3 Mighty Boeings - 747-400D, 777-2 & 777-3ER - Hasegawa 1/200 Love Liner 200 kits

[Gimme Shelter]

I'm scaling away from 1/144 to 1/200 over the next few months and back to some of my all time favourite builds from the Hasegawa Love Liner 200 1/200 range. I've been buying up as much of these civil kits as possible on the cheap from shows and auction sites over the last 6 months with the view to having at least 1 of these kits in production in the shadows while other builds take place; however I have taken a plunge and started 3 of these all at the same time this month without any plans to have anything else distract me in 1/144.

 

Here we have the short range 747-400D, the 777-200 and the impressive 777-300ER which rather dominates the other 2 kits and is a constant reminder that the 747 is no longer as big a we used to think when Boeing was master of the wide body 4 engine production line.

 

I will use the Pokémon decals for the -400D but have 26Decals British Airways Chatham colours for the -300ER and the intermediary Waves of the City decals for the -200. The 747-400D kit is 22 years old and has been a pig to get aligned when the fuselage halves went together compared to Hasegawa's later -400 moulded kits which are a dream to assemble. All windows have been filled as the decal sets I have provide the better option of window and cockpit decals.

 

With all the main components now assembled, I am at the filling and sanding stages post 1 coat of primer.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking in if this is the sort of build that interests you

 

John

 

[DMC]

It is.

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Indeed! 

 

[Gimme Shelter]

after a lot of sanding, the 3 mini but mighty Boeings are ready for an undercoat

 

 

 

 

 

[Gimme Shelter]

The majority of time spent building civil builds is the masking.....

 

 

the undercarriage being masked, adapted so that the bogies are hanging at the correct angle when in flight and with a tiny bit of extra pipework detail added although in 1/200 on a 747, not much will be visible

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Challenger350Pilot]

Wow! Impressive. The Hasegawa 200 kits are truly great kits. Sturdy plastic, sturdy gear, details just right for out of the box, and fit is usually really good with minimal corrections. Everything you've done looks wonderful so far. Good job preparing the surfaces for the undercoat and primer, and the gear look fantastic. Really like the detail and your attention to proper angles as they "hang" in flight. I have to say...it is amazing to me how anyone can build more than one kit at a time and keep their sanity. If you make it through this, you have everyone's great respect for sure. Thanks for sharing.

[pinky coffeeboat]

Don't know how I missed this group build but I'm now following closely.

I'm a great fan of the Love Liner series - even if Hasegawa have abandonded the name that's what I'll always call them. As I run out of room, I've been giving serious thought to downsizing to 200th scale for the wide body stuff. Like you, I've been scouting round the usual places looking for decently priced kits and as Authentic Airliners (or Decals?)have started producing their window sets in this scale (I recently bought a 777 set) there's more reason to move to it.

Great build so far. I like the adjusted u/c with their tiny little hoses. And I like the punch set for wheel masks. 

Looking forward to your next instalment.

 

Jeff

 

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Nice work there John, I like seeing other's methods of modifications and the process they use. I always removed parts from the sprues before modifying them, I think I will borrow your method and leave stuff put until I finish with them.

 

[Graeme H]

The work on that undercarriage is superb, this is going to be a great build set, I'm in 

[Gimme Shelter]

12 hours ago, Challenger350Pilot said:

Wow! Impressive. The Hasegawa 200 kits are truly great kits. Sturdy plastic, sturdy gear, details just right for out of the box, and fit is usually really good with minimal corrections. Everything you've done looks wonderful so far. Good job preparing the surfaces for the undercoat and primer, and the gear look fantastic. Really like the detail and your attention to proper angles as they "hang" in flight. I have to say...it is amazing to me how anyone can build more than one kit at a time and keep their sanity. If you make it through this, you have everyone's great respect for sure. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks there - glad you like the postings, I'm having a great little 1/200th time of a build session in my workshop at the moment and I have 36 other loveliners in my stash now. I learned a lesion building a pair of 1/144 787's last month and have remembered to seal all the masked taped long edges with a coat of gloss / klear to seal the masked line before proceeding with the next colour which has really helped with these 3 so far during the wing and tail plane stage - more pictures to follow as I spent a few hours on these 3 last night and I am now at the corroguard stages

[Gimme Shelter]

9 hours ago, Graeme H said:

The work on that undercarriage is superb, this is going to be a great build set, I'm in 

Thanks - I have a 1/200 ANA Blue Whale Special livery 747 posted yesterday over on the gallery with the undercarriage posed with drooping bogies (no pipework on that one though) - makes it look a bit more believable - the next set of 3 x 1/200 747-400's I build shall have their flaps and slats cut out for the added touch of final approach realism.

