Revell 1/72 Concorde

[xffw45343tg]

A gynaecologist would sort it all out through the nose wheel bay...

 

Seriously, I reckon you have 2 options (that I plucked out of thin air so please take experience-based advice in preference):

1) Sod it. Leave them as is, fill with clearfix as per the instructions and accept that this issue pales into insignificance as compared with the bloated pannier area.

2) After 1, mask them all before painting white. Actually I can's see this working without some kind of laser cut mask that would ensure they were all level.

 

@Pin also noted that the window area should have a flat profile (i.e. the fuselage is not curved over the windows and adjacent skin. This seems to me to be very hard to address convincingly. Hence I'm minded to recommend (1) above...

 

Kirk

PS/ Please Mr. Airfix. It's still the greatest airliner in history. Time for a new tool. Clear sections, fully detailed interior and displayable Olympus engines. It would bring the country together.

Edited January 12, 2019 by Kirk

[Sheepie]

2 minutes ago, Kirk said:

PS/ Please Mr. Airfix. It's still the greatest airliner in history. Time for a new tool. Clear sections, fully detailed interior and displayable Olympus engines. It would bring the country together.

Instead they're reissuing a kit from 1966 that's based on drawings and not the actual prototype it's meant to be modelled on, sigh  

[xffw45343tg]

It's just wrong @Sheepie, isn't it? I reckon even the suggestion of a new one would have people out in the streets, decorating them with red, white and blue bunting, hugging their neighbours and organising community-based group build projects. Modellers, artists, musicians, captains of industry, scientists, ex-pats, religious figureheads of all flavours, politicians, lawyers, estate agents and Mr. Murdoch would sit down together in harmony and agree that the world had become a better place that they would strive to improve together. The pound would simultaneously rise in value and exports would increase. Trains would depart on time.

 

Even if they only achieved 50% of that, it would be worth it, right? Come on Airfix. Make models great again.

[Bedders]

1 hour ago, Kirk said:

PS/ Please Mr. Airfix. It's still the greatest airliner in history. Time for a new tool. Clear sections, fully detailed interior and displayable Olympus engines. It would bring the country together.

+1

 

Justin

[t15dja]

14 hours ago, Kirk said:

I reckon even the suggestion of a new one would have people out in the streets, decorating them with red, white and blue bunting, hugging their neighbours and organising community-based group build projects. Modellers, artists, musicians, captains of industry, scientists, ex-pats, religious figureheads of all flavours, politicians, lawyers, estate agents and Mr. Murdoch would sit down together in harmony and agree that the world had become a better place that they would strive to improve together. The pound would simultaneously rise in value and exports would increase. Trains would depart on time.

Yes, I can picture people taking to the streets on receiving the news of a new 1/72 Concorde tooling, enjoying street parties, participating in spontaneous outpourings of public happiness. Yes, I see in my mind's eye scenes similar to those outside Buckingham Palace on VE day, indeed on that subject I see the full Royal family making repeated forays out onto the balcony to receive and acknowledge the public joy at the news.

BUT.......sadly, and even despite the up-welling of positive human emotion at such a momentous announcement, I still don't see the trains departing on time!

[Gimme Shelter]

good to see you have not given up on this mischievous kit - and its good to see you have the support of others to help you get through the agony on this kits challenges

[t15dja]

33 minutes ago, Gimme Shelter said:

good to see you have not given up on this mischievous kit 

Indeed....as someone once said ......"I've started so I'll finish"

[EuanT]

Hello all,

 

new to britmodeller, but wondered if I could get some ideas. I'm also building the 1:72 Concorde, (revell model) and wondered what the best thoughts on paint were. I've tested an area on the inside with grey primer, but you have to spray so much white on to make it 'concorde white'. The other issue is white primer doesn't seem to cover the filler very well, (which, by the way, I've been surprised how good the fit is on this kit, despite the prior comments)

So any ideas? Someone said maybe use a yellow/cream primer?

I would post some pictures but just trying to work out how to?

[neilg]

19 minutes ago, EuanT said:

I've tested an area on the inside with grey primer, but you have to spray so much white on to make it 'concorde white'.

