1/72 Boeing 737-200 Air Zimbabwe

[mitchem]

On 8/15/2022 at 8:46 AM, kev67 said:

Great progress, how did you do the silver passenger window frames

 

Hi @kev67

 

Apologies for the delay in responding.

 

Some time ago, I bought a Silhouette cutter and some sheets of vinyl masking. After a bit lot of messing about on the computer, I taught myself how to design and make masks to meet specific needs.

 

With regards to the window frames, I've started here by placing a window mask on a sheet of black plastic :

 

 

The cheatline would then be airbrushed over this (red in this case) :

 

 

Once the paint has dried, another mask is applied on top (Need to be very careful to try and ensure that the frame gap is the same width all the way around the window) :

 

 

Airbrush silver over the masks :

 

 

...and when everything is dry, carefully remove both masks :

 

 

Repeat as many times as you need 😁 :

 

 

mike

[mitchem]

Well, a bit of a momentous occasion this weekend after a near disaster. To say that I struggled with the port "tail to cheatline" masking and painting, would be an understatement ! Let's just say that at one point, I had to sand portions of the coloured stripes back to the white base before re-masking and repainting - Not nice.

 

Three days later, the symmetry was there, or thereabouts :

 

 

 

I also blended in the tops of the engines into the wings, applied the wing tip lights after drilling them out and painting green and red, and painted a couple of door frames using my homemade masks :

 

 

 

I think I can put the green, yellow and red paints away now  👍

 

mike

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Looks great, whatever you think of your efforts thus far!  As for the window outlines, I used the same technique on my Tu-134A, but employed a mix of commercially available circle masks because the windows were circular.  Not so with the 737 and other designs, so you really had to jump to the challenge here.  In the past I've used silver surround decals over empty cabin windows and filled them with Kristal Klear, but that also has limits.  

[keefr22]

That is looking absolutely stunning Mike - even KEN will be impressed by that cheatline! Brilliant work on the window outlines too! 👍

 

K

[Alex1978]

That looks teriffic.

Cant wait to see the finished result👍

[mitchem]

9 hours ago, TheyJammedKenny! said:

Looks great, whatever you think of your efforts thus far!  As for the window outlines, I used the same technique on my Tu-134A, but employed a mix of commercially available circle masks because the windows were circular.  Not so with the 737 and other designs, so you really had to jump to the challenge here.  In the past I've used silver surround decals over empty cabin windows and filled them with Kristal Klear, but that also has limits.  

 

Many thanks @TheyJammedKenny!. Worth remembering as I just happen to have one of these buried in the attic :

 

 

 

7 hours ago, keefr22 said:

That is looking absolutely stunning Mike - even KEN will be impressed by that cheatline! Brilliant work on the window outlines too! 👍

 

K

 

Cheers Keith. Just wish I could build them as fast as Ken (I'm sure he's using Superglue again in spite of doctor's orders...  😀)

 

7 hours ago, Alex1978 said:

That looks teriffic.

Cant wait to see the finished result👍

 

Thanks Alex - me too !

 

mike

[keefr22]

1 hour ago, mitchem said:

(I'm sure he's using Superglue again in spite of doctor's orders...  😀)

 

 

We'll find out if he comes to the next meeting with a guide dog....!! 🤣  (although I won't as I can't make it tomorrow)

 

K

[mitchem]

I'm afraid that progress on the 737 has slowed down after getting distracted with another build. (Stay tuned as I'm hoping to reveal both completed builds at the same time !)

 

In the meantime, I have drilled out the door portholes and painted out the door surrounds

 

 

 

The next step is to start painting the engines, and once they have been completed, it will be time to join the wings to the fuselage. Before that can happen, the cheatline and white components of the scheme are going to have to be buried under masking tape. It could be the last time you see these guys for some time

 

 

I ended the day off by printing out four sets of decals to complete the markings. (My home-made decals are printed out using an inkjet printer, and based on past experiences, I know how fragile they can be - always good to have spares available 😀 )

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

mike

[keefr22]

Nice! 

 

1 hour ago, mitchem said:

(Stay tuned as I'm hoping to reveal both completed builds at the same time !)

 

Looking forward to that!

 

K

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Beautiful!  I love the logic behind your assembly process.  Easy does it with this one.  

[Winded Penguin]

Very late to this topic. 

Like everyone I'm impressed by the outstanding results being achieved 👍

 

However, beyond all that, I'm struck by how indispensably useful a silhouette cutter obviously can be to achieving the final look for this project.

[mitchem]

Minor setback when I realised that I didn't have enough metallic paint for the engines, and what I did have, looked like it was well past its shelf-life ! 🙄

 

Off to do some internet shopping and as I couldn't find a retailer that had all three of the colours that I wanted, I ended up buying some other stuff that I didn't really need. To top it all, the bottle of polished aluminium that I wanted to start with still hasn't arrived. 🥴

 

Anyway - time to focus on the tailplanes. I had previously inserted some brass tubing through the rear fuselage, with the intention of using slightly narrower tubing to strengthen the join. It's going take some adjusting but it looks like it could work, as long as I don't over-complicate things:

 

 

Messing about with more masks:

 

• The kit does provide etched handles for the passenger doors, but these won't be fitted until later on. In the meantime, the indentations in the doors need to be painted so I designed some masks for these.
• As I'm planning on painting the wing escape route, I designed masks for those too
• If you look close enough, you'll see the mask that I made for the narrow white strip that runs below the curved part of the cheatline. This narrow strip will run around the front of the fuselage but not down the length to the tail.

