Viking Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 McDonnell Douglas MD-11, Finnair 'Moomins'. 1:144 MikroMir The MD-11 was a development of the DC-10 with a a 5.6 metre fuselage stretch, redesigned wing & tail, a glass cockpit, and the use of composites in construction, and new fuel efficient engines. The MikroMir kit was developed in partnership with Eastern Express and Reviewed here. in 2017. With so many other projects on the go it has taken me until now to start and complete it. It is a kit that needs 'building' rather than just assembling. It is limited run and requires a little more effort than say a Revell or Zvezda airliner, but is an awful lot simpler than a vac-form. It makes into a large and impressive model, I have built it straight from the box using the supplied decals, which were very impressive and went on beautifully. I rather like the 'Moomin' scheme as my daughter was very keen on them when she was little, and it is very unusual. A few pointers on the construction of the kit. A full cockpit is provided, I enhanced it with some 'N' gauge railway figures painted as aircrew: The engines have a separate intake ring with a moulded ridge on the rear face to locate into a slot on the inner face of the cowling halves, but the fit was excessively tight. I cut the ridge off the intake rings and got a much easier fit. But this left an empty slot inside the cowlings, which I filled with Milliput and sanded down. Much easier to illustrate than to explain! The nose leg is quite a complex and detailed structure that has to be fitted before the fuselage haves are joined. The inevitable happened and knocked mine off. Worse the happened as I tried to drill and pin it. The main leg further broke into 3 pieces, rendering it useless. I decided to make a new leg from brass wire, soldering a simple 'T' piece, and then cyano'ing the plastic detail parts to it. I then fitted a plastic tube inside the nose bay, into which it fitted. The 'belly plate' that goes on the fuselage underside to cover the wing join sat too low. By shimming it at each end with plasticard it sat flush with the rest of the fuselage. The whole plate needed milliput filler all around to blend it in. I also drilled the main gear legs to accept brass wire axles for the wheels, to make a stronger join. Here they are just dry fitted to check. The rear section of the fuselage is separate and MikroMir say to assemble the main and rear parts independently, and then join them. I prefer not to do this, and actually made 2 traditional fuselage halves by joining each side into 1, ensuring that I got as flush a fit as possible on the exterior join. Although I took pictures, I can't find them now! This is what the basic assembly looks like, awiting primer. Vinyl masks are supplied fro the glazing, and worked well, However I later discovered that I needed a silver surround for it, but none is supplied on the decal sheet. I thus had to make new masks, by laying Kabuki tape over the 'holes' in the vinyl sheet where I had removed the original masks, and cut around them. Looking on Airliners.net, the surround is often a weathered pale grey colour, so I sprayed mine in a silver/light grey mix. The blue crescent on the tail has a 'fade' to it that is not represented on the decal sheet, which has it as a solid colour. It is also narrower at the front, and widens out slightly to the rear, while the decal is a constant width. Instead I masked and sprayed mine, and was much happier with the result. Also the silver areas behind the tailplane rubbing plates are not provided. I rubbed a strip of Kabuki tape over them and drew on it following the panel lines. Removal and cutting out gave me a template which I used to cut them out from silver decal sheet. It was not a quick build, but I am very happy with the result as the model has a real 'presence'. It is a large and attractive aircraft, now I just need to build a DC-10 to go alongside it for comparison. Thanks for looking John 34 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha Delta 210 Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Another stunner! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingswear1 Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Great finishing, well sone 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbofan Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Lovely MD11 John! Some have said it's a bit of a pig to build but it doesn't look like you had many problems and those you did have seemed to have been overcome without much difficulty. I agree about the nose gear being complex but I'm sure I remember putting mine in at the end. Good work rebuilding it with brass rod though. Nice cockpit as usual, but why don't kit manufacturers include crew when they've gone to the trouble of supplying the flightdeck? So you want a DC10 eh? You could always convert another MD11 kit! https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235035527-1144-laker-skytrain-mcdonnell-douglas-dc10-30-conversion-from-ee-md11/&tab=comments#comment-2985995 Probably be cheaper than tracking down a decent DC10 kit! Now I'm intrigued to know what fell off your model and is lying on the apron in the first few shots?!! Cheers, Ian 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stringbag Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 On 4/21/2019 at 8:27 PM, Turbofan said: Now I'm intrigued to know what fell off your model and is lying on the apron in the first few shots?!! Cheers, Ian Me too. I have to say that in the flesh, it's even better than the pictures would have you believe. I'm lucky in that I got to see the finished article and it's superb. Chris. