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1/144 Boeing 787 & McDonald Douglas MD-11 production line


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After a break from Sci-Fi and prehistoric builds, I have returned to my preferred subject of Civil Aircraft and have 3 kits in 1/144 scale almost off the end of a 3 month production line in my workshop.

 

All 3 kits are in the final stages of decals, paint and build here.

 

Kits used -

 

Revell Dreamliner 787-8 for the BA livery kit

Zvezda Dreamliner 787-9 for the Virgin livery kit

Eastern Express MD-11 in American Airliners livery

 

An array of decals have been used from Draw Decals, F-Decal, Nazca and good old 26Decals.

 

The Eastern Express MD-11 kit was a bitch - different width fuselages, poor fitting wing roots, rear bulkhead a different width the forward fuselage - the list is endless. Any - I like how it is turning out despite the many hours of filling

 

Despite quite a bit of research on the correct shade of grey to use on the Virgin 787-9, I followed the advice of one of my friends who is a Virgin engineer at LHR who kindly gave me some touch up fuselage paint - unfortunately despite the colour being 100% correct - it seems that difference between 1/1 scale and 1/144 scales don't work as I am sure the real things that fly past my front door in Iver everyday loo quite a bit lighter in shade - perhaps a trick of the light ….

 

Zvezda 787-9

 

Revell 787-8

 

Eastern Express MD-11

 

Bye - John

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2 hours ago, PhantomBigStu said:

Incredibly jealous of that BA 787, found it impossible doing the demarcation for the blue on mine, the others looks super as well 

Thanks Stu

 

I did run into issues with the demarcation line - however I overcame it by using an overall coat of water-based rattle can appliance white (the washing and tumble machine touch up stuff you can buy off ebay and not the spirit based type) and then using Tamiya 2mm white masking tape for the very edges of the curved nose and rear ends with the remaining length and areas of the fuselage masked off with 40mm tape.

 

Then I used Tamiya Blue for the lower area - a good few coats if I remember. I have learned before from my errors that painting with a acrylic/water and then with spirit based colours along a sloping fuselage edge line, will often leave a dodgy line no matter how well you mask off between coats, nor, how long you leave the first coat to dry - it really does need to be a acrylic on acrylic or spirit on spirit combination with BA !

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Looking good John! That BA 787 is looking particularly sharp.

Interesting to hear you've had problems with the MD11, you aren't alone a number of others have reported similar issues, mine went together very well though, bizarrely!

Looking forward to more new airliners in RFI.

Cheers,

Ian

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Those are looking superb! Very nicely finished indeed. :yes:

 

Re. demarcation lines, if I suspect that there may be the possibility of any bleeding through (tight bends or compound curves), I first airbrush the edge of the masking tape with a light coat of clear lacquer. This will bleed through any of those places that aren’t quite snug and seal the gap. Any colours then laid on top aren’t able to bleed through.

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21 minutes ago, Bill.B said:

Those are looking superb! Very nicely finished indeed. :yes:

 

Re. demarcation lines, if I suspect that there may be the possibility of any bleeding through (tight bends or compound curves), I first airbrush the edge of the masking tape with a light coat of clear lacquer. This will bleed through any of those places that aren’t quite snug and seal the gap. Any colours then laid on top aren’t able to bleed through.

bloomin marvellous idea - many thanks - will use it from now on me thinks...

 

John

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48 minutes ago, Turbofan said:

Looking good John! That BA 787 is looking particularly sharp.

Interesting to hear you've had problems with the MD11, you aren't alone a number of others have reported similar issues, mine went together very well though, bizarrely!

Looking forward to more new airliners in RFI.

Cheers,

Ian

Hi Ian - thanks for the kind words - the MD11 had the normal EE issues - but that's all the fun of modelling isn't it! I spent a fortune on filler and primer building this kit - the backend in particular. That said, the parts went together very well - it was just the major assembly seams and joints that suffered poor fit and needed a lot of nursing and adaptive work.

I intend to build thee Airfix/Heller/Revell 1/72 Concorde in 2019 - and I know it will be a bigger bitch kit than the MD11 was.....

 

Keep Calm and Milliput on !

 

 

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I'm following this one. Love the choice of colours and really like the finish you've got on them.

 

EE MD-11 - I've got two of the things. Coincidently at the weekend I was toying around with one of them and cut off a few of the big parts (all fuselage parts left & right,  front & rear and the wings and belly & spar) and taped them together. They fitted very nicely even the rear end matched up brilliantly all round. The wings suggested they'd fit tightly too.

 

However, my other one wasn't so good.

 The left fuselage tail section had "curled" around too much and was a tighter radius than the forward fuselage. A bit of effort forced them to match up but it will require a strong glue to hold it like that when I build it. Other parts gave similar issues. A bit of a mixed bag, but I don't think I've read any build review where it has gone together "like a Tamiya kit".

 

As for the Airfix Concorde monstrosity- as much as I love the aircraft I doubt the model would ever grace my model desk. Life's too short!!

 

Jeff

 

 

Edited by pinky coffeeboat
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Welcome back John.  I'm most impressed by three such excellent builds at once!

 

I had much the same experience as you with the EE MD-11.  Mine is still in the loft unfinished and every so often it catches my eye and I think I really should have another crack at it.  Seeing how well your hard work is paying off might just nudge me in that direction.

 

I'll follow the models' progress with much interest.

 

Dave G

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I now have three of the MD-11 kits - my MicroMir FedEx version arrived a couple of minutes ago. The only difference I can see on this plastic, is a cargo door scribed into the forward left fuselage and numerous issues with the decal sheet. Again, on this later release, the fuselage halves seem to line up nicely and don't have the issue my first one has. Luckily, I have the FedEx decal sheet put out by Flying Colours (?) a few years ago and there are aftermarket Lufthansa decal sheets (old and new colours) also.

 

Sorry for a bit of a thread drift.

 

Jeff

Edited by pinky coffeeboat
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On ‎11‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 5:35 PM, FortyEighter said:

Three lovely looking models there John, I particularly like the BA Dreamliner and have one to build sometime.

 

Presumably the fit of wings to fuselage is excellent as you've painted before attaching?

 

Mike

Hi Mike - thanks for the words - the wings slotted in like a dream on both kits! They are completed now so I will post some photos next week after Telford. I built both 787's so that they can be transported around with their wings detached so as to save space

John

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19 hours ago, pinky coffeeboat said:

I now have three of the MD-11 kits - my MicroMir FedEx version arrived a couple of minutes ago. The only difference I can see on this plastic, is a cargo door scribed into the forward left fuselage and numerous issues with the decal sheet. Again, on this later release, the fuselage halves seem to line up nicely and don't have the issue my first one has. Luckily, I have the FedEx decal sheet put out by Flying Colours (?) a few years ago and there are aftermarket Lufthansa decal sheets (old and new colours) also.

 

Sorry for a bit of a thread drift.

 

Jeff

Hi Jeff

 

The kit I used as my base for the 26 Decals AA livery was the kit in KLM livery - I tried to use the kits corroguard decals but they crazed when put into contact with Klear so I resorted to airbrushing them myself in grey - your mention of one of your kits having fuselage twists is one of the problems I had and I remember now that one side was thicker than the other making the mating of the 2 longer top edge lengths of the fuselage very difficult - I guess it is a factory problem in the moulding and injection process - perhaps EE moved their production line and quality control suffered in the process - Having built their 777 and 757 kits before, I did start the kit expecting a challenge!

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