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Minicraft DC-8


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Mel at S&M will be selling the overtrees DC-8 in September.  They haven't arrived in the UK yet, they are expected next week, but he cannot put a price on them until he's identified import/customs and delivery charges etc.

 

Mike

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On 8/22/2018 at 7:56 AM, Skodadriver said:

I wish there was a “notify on availability” facility on S&M’s website. I suspect the kits will sell out rather fast.

They're now available on his website and ebay.

Cheers,

Ian

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2 hours ago, Turbofan said:

They're now available on his website and ebay.

Cheers,

Ian

Thanks Ian.  I've ordered via ebay since the S&M website kept on saying "invalid delivery method" despite all the mandatory fields being filled in.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

Since we seem to be reporting our purchases, I got two a couple of days ago.  I'm disappointed to see the weird curved wings are still present. They really throw the dihedral which is a particular issue with the larger engines on the -70s.  Looks like some careful hairdryer work will be needed to straighten them!  One of mine will be KLM (if I live long enough) and the other will go into the stash.

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8 hours ago, Skodadriver said:

Since we seem to be reporting our purchases, I got two a couple of days ago.  I'm disappointed to see the weird curved wings are still present. They really throw the dihedral which is a particular issue with the larger engines on the -70s.  Looks like some careful hairdryer work will be needed to straighten them!  One of mine will be KLM (if I live long enough) and the other will go into the stash.

I wasn't aware of an issue with the wings - hadn't seen anything in any reviews - what's the problem?

 

I've got 3 - had one already, bought 2 bagged kits direct from Draw Decal. Postage to Australia wasn't particularly cheap but was more or less consistent with other purchases - one of the costs of living at this end of the world I guess - my gripe with the postage is that for that price it should be faster.

 

One of mine will be an Iberia -52 using Vintage Flyer decals (and replacement engines). Not sure about the other two - perhaps CP Air, KLM with an old school stripy fin, and the French Air Force decals from F-DCAL appeal to me as well. I quite like the idea of doing three different engines - the early style JT3D nacelle on the Iberia -52, then a -62 or -63 with the later style JT3Ds, and one with CFM's.

 

It's entirely possible that 3 DC-8s might turn out not to be enough!

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16 hours ago, zebra said:

I wasn't aware of an issue with the wings - hadn't seen anything in any reviews - what's the problem?

 

 

 

 

 

On the real DC-8 the wing is virtually a straight line from root to tip, well illustrated in this photo.

 

The first time I built the kit (a -71) I was taken in by all the uncritical "holy grail of accuracy" reviews and didn't do as much research as I should have. It was only when I came to attach the engines I realised that the wings had a distinct downwards curve towards the tips which meant that the outer engines were the same height off the ground as the inner ones.  The model looked more wrong than I was prepared to live with.  My efforts to correct the problem post-build were disastrous and my fully painted, fully decalled DC-8-71 ended up in the bin. 

 

The problem was well summed-up by a reviewer on the German site Modellversium who, unlike many other reviewers, actually built the kit: 

Die Tragflächen waren extrem nach unten gebogen, so wie bei einer vollgetankten 747. Aber die DC8 hatte wohl einen ziemlich steifen Flügel, nirgendwo kann man ein Bild mit einer nennenswerte Durchbiegung finden: Mit viel vorsichtigem Fönen in Ordnung gebracht. (Rough translation: The wings were extremely bent downwards like a fully tanked-up 747.  However in reality the DC-8 had a fairly stiff wing and nowhere can you find a picture with noticeable curvature.  A lot of careful work with the hairdryer sorted this)

 

I wish I'd seen that review before I started on my ill-fated -71. The issue with the wings seems to vary from kit to kit. I later built a Kenya Airways -71 and although the wing halves in that kit were slightly curved they weren't as bad as the first one. Like the German reviewer I was able to correct them with a hairdryer.  The problem is fixable but it has to be done before the wings are assembled and, obviously, you have to know to look out for it.

 

HTH

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