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMCS Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Superb 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baldy Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Lovely. I have never built an airliner kit but if I did I would like it to look like that! The MD.11 is a beautiful aeroplane. Cheers Malcolm 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abandoned Project Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 11 out of 10 for another stunning master class in airliner building. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skodadriver Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 Thanks for posting another magnificent model John. Having tried and failed to build that kit myself I’m impressed by anyone who just manages to put the thing together, let alone produce such a fine result. My attempt foundered on fitting the wings which must be one of the daftest and most unnecessarily complicated assemblies in the whole of airliner modelling. I’d be very interested to know how you dealt with that. Dave G 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FortyEighter Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 A very unusual livery John and well executed. Being in the process of building the same kit myself I can appreciate the work that has got you to these photos. Like you, I managed to break the nose leg but hopefully have got all the pieces back together with superglue. Only time will tell if the repair is strong enough but there's plenty of brass rod / tube to hand if not. That underbelly fuselage section is a poor fit, mine was wider than the opening in the fuselage (though the wing spar did pull the fuselage edges out somewhat. Having cemented it in place on one side I then used dabs of superglue to fix the other side whilst exerting pressure - this made the front / aft joints almost flush with the underside. Regards Mike 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viking Posted April 22, 2019 Author Share Posted April 22, 2019 As always thanks for the kind comments guys. 22 hours ago, Turbofan said: Now I'm intrigued to know what fell off your model and is lying on the apron in the first few shots?!! Cheers, Ian Ian, the only base I have big enough to pose the MD-11 on is one I made for my 1/32nd Lightning. The bit you can see is the base of a wheel chock that I had glued on, but can't remove! 9 hours ago, Skodadriver said: My attempt foundered on fitting the wings which must be one of the daftest and most unnecessarily complicated assemblies in the whole of airliner modelling. I’d be very interested to know how you dealt with that. Dave G Dave, like the rest of the kit, the wings required fettling to get it all to fit comfortably. I widened and deepened the channels in the wing spar with a file. I've only got a picture of the reverse side, bit it was the channels on the other side of this part, marked by the red lines. Similarly I enlarged the cut out in the fuselage halves. It is hard to be specific, it was just cut/file and check fit until everything lined up ok. From the pictures in my original post where I show the shim, you'll see a thin line of Milliput around the wing to fuselage join. It was needed all around to blend it in. Cheers John 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Law Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 Beautiful build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goggsy Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 Terrific work, looks bigger than 1\144. I remember the moomins well, they were around when I was a kid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Getting Old Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 Wow, lovely work Sir, finished to perfection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 Splendid! Maybe my fav. airliner! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gimme Shelter Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 Bloomin Moomin Fantastic - I love your model and the decals look quite superb - very Scandinavian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
armored76 Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 Fantastic work on what seems to be a difficult kit. Chapeau! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCI Posted April 23, 2020 Share Posted April 23, 2020 awesome lovely model, seems like some MD11 threads get a revival! that thing with the figures is damn good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aces High Posted April 23, 2020 Share Posted April 23, 2020 Very impressive! I remember reading Finn Family Moomintroll when I was little, never knew they were on a plane! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AV O Posted April 24, 2020 Share Posted April 24, 2020 (edited) I missed that one when you made it. Airliners are definitely meteorites bound to travel into the depth of the forum. Thank you for bringing it back to front. There was an earlier Moomins design on a DC-10. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/27642-airliners-modern-trijets-1200th/&_fromLogin=1 It was then, the wonderful time of colourful airliners. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/27926-airliners-md-90-1200th/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/27888-airliners-jumbos-1200th/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/27684-airliners-trijets-smaller-ones-and-biggest-1200th/ Edited April 25, 2020 by AV O Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orion Posted April 24, 2020 Share Posted April 24, 2020 Hello Viking, Excellent model. A joy to look at. regards, Orion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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