1/200 Hogan Cathay Pacific Airbus A330-300

[Columbia20713]

I feel like this skirts the definition of scale modelling that this forum pertains to, but I suppose this project uses many of the same skills involved. Please delete or move if this doesn't belong here.

 

I've had an itch to build a 1/144 A330 for a while, but given the high price and shipping of the Authentic Airliners A330, and the rarity of the Revell kit, I decided to just repaint one into the colors I wanted. 

This is the Hogan 1/200 Saudia A330-300 that I'll be repainting into the old Cathay Pacific colors with registration B-HLV. Hogan provides a relatively detailed model to start with, and the snap-fit nature of it means that it's easy to work on different components separately. This is what the model looked like before stripping:

 

 

In the time before the physical work of stripping and repainting started, I went to work on the decals for the model, all of which will be printed at home. After sizing and resizing over and over to fit the model, the decals were all finished recently, probably the most difficult aspect of the entire job:

 

 

(It's low-res because this was just a screenshot off of Photoshop)

 

And the fuselage and tail were recently stripped completely of paint after a decal test that ensured all of them lined up:

 

 

I think the rest of this half-build will blow by fast. I've been thinking of adding the antennas and other detail along the top of the fuselage, but the issue would be where to get the measurements for those. I'm not sure if those modifications are worth making in 1/200, to be honest.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Columbia20713

[Britman]

Nice work on the decals. I am not familiar with Hogan models but looks good.

 

Keith

[Columbia20713]

On 6/9/2020 at 2:06 PM, Britman said:

Nice work on the decals. I am not familiar with Hogan models but looks good.

 

Keith

Thanks! Hogan is an airline model brand that's more popular with model collectors rather than builders, so that wouldn't be surprising.

 

Before priming the fuselage I want to focus first on adding the prominent features of the A330 that aren't included on the kit that I can modify or scratchbuild. Firstly, the A330 has this dome on top of the fuselage along with other antennae that the manufacturer didn't include. I'm not sure what it's called, but I assume it's similar to the domes on other airliners for satellite communication or Wi-Fi connection aboard.  It's very visible in the image here: 

 

I gathered my references and made a simple model in Sketchup of the dome and imported it in Cura for 3D printing. 

 

 

This was scaled to size afterwards. Now, the 3D printer I have is an FDM printer meaning for the most part it can never come close to detail that's as good as those on scale model kits, which is why I plan to smooth it over with epoxy afterwards. But my aim was to get something that I can easily control the proportions and shape of much more so than scratchbuilding it with Milliput, and I think the result is alright.

 

 

I also decided to test the fit of the decals I designed by printing them on a spare of defective decal paper. It has an issue where it shrinks over the span of months and this has ruined many of my past models, but I already had the paper lying around so they were perfect for this purpose, and I can solve any issues before committing with the expensive stuff. Also, I needed a guideline for the cheatlines as this kit doesn't have any panel lines or surface features to go by when masking, so I lightly scribed lines around where the cheatline should be.

 

 

I think the decals fit pretty well at this point, and for something that's homemade, I'll take it. 

 

My next issue to deal with would be the actuator fairings on the tail, visible on the image above, which are the smaller kind, which are on the earlier production A330s. Cathay Pacific had some A330s with the earlier fairing, but B-HLV isn't one of them;

 

 

 My issue now will have to do with finding accurate shape profiles of the new actuator fairing, which should be easy given the abundance of photos of the area, and scratchbuilding them onto the aircraft. 

Edited June 10, 2020 by Columbia20713
Added segment on tail fairings

[Columbia20713]

After sanding off the seams and old paint, I masked and painted up the engines in a mix I already had of the lighter CX gray;

 

 

I then modelled and 3D printed the new tail fairings based on online references and superglued them onto the model. Afterwards, the gaps were filled in with epoxy putty and then covered with other putties to help eliminate the layer lines. I'll leave them to dry and sand them off later on. The fairings look too large compared to what you see in real A330s but I'm hoping some of the sanding later on can correct that a little. 

 

 

[Columbia20713]

In the past few days, I primed the fuselage with two overall coats, sanding in between.

 

 

Afterwards, I sprayed the fuselage with MRP Flat White, which left a pretty durable and smooth surface after painting. I didn't expect to use so much of the bottle from spraying the fuselage though.

 

 

This isn't my most in-focus picture, but it should work. I'll be masking off the fuselage stripe for painting, and I still have to find a better color combo for the center fuselage stripe in the old CX colors, as I feel like my current mix is a tad too dark. Masking will also be a bit of a chore with few reference points for guiding the masking lines, and most of it will just be guesswork and eyeballing it. 

[Columbia20713]

Since the last post I've made quite a bit of progress. I masked off the corresponding fuselage stripes for the livery and sprayed the two blue colors used on the fuselage:

 

 

By the way, on the center stripe the mix sprayed was 1 part XF-18 to 10 parts XF-2. This turned out way too dark, so I had to overspray it with white. Somehow on every occasion that I try to make mixes for that center stripe, I've always had it end up darker than I want it to be. 

 

I then applied the decals. I also took this chance to attach the fragile bits, cut out from plasticard. I knocked them off the model quite a few times though, and I may end up knocking them off even more. There isn't really a way to work around it because gluing something to it when it's all said and done and the gloss coat is on may damage the finish. 

 

 

 

Also, the wings at this point should be ready for decals, however I ran into an issue where lacquer thinner that spilled damaged the paint finish on one of the wings. I sprayed over it with the closest metallic I could find, Tamiya LP-11, but it still looks very out-of-place. 

I tried to polish it but I ended up scratching the oversprayed finish making it worse.

 

I might respray this but this time around make it a hard-edged surface and try to make it look more natural, but I'm still thinking about what to do about this. For now though, the rest of the build is going smoothly in a rough sense of the word. 

[Columbia20713]

Unfortunately I wasn't able to update this thread much after that last update, but I finished this build relatively quickly. You can see the Ready For Inspection post here: