worked well.

[POTKC]

Watching this with interest and admiring your tenacity!

As I said elsewhere I've never seen the EE 737s in the "flesh" and it's instructive to compare the pictures with the Minicraft kit. At least EE have included the air intake on the rear right fuselage which Minicraft missed.

I really enjoyed using Ascensio decals on my Yak-42D a couple of months ago. However trying to use decal solvent with them is a waste of time (and money) because they just don't react to it. I used Greg Drawbaugh's trick of pressing them into place with a handkerchief dipped in just-off-the-boil water which worked well.

I agree, the air intake is a very prominent feature. Regarding Ascensio decals, I read your RFI thread for the Yak-42D - but how do laser printed decals compare to 'normal' ones? Is the main difference the fact that they don't come off the paper as separate parts and have to be cut very precisely?

[Skodadriver]

If you're never used laser decals before the main difference is that they are translucent which means they have to be applied over a white background. That isn't a problem with a livery like Air Baltic. They also can't be overlapped, again not much of a problem with Air Baltic.

Applying laser decals is very similar to conventional decals although as you say every individual item has to be cut out. I've found by experience that if you're heavy-handed with the scalpel you can sometimes get a slight ridge along the edge of the carrier film which can be a nuisance to remove. Nowadays I use a technique I found in Aaron Skinner's book Modeling Airliners - use a sharp 10A or 11 blade to score round the marking as close to it as you can manage. The idea is to cut the decal film but not the backing paper. Then cut through the paper a few mm out from the decal. After soaking peel away the narrow strip of surplus film before applying the decal to the model and you should have a near-invisible edge.

HTH

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Alexander, seems will tidy up with some putty, the cockpit also, you are using a windscreen decals I assume

Man that cockpit clear fit is horrible, as I am going to build the same kit...I'm worried!

Nice fix on the warped fuse.

Ryan

After seeing the fit, I would probably try to shim the sills to push the clear part up before gluing... looks fixable (even if you just putty it all!)

[The 3rd Placer]

Alexander, seems will tidy up with some putty, the cockpit alos, you are using a windscreen decals I assume

After seeing the fit, I would probably try to shim the sills to push the clear part up before gluing... looks fixable (even if you just putty it all!)

I won't let it beat me!

[POTKC]

If you're never used laser decals before the main difference is that they are translucent which means they have to be applied over a white background. That isn't a problem with a livery like Air Baltic. They also can't be overlapped, again not much of a problem with Air Baltic.

Applying laser decals is very similar to conventional decals although as you say every individual item has to be cut out. I've found by experience that if you're heavy-handed with the scalpel you can sometimes get a slight ridge along the edge of the carrier film which can be a nuisance to remove. Nowadays I use a technique I found in Aaron Skinner's book Modeling Airliners - use a sharp 10A or 11 blade to score round the marking as close to it as you can manage. The idea is to cut the decal film but not the backing paper. Then cut through the paper a few mm out from the decal. After soaking peel away the narrow strip of surplus film before applying the decal to the model and you should have a near-invisible edge.

HTH

Thanks for the advice, I'll keep that in mind.

Alexander, seems will tidy up with some putty, the cockpit also, you are using a windscreen decals I assume

Yeah, definitely a decals - partially because I anticipated that the fit would never be perfect, and partially because I hate masking small things!

- Alexander

[moaning dolphin]

Never built an EE airliner before, and I am glad I don't have one in the stash! Looks like you have your work cut out on this one for sure! Great progress so far mind you, keep it up!

Bob

[Skodadriver]

Never built an EE airliner before, and I am glad I don't have one in the stash! Looks like you have your work cut out on this one for sure! Great progress so far mind you, keep it up!

Bob

If you think the 737 is bad you really don't want to see their A318!

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Welcome to the Airliner GB Alexander, look forward to more progress when you return from your trip!

[POTKC]

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate all the replies. I did not anticipate the fit being this bad...

I will definitely continue with this the moment I get back. I have already received the Braz winglets, and they're ready to be shortened (in a month and a half's time).

[The 3rd Placer]

POTKC,

I'm at the stage of my build you are at with the fuse wrestled together. My tail looks out of 90 degrees, but it just may be the slight twist in the fuselage, I'll save my final analysis till I get the cockpit puttied in.

FYI, it also looks like one elevator is higher than the other.

Ryan

[POTKC]

FYI, it also looks like one elevator is higher than the other.

That can possibly be fixed by cutting out thin slices of either the elevator mounting tabs or even the inner part it fixes on to, and the holding in position as the glue dries.

[The 3rd Placer]

I'm working front to back....still trying to get an acceptable seam at the cockpit, mine fit just like yours!

Ryan

[POTKC]

Having returned from my holiday, I can continue with the 737. I have prepared the two parts of one wing for gluing, and also inserted a small shim to stop the main gear bay cover from falling into the fuselage when I try to attach it. No images for now, will do more soon and post more updates.

[POTKC]

My internet is down so I'm having to piggyback 3G off my phone to write this, but...update time!

The gear bay cover (there isn't actually a gear bay part but whatever) was nowhere near the right shape, so I installed a small wedge in the middle of the fuselage to stop it from falling in as said above, then cut the thing in two. I glued both halves so the outer edge is (roughly) aligned with the rest of the fuselage at the wing root. This means that I do not have as much puttying to do as otherwise. The results are still pretty horrific:

I also assembled both wings (each comes as a top and bottom half). Below is the fuselage with one completed wing and one not yet glued.

If you pay attention to the wingtip, you can see that it is rounded off. To attach the BraZ winglets I bought, I had to cut off the wingtips with an old Russian dremel-style thingy and attached cutting disc. I then cleaned up the ends with a file (part of my new set of several). After the surgery it looked like this:

Yes, that's Napoleon in the background. I removed the resin winglets from their casting plug and tidied up the edge. This is what they look like:

That's one of the wings pre-surgery in the background. First of all, the chord of the attachment area of the winglets is thinner than the wing, so putty will be required there. Secondly, and more importantly, they were made for the 737NG, and the ones for the CL are meant to be just over a millimeter shorter in 1:144. However, either they are molded just a tiny but underscale, or the Ascencio decals are too big, but shortening the winglet would actually cause problems and be way too big of a pain to be worth it, especially since its literally impossible to tell the difference without a magnifying glass and some calipers. So on went the winglets.

This is it for today, but here's a photo to finish the update off...the winglet is glued to the wing, and the wing itself is dryfitted to the fuselage. I could have dryfitted the horizontal stabilizer as well, but I forgot. There's actually no wing on the other side, since the photo was taken before I glued on the second winglet. Anyway, here you go:

It's starting to look like a plane!

- Alexander

[Turbofan]

Hi Alexander,

Pity I didn't know you were adding winglets to your -300 earlier, I've got quite a few from the Daco kits that I won't be using.

Maybe you'd like them for your next EE 737!

You're nearly on the home straight now!

Cheers,

Ian

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Looks like you are winning so far Alexander, can't wait for the putty fest