 

I use grey primer for all my Eurowhite builds.

 

I used several coats of gloss white on top, but I think it's easier to apply on top of a grey primer, and it gives a deeper white in my opinion.

 

This is Halfords Gloss Appliance White on top of Halfords Grey Primer:

 

 

It just requires several light coats to build it up. 

[t15dja]

Hi EuanT and welcome to the club!

For primer my "go to" product lately has been Tamiya XF19 sky grey, which works really well. Ive literally just primed my fuselage and wings with that stuff to see how good or bad my filling has gone on those sections.... see picture below. You will notice that ive filled in the windows and door panels, since they are the wrong size on the kit. I will be using decals for them instead, which I have ordered from F-DCAL. For large areas I've also previously used Tamiya' s fine primer in a spray can. End result as a primer is excellent but boy does that stuff smell...you must spray it outdoors!

As regards the top white coat, I am going to use some gloss white spray paint that I bought off ebay. Even though it's cheap to buy it does produce an excellent result in my opinion. You can see the result of me using this paint on my completed Revell 1/144 A380, which can also be seen on Britmodeller. I'll dig out the details of the white paint and post them up here later.

 

 

 

 

[t15dja]

Below is a picture of the gloss white spray paint that I used... it's a 200ml can. I think two of these cost me around £6 including postage. 

 

 

[EuanT]

Thanks both for your help on that. I'll try the gloss white from Halfords, as I have been using the Halfords grey primer.

[t15dja]

14 minutes ago, EuanT said:

I'll try the gloss white from Halfords, as I have been using the Halfords grey primer 

Yep, I've heard good reports about that, too.

[t15dja]

Contrary to popular opinion I haven't given up on this kit, far from it in fact. I'm just experiencing the usual part-time modeller's dilemma, i.e. too much other stuff to do and not enough time for the hobby.

However, things have been moving along, although not as quickly as I would like.

When I left off I was focusing on the wings and centre / rear fuselage pending my request to Revell for  replacement parts forward of the windscreen i.e. nose cone and nose section, given that mine were warped and the nose cone had two gouges out of it. More on that later.

 

In the meantime, having studied photos and read more about other builds, the kit windows are too big therefore I've bit the bullet and decided to fill them and use decals, which I've ordered from F-DCAL. I'll also be filling the door outlines, since they are the wrong size, and using the F_DCAL decals instead.

 

Normally with airliners, I fill the windows by rolling out a thin sausage of milliput fine and then squeeze them through the windows from the inside of each (unassembled) fuselage half, then cut off and smooth (using water) the excess that oozes out of the windows on the other side. This method provides a good anchorage for the filler in the window holes.

However, given that this was a late decision and I've already sealed up the fuselage  I couldn't do this. I did use the same methodology to fill the windowsbut this time pushing the milliput through the holes from the outside then cut off / smooth the excess. I was a bit worried that this wouldn't work so well given the lack of anchorage, however the milliput does dry rock hard and seems to be pretty well solidly fixed. After initial sanding of the milliput I then smoothed over any remaining imperfections with Revell's Plasto filler.

Fuselage after initial filling with milliput. If you look closely you can see the imperfections in some of the windows.

Another close up

Then shovelled on a layer of Revell's Plasto

I also filled the trenches that were masquerading as panel lines. I'll be doing that across the whole kit.

 

I then sanded the filler and gave the whole kit a shot of primer (Tamiya XF-19) and sanded that down to look for any other areas that might require further filling and sanding....there were a few. A bit of a boring repetitive process, but necessary in my opinion to give a good finish in the end. I also put a tiny bead of perfect plastic putty in the wing / fuselage joint to make that as good as possible.

 

 

After another coat of XF-19

 

I've also filled sanded and primed the hideous ejection pin marks on the flaps 

 

I also attempted to fill the front edge of the wings where they join the fuselage, since the kit has a very ugly joint here. I know there are some indentations for lights in this area but I'll sort those later. Below is the first attempt after filling, sanding and priming.

 

 

 

 

Tiny bit off finishing off still to be done.