 

•  

After a splash of paint and the addition of some dark grey panel liner:

 

 

(I'm pretty sure that the black escape arrows won't survive the process of attaching the wing to the fuselage! 😁)

 

...and just because I'm impatient, I needed to mock the thing up for motivational purposes (Don't panic - none of the horizontal bits have been glued to the fuselage)

 

 

...All I need now is for the polished aluminium to turn up....

 

mike

[keefr22]

Coming along nicely Mike - get a wriggle on and it'll be ready for Wednesday....!! 🤣

 

17 hours ago, mitchem said:

...All I need now is for the polished aluminium to turn up....

 

 

OK, excuse ready for it not to be!!

 

Keith (who just might have two, yes two, things ready! )

[mitchem]

6 hours ago, keefr22 said:

Keith (who just might have two, yes two, things ready! )

 

...I may have to borrow one of your "things" Keith....

 

My KUTA build backfired big time, but on the plus side, I now have six things on the go for our next KUTA Competition! 🤣

 

mike

[keefr22]

3 hours ago, mitchem said:

I now have six things

 

Only 6? I've got about 30...!! 🤣

 

K

[woody37]

On 9/10/2022 at 8:45 PM, mitchem said:

I'm afraid that progress on the 737 has slowed down after getting distracted with another build. (Stay tuned as I'm hoping to reveal both completed builds at the same time !)

 

In the meantime, I have drilled out the door portholes and painted out the door surrounds

 

 

 

The next step is to start painting the engines, and once they have been completed, it will be time to join the wings to the fuselage. Before that can happen, the cheatline and white components of the scheme are going to have to be buried under masking tape. It could be the last time you see these guys for some time

 

 

I ended the day off by printing out four sets of decals to complete the markings. (My home-made decals are printed out using an inkjet printer, and based on past experiences, I know how fragile they can be - always good to have spares available 😀 )

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

mike

Loving the work you are putting into this, my favourite 737 version!

 

I've found spraying home made decals with car lacquer strengthens them up considerably. Apply a misting coat first and let it dry a few minutes then another 2 to 3 light coats and they are ready to use with an hour. From printing to applying, I've done in less than 1hr.

[mitchem]

...so the 737 and I had a pretty serious falling out, inasmuch as the fuselage fell out of my hands and hit the floor. The tail snapped off (not where it was joined to the fuselage) and broke into four pieces; one of which is still missing. Cue blue mushroom cloud above my head 🤯

 

Nearly three weeks later and I have managed to repair the damage. This involved making a new part from plastic card, gluing the fragments together, rescribing the panel lines, gluing the tail back on, blending it in, and then repainting the tail stripes from scratch. And when I mean "from scratch", I mean that I had to sand the paint back to plastic and start with a gloss white base. (Useless tip if you weren't already aware - self-levelling thinners is pretty good at blending colours togeether and spraying more and more paint on top doesn't help. I realised this when the yellow portion of the tail stripes looked more orange than yellow, while the red on the other side of the demarcation started looking more orange than red! 😱)

 

Anyway, I got there in the end, and while all the repair work was going on, I managed to get the engines painted too.

 

I also took the opportunity to tweak some of the paintwork, and this included reducing the diameter of the door port holes by gently sanding the silver surrounds off

 

After temporarily attaching the horizontal tail surfaces, this is where we are now :

 

 

...and from a lower angle

 

 

 

 

(The location of the Pratt and Whitney engine logos were masked on both sides of each engine, and while the registration decal has been applied to the back of the fuselage, it will be removed before being replaced with a thinner version as the varnish layer is a bit thick).

 

Next step is to mask the fuselage up completely before joining the wings permanently.

 

Thanks for looking

 

mike 

[keefr22]

Excellent save Mike - when you told me of the crash I had visions of it taking a final flight into the bin! Honestly can't see the join(s), looks as good as new!

 

K

 

PS Clivey says he has a spare ICM P-51D that he grabbed from the builder's bag if you want it for the comp.. 

 

[Moggy]

For shown fortitude and determination - hat's off to you 👍

 

Cheers, Moggy

[Back in the Saddle]

Good save Mike, it’s an invisible repair!

[mitchem]

On 10/15/2022 at 1:47 PM, keefr22 said:

Excellent save Mike - when you told me of the crash I had visions of it taking a final flight into the bin! Honestly can't see the join(s), looks as good as new!

 

K

 

PS Clivey says he has a spare ICM P-51D that he grabbed from the builder's bag if you want it for the comp.. 

 

 

Thanks Keith. I think the bin would have been safe as the air was too blue to see it 🤣 (ICM P-51D? Now searching for any scheme without stripes ! 😁

 

On 10/15/2022 at 4:45 PM, Moggy said:

For shown fortitude and determination - hat's off to you 👍

 

Cheers, Moggy

 

Thanks Moggy, More like blind obsession and pig-headedness  

 

On 10/15/2022 at 9:39 PM, Back in the Saddle said:

Good save Mike, it’s an invisible repair!

 

Thanks Matt. You should see the other side 😁

[mitchem]

Been building models for more years than I care to remember, so why on earth did I decide to jump the gun and apply decals to the fuselage before joining the wings? 

 

 

I guess I needed the motivation 😁

 

 

It looks like "Great Zimbabwe" is coming to life 👍

 

mike

[keefr22]

Looks stunning Mike! 

 

Have you left yourself a tricky masking job before painting the wings?

 

K

[mitchem]

15 minutes ago, keefr22 said:

Looks stunning Mike! 

 

Have you left yourself a tricky masking job before painting the wings?

 

K

 

Thanks Keith.

 

Loads of cunning plans ahead revolving around masking, spraying, masking, spraying, etc. I can see it in my head - it's just a case of making it happen in the correct sequence. 😁

[keefr22]

Good luck!

 

K