[Gimme Shelter]

10 hours ago, Romeo Alpha Yankee said:

Nice work there John, I like seeing other's methods of modifications and the process they use. I always removed parts from the sprues before modifying them, I think I will borrow your method and leave stuff put until I finish with them.

 

thanks for words there - I used a very thin clear piece of plasticard with some Tamiya tape stuck to it - ran it through the punch and die set then carefully scalpelled off the disc of Tamiya masking tape for the wheel hub masks

[Gimme Shelter]

12 hours ago, pinky coffeeboat said:

Don't know how I missed this group build but I'm now following closely.

I'm a great fan of the Love Liner series - even if Hasegawa have abandonded the name that's what I'll always call them. As I run out of room, I've been giving serious thought to downsizing to 200th scale for the wide body stuff. Like you, I've been scouting round the usual places looking for decently priced kits and as Authentic Airliners (or Decals?)have started producing their window sets in this scale (I recently bought a 777 set) there's more reason to move to it.

Great build so far. I like the adjusted u/c with their tiny little hoses. And I like the punch set for wheel masks. 

Looking forward to your next instalment.

 

Jeff

 

Hi Jeff

 

thanks for the encouraging words. I got a PM overnight about a forum dedicated to the Loveliners which I will investigate later on - in case you have not seen it, I have an ANA 747-400D in the Blue Whale Special livery over on the WFI forum pages with adjusted bogies but no hosing - its good fun building mighty Boeings in 1/200 and like you say, a great space saving solver and probably the main reason that Hasegawa chose 1/200 given the limited space the general public in Japan have at home

[pinky coffeeboat]

My first loveliner was the Cathay Pacific TriStar and my brother bought the Aloha 737. From then (then being about 30 years ago...or more) I've always had a few in the stash. There are quite a few gaps in their range like the Airbus 310, 330/340 the I'd really like and even though Gemini jets make 1/200 scale die cast metal models, it's not really the same to me.

 I really do like the punch set to make wheel masks. Those tiny wheels are enough to make anyone go cross-eyed hand painting them!

 

Jeff

[Gimme Shelter]

21 hours ago, pinky coffeeboat said:

My first loveliner was the Cathay Pacific TriStar and my brother bought the Aloha 737. From then (then being about 30 years ago...or more) I've always had a few in the stash. There are quite a few gaps in their range like the Airbus 310, 330/340 the I'd really like and even though Gemini jets make 1/200 scale die cast metal models, it's not really the same to me.

 I really do like the punch set to make wheel masks. Those tiny wheels are enough to make anyone go cross-eyed hand painting them!

 

Jeff

Hi Jeff

 

I totally agree about the missing planes that Hasegawa would probably have profited from including in their range - 1/144 has always been the accepted scale for civil aircraft but I would have loved a choice of builds in 1/200 of the A380, 340-6, 747-SP, L1011-500, Concorde etc

 

I too built the original Cathy L1011 when first released and the lovely flowery Hawaiian 737 alongside the Eskimo face livery version.

 

Thanks for following - John

[pinky coffeeboat]

2 hours ago, Gimme Shelter said:

Hi Jeff

 

I totally agree about the missing planes that Hasegawa would probably have profited from including in their range - 1/144 has always been the accepted scale for civil aircraft but I would have loved a choice of builds in 1/200 of the A380, 340-6, 747-SP, L1011-500, Concorde etc

 

I too built the original Cathy L1011 when first released and the lovely flowery Hawaiian 737 alongside the Eskimo face livery version.

 

Thanks for following - John

The Revell easy kit is 1/200 and is a scale down of the 1/144 kit. Apart from the slightly heavy panel line details, it's a decent kit. And hopefully Hasegawa will push out an A380 whenever ANA receive theirs next year.