 

underside view of tail joint looks alright now....

 

Also, this long thing on top of the fuselage was suffering from a bad case of sinkage, so it too was filled, sanded and reshaped. What did it do in real life by the way?

 

 

I've also assembled the stand, which seems very robust, mind you - it needs to be!

 

I've added the flaps and actuators to the wings. Getting these lined up with the wings took some doing....and several clamps.

 

So this all gets me to here. The expression "headless chicken" springs to mind! 

 

 

 

I mentioned at the start of this update that I'd been in touch with Revell for replacement front end parts. Well they have just responded to say that they don't have any spares left for this kit, which isn't a surprise to me really - it was a bit of a long shot and I thought that's what they'd say. From my experience, Revell are normally very good with spares and associated communications.  

So I will have to fix and use the parts that I have.

 

I've started work on the front end. More about that very soon.

Edited February 7, 2019 by t15dja
typo

[Sheepie]

7 hours ago, t15dja said:

 

 

Also, this long thing on top of the fuselage was suffering from a bad case of sinkage, so it too was filled, sanded and reshaped. What did it do in real life by the way?

 

Great to see progress on the kit! It's motivating me to tackle another one in my stash at some point soon. In regards to this mysterious hump, it houses the ADF antenna fairings. We often joke about Concorde being a time machine because of arriving in New York before taking off, she doesn't have a flux capacitor but had a flux valve in there! It's a lot flatter and slimmer in real life too, I'll have a hunt to see if I have any pics of it as the kit certainly exaggerated it.

 

Have you considered approaching Airfix or Heller for spares? Considering they done the original tooling before Revell reboxed it, they tend to be more helpful 

Edited February 7, 2019 by Sheepie
Grammar

[t15dja]

Thanks Sheepie. As it happens I've made good progress on fixing the issues with the nose, so I think I will be OK to use the parts that came with the kit. I'll post up more progress to show you what I mean in the next day or two.

[xffw45343tg]

Ah the ADF. That's the thing that points at thunderstorms in a Cessna. I'd hope Concorde's was a little more effective.  

[CedB]

Beautifully smooth - good job Sir! 

[Buzby061]

The weather radar was trialled in an Avro Anson.

 

Anson Mk XIX, G-AGPG

 

We've got the complete cockpit section at Avro Heritage Museum.

 

Pete

[t15dja]

So, moving back to the front, so to speak, as I said above the nose cone and the two parts of the nose ahead of the cockpit were poorly molded on my example and I'd asked Revell if they had any replacements. Revell duly replied to say they hadn't so I'll need to fix and use the parts that I have.

The nose cone has a gouge on its upper surface thus:

This will be fixed by filling and sanding. 

The two parts behind the nose cone are, when glued together,  wider than the front fuselage to which they join. These will be fixed by a bit of judicious bending having been dipped in very hot water.

All panel lines on these parts are way too deep and a bit irregular, so again I'll be filling and sanding. I used my flexifile to do the sanding - a useful tool since it doesn't create flat spots when sanding curved surfaces.

Before:

After:

This will need further finishing off when joined to the rest of the fuselage.

Returning to the cockpit section,  all I'd done up to now was to paint and glue the pilots, seats and flight engineer's console. 

Dry fitting same into the cockpit locating slots reveals that the back of the engineer's console can be seen through the first officer's side window,  which isn't correct, as confirmed in the images shared by Sheepie earlier in this build log. 

Moving the cockpit floor backwards so that the console doesn't show can be easily achieved by removing a bit of plastic in the rear locating slot. Problem was I'd already moved the front instrument panel back about two millimetres from where the kit would have you place it because I'd read about difficulties fitting the windscreen with the panel in its original position. If I moved the cockpit floor back so the engineer's console can't be seen I'd then have too big a gap in front of the instrument panel. There was nothing for it therefore but to move the flight engineer and his console backwards so the latter wouldn't be seen through the window.

This was easier said than done because the Tamiya extra thin had well and truly welded those items to the cockpit floor such that removing them brought part of the floor with them!

Once removed I therefore had to repair the floor with thin sheet styrene. Once painted the result looks ok though.

