Alex1978 Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Since Zvezda released their superb Boeing 757 kit,Minicrafts effort sank even more in the favour of airliner modellers. As I had 2 of those in my stash,I thought if they cant be sold I might build them as well so I started work on both simultaneously. On both I chose to use the kits decals as they seemed nicely printed and I liked the respective liveries. The Eastern 757 was planned to build factory fresh as I found some pictures on the internet showing the 757 highly polished. First thing I did on the kit was correcting somehow the tail fin. It should be straight at the top and not raising from front to end. I sawed off a piece of it to get it levelled. The interlocking mechanism of the wings were cut off as well,it makes the alignment much easier. The most work was spent on the engines; As they come,they look terrible and if built and glued to the wings oob,the face upwards like on the 737MAX ,but more steep. First thing I did was sanding out the inlets on both halves,then inserting a piece of plasic tube to create a new seamless inlet. The nacelle also has a enhightened top were the engine mounts will be glued on to. Those were sanded off and that area flattened,so that the engine mounts will sit flush on the nacelles. Then the rear of the mounts were pressed down to sit on the hot section,glued on with CA glue. The mounts were cut down a bit to have a pointy end and straightened out.So if the engines are glued on the wing they will sit straight. The engine inlet and outlet rings were recreated by using evergreen 0.5mm plastic sheet,glued to the front,resp. end of the engines. Once hardened for about 2 days,the plastic sheet can be drilled open and then sanded to shape. This way no seam will be seen at the end. A lot of work but it improves the appearance of the engines tremendously,if you dont want to spend money on replacement parts. Some slight correction work was also done on the nose section to get it more 757 like. Here some putty and sanding did the job. The rest of the build is more or less by the book. For the metallic finish,I used Gunze chrome with some aluminium areas,with a gloss black base. The grey for the wings and tailplanes is Gunze grey 315 and the coroguard my own mix of Tamyia metallic grey and light grey. The windows are from Authentic Airliners and some metallic decal stripes were added to the fuselage to give a bit more detail to the metallic finish. Sealed with a thin layer of Gunze Premium gloss on the fuselage and semi-gloss on the wings. Cheers Alex With the AA 757,which can be seen in the other RFI... 20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abandoned Project Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Ooh, nice and shiny. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex1978 Posted March 8, 2022 Author Share Posted March 8, 2022 16 minutes ago, Abandoned Project said: Ooh, nice and shiny. Thank you very much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAT69 Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 That looks wonderful! Much better than I ever expected a Minicraft kit to look. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vince1159 Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Gorgeous build,needs an L-1011 Hockeystick livery for company though... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesa Jussila Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Metal paint looks really nice. i really hope I learn that skill one day. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phildagreek Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Nice! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex1978 Posted March 8, 2022 Author Share Posted March 8, 2022 1 hour ago, SAT69 said: That looks wonderful! Much better than I ever expected a Minicraft kit to look. 40 minutes ago, phildagreek said: Nice! Thank you very much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex1978 Posted March 8, 2022 Author Share Posted March 8, 2022 1 hour ago, Vince1159 said: Gorgeous build,needs an L-1011 Hockeystick livery for company though... Thank you very much. I actually have a 1/100 Nitto L-1011 that I built many years ago in the Hockey stick livery. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex1978 Posted March 8, 2022 Author Share Posted March 8, 2022 1 hour ago, Vesa Jussila said: Metal paint looks really nice. i really hope I learn that skill one day. Thank you very much. It was a lot of trial and error in the past years with metallic colors/shades. Thats also a reason why I didnt dare to do airliners with a pure metallic finish for a long time. I learned it on engines and other small parts and with time I got more experienced and thus I dared to start building such models Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted March 10, 2022 Share Posted March 10, 2022 Pinging fabulous! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex1978 Posted March 10, 2022 Author Share Posted March 10, 2022 3 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said: Pinging fabulous! Thank you very much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Challenger350Pilot Posted March 12, 2022 Share Posted March 12, 2022 Really nice builds, Alex. They both looks amazing. Wouldn't have known or guessed they were Minicraft nightmares, but you have made these sows ears into silk purses. Very nice work on the natural metal finish. Love the retro liveries, and you have done a great job here! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex1978 Posted March 13, 2022 Author Share Posted March 13, 2022 On 12/03/2022 at 13:52, Challenger350Pilot said: Really nice builds, Alex. They both looks amazing. Wouldn't have known or guessed they were Minicraft nightmares, but you have made these sows ears into silk purses. Very nice work on the natural metal finish. Love the retro liveries, and you have done a great job here! Thank you very much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMCS Posted March 13, 2022 Share Posted March 13, 2022 Fantastic finish 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viking Posted March 13, 2022 Share Posted March 13, 2022 Great improvement to the Minicraft kit! The eastern one in particular is lovely. Cheers John 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex1978 Posted March 13, 2022 Author Share Posted March 13, 2022 5 hours ago, RMCS said: Fantastic finish Thank you very much 2 hours ago, Viking said: Great improvement to the Minicraft kit! The eastern one in particular is lovely. Cheers John Thank you very much John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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