 

Jeff

[Gimme Shelter]

a bit more done over the last few nights - the wings are ready to be un-masked tonight - hopefully, no paint seepage

 

 

I've seen many an argument over which type and shade blue to use for BA, but as I am not a great fan of xtracolour and have always struggled to get hold of their special BA blue shade, I have settled for Tamiya's "Blue" for the 777's

 

 

 

A combination of Tamiya greys and Mission Model Light and Dark Gull greys have been used throughout the engine and wing paint process

 

 

 

Thanks for dropping in again for another look around here - John

 

 

 

[Gimme Shelter]

with the wings completed, the engines went together this weekend and I had time to start with some decaling

 

 

Engines unmasked

 

 

Engines assembled

 

 

Engines decaled

 

 

First of the top-coats going down

 

 

 

 

 

[Gimme Shelter]

Major hours of back breaking decal application progress has been made. The Pocket Monster Pokémon decals are nearly 20 years old and even after a few dusting coast of clear lacquer to hold them together, have proven a big challenge with the majority of them needing to be carefully pieced back together once applied, or applied in small sections. 

 

Stage 1 - Photocopy the decal sheet and produce a mask of what would have been blue (had the kits decals been wholly useable)

 

 

 

 

Stage 2 - 3 hours of decaling (20 or so individual hand cut pieces from main decal sheet now applied)

 

 

Stage 4

 

All day Saturday spent completing the Port side - minus windows, doors and detail set

 

 

Stage 5 - started at 4am Sunday and finished at 9pm Sunday evening - the Starboard side now completed - minus windows, doors and detail set

 

 

The 747's tyres unmasked

 

 

 

***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

 

NOW - over to the UK side of things...

 

The BA 777-200 in the 'Wings' livery is pretty much completed however when I searched for the BA 777-300ER decals, I discovered I had forgotten to order them so I have placed an order with F-Decal however Phillippe has run out of decal paper which will probably leave the order arriving towards the end of January 2019 now so the -300ERhas been put aside.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for joining the build once again

 

John

T

 

 

 

 

 

[Gimme Shelter]

747 landing gear now assembled

 

 

 

 in just 1/200, these assembled bogies are rather tiny

 

 

[Skodadriver]

I'm rather late to the party on this.  I've never worked in 1/200 but I know the Hasegawa kits have an excellent reputation and these are really impressive.  

 

Looking forward to further progress.

[Sturmovik]

The Pokémon decals looked really nice on the sheet, strange that they broke up.

[AdrianMF]

They look great. I didn’t realise how big the larger 777s were compared to a 747, so this thread is teaching me stuff.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Jackman]

On 12/18/2018 at 12:44 AM, Gimme Shelter said:

Stage 1 - Photocopy the decal sheet and produce a mask of what would have been blue (had the kits decals been wholly useable)

 

 

 

Stage 2 - 3 hours of decaling (20 or so individual hand cut pieces from main decal sheet now applied)

 

 

 

What blue are you using? It looks spot-on for the Poke-jet.  Also, what is that masking tape? 

 

I'm asking because I'm taking notes; I too have this kit languishing in my to-do pile somewhere and I'm worried that the decals on mine would have become the same condition as yours.  

 

Thanks in advance . 

[AV O]

19 hours ago, Jackman said:

 

What blue are you using? It looks spot-on for the Poke-jet.  Also, what is that masking tape? 

 

I'm asking because I'm taking notes; I too have this kit languishing in my to-do pile somewhere and I'm worried that the decals on mine would have become the same condition as yours.  

 

Thanks in advance . 

 

Hi, and Merry Christmas to all of you.

 

I guess he means any double face masking tape. But the thinnest one will be recommended as you will have to add the paper thickness to it. Indeed, it needs to be supple enough to bend around tight areas. You may find those in Art shops in different widths, according to the areas you intend to mask. The interest of the tape being that, should you be careful when cutting, you can use the reverse (or opposite) part for masking again in case of any unfortunate colour spitting.

 

I did that way for the Marine Jumbo as did Gimme Shelter and you can spot the difference compared with the B-767 tail  on which the decal was used :

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/27888-airliners-jumbos-1200th/

 

I also used that on the Northwest DC-10 (the decal did not have the right grey color) and the KLM MD-11 : 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/27642-airliners-modern-trijets-1200th/

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/27684-airliners-trijets-smaller-ones-and-biggest-1200th/

 

And on most of aerobatic teams :

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/28551-aerobatics-172/

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/28544-aerobatics-172/

 

 

Edited December 24, 2018 by AV O