Here is the repaired cockpit now glued to right hand cockpit wall.

 

Because my masking is rubbish I'll be using the New Ware masks for the inner and outer cockpit glass.

Here's the inner glass masked up

You can see I've glued a tiny rectangle of thin styrene sheet to the top. This was to aid with positioning of the glass and also to provide something to fill the gap between the glass and the cockpit wall to enable the two to be glued together. 

After much dry fitting to prove that the canopy would slide over the instrument panel and pilots I glued it to the left hand side of the cockpit thus:

The fit isn't too bad but there is a small gap at the lower front of the screen, which will be filled.

So now, in the blink of an eye the two rear bulkheads can be added and the two cockpit halves joined together. 

At this stage I thought it would be easier to also attach the nose section to the cockpit by locating the pins within the holes in each cockpit side as I sealed up the two halves:

This decision will be reversed soon!

I also wanted to fill and sand the deep panel lines and door outlines as I did with the rest of the fuselage. 

 

After initial filling and sanding and adding the small canards:

Further finishing off will be required. 

As I said just above, I also decided it would be easier not to have the nose cone in the way at this stage so, given that it's going to be permanently glued at some point, off it came.

I also took the opportunity to see what the gaps around the screen looked like with a quick shot of primer. The answer was.....not too bad.

 

From the early stages of this build I've been wondering what to do with that rather large and noticeable void under the visor. I'm building Concorde in flight so there is no need to have a working nose droop mechanism. 

I couldn't find too many photos of what is under the visor. Probably the most useful image I've found is this:

 

I think this shows some sort of curtain-like structure with a shallow fold down the middle and strengtheners placed at irregular intervals. This is what I'll try to replicate. 

I used a paper template to work out the rough size and then cut out the shape from thin styrene sheet. 

 

I then added the strengtheners from very small triangular section styrene rod placed in a similar fashion to what I could see in the above photo of the real Concorde. 

 

Then painted, dry brushed and glued to the front end. I also sprayed the front window area in gloss white.

 

Although the gloss white I used ( Revell acrylic) looks decidedly off-white to me and will need to be over-painted.

A quick trial fit of cockpit,  nose and (as yet unmasked) visor. 

Not looking too bad although will need quite a bit of finishing. 

 

So, the time had come to join the cockpit section to the rest of the plane. 

Dry fitting revealed that the profile of the two sections does not match!

This is always a danger when building sections of a tube separately,  which is why I joined the tail sections to the fuselage before joining the halves together. 

However I didn't think I could do this with the cockpit section, given all the work that would have to go into it with the canopy and the shroud under the visor, therefore I just had to bite the bullet and get the flexifile out again. More primer had also been added to check the joints and panel lines. 

Quite a bit of sanding was required and more is still to come, that's for sure. 

Anyway,  the cockpit was duly glued to the fuselage,  which gets me to here:

 

 

Loads more sanding to do and then on to the engines.

 

To be continued......

 

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2019 by t15dja
Grammar

[Sheepie]

Glad to see it coming together! Quick note on the engines, annoyingly they don't sit flush with the wings so you'll need to shave off just over 1mm of the engine walls...you'll notice this when you do the dry fit!

[neilg]

9 minutes ago, Sheepie said:

annoyingly they don't sit flush with the wings so you'll need to shave off just over 1mm of the engine walls...you'll notice this when you do the dry fit!

 

There is supposed to be a gap - the engines are not flush to the wing along the whole length.  There is a small gap up to half-way along the length of the intake trunking, presumably as a boundary layer separator.

 

 

The kit has a gap that is out-of-scale, but it is supposed to be there.  I did not have to shave off any material.

 

 

[Nikolay Polyakov]

Very accurate work, the cockpit section looks fantastic! 👍

 

Cheers! 😎

[Sheepie]

Oh I meant the rear of the engines..

 

 

[neilg]

It looks great with the visor cover!  Those masking templates are well worth it!

Just now, Sheepie said:

Oh I meant the rear of the engines..

 

 

 

Oh yes!

 

That I didn't realize until too late!!