BluesModeller Posted March 20, 2022 Share Posted March 20, 2022 Have been trying to pick up all four of the Matchbox Airliner kits recently. Have had the 747 for a while and that is in the final stages. I can now add the 727 to the list. Hopefully I can score the remaining two as they turn up on eBay pretty regularly. Sometimes at silly prices but frequently can be had for under a tenner with p&p. This kit (at first glance) seems to be better moulded than the 747. Much crisper with zero flash. I’ll find out soon when I start assembling. The decal sheet is also in better condition although the one for the 747 isn’t that bad to be fair. Going to plough through this build and have a big painting session of both this and the 747 in a few days. Going for the American Airlines livery. Always liked that stripe on the polished aluminium (?) body. Not sure what to use for that. I always use the Revell aluminium for most jobs but that won’t look right on this. Perhaps the Tamiya silver? I don’t really want to shell out on fancy metallic paints but I’m open to suggestions. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JOCKNEY Posted March 20, 2022 Share Posted March 20, 2022 Great to see this one on here @BluesModeller, best of luck with it 👍 Cheers Pat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliffB Posted March 22, 2022 Share Posted March 22, 2022 A great choice @BluesModeller, I've always liked this AA scheme too. Tamiya X-11 'Chrome Silver' might be a suitable choice, although I've no experience of using it for large areas. Cheers 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesModeller Posted March 24, 2022 Author Share Posted March 24, 2022 On 22/03/2022 at 06:39, CliffB said: A great choice @BluesModeller, I've always liked this AA scheme too. Tamiya X-11 'Chrome Silver' might be a suitable choice, although I've no experience of using it for large areas. Cheers Thanks Cliff, just ordered some to try! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefan Buysse Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 Cool! Having built this one in the Iberia scheme, I loook forward to seeing one in the AA scheme. Cheers, Stefan. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabbit Leader Posted March 25, 2022 Share Posted March 25, 2022 Nice choice @BluesModeller, these little airliners look quite good so its great to see another one being built here. Having flown in an American Airlines 727 from Miami to Barbados (1995 Cricket tour) I can honestly say that the upper fuselage surfaces where left in Natural Metal Finish (NMF) and the glare as I stepped off the passenger stairs was so strong. I recall thinking about the poor AA engineers having to work on these aircraft in hot zones like this and thought how unbearable it would have been. My choice for NMF is AK's Extreme range of Metallic paints. Give them a good undercoat of gloss black and these 'silver' paints go on like a dream. Cheers and best of luck.. Dave 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesModeller Posted March 26, 2022 Author Share Posted March 26, 2022 19 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said: Nice choice @BluesModeller, these little airliners look quite good so its great to see another one being built here. Having flown in an American Airlines 727 from Miami to Barbados (1995 Cricket tour) I can honestly say that the upper fuselage surfaces where left in Natural Metal Finish (NMF) and the glare as I stepped off the passenger stairs was so strong. I recall thinking about the poor AA engineers having to work on these aircraft in hot zones like this and thought how unbearable it would have been. My choice for NMF is AK's Extreme range of Metallic paints. Give them a good undercoat of gloss black and these 'silver' paints go on like a dream. Cheers and best of luck.. Dave It’s a shame they dropped the polished aluminium finish and went with painting their fuselages. Understandable though given the use of different materials / composites in modern aircraft. I’ll keep an eye out for that paint when I take a trip to my LMS. I’m sure they have AK stuff in. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterB Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 (edited) 11 hours ago, BluesModeller said: I’ll keep an eye out for that paint when I take a trip to my LMS. I’m sure they have AK stuff in. As Dave says, the AK Xtreme Metallic paint is good, but when I started looking for some more a week ago I could not find it except on Amazon with silly postage costs. I believe it is Spanish in origin so may be down to Brexit, but at something like £6 a bottle as previously, but with a further £10 or so postage it is getting rather too pricy for me. Pete Edited March 26, 2022 by PeterB 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jean Posted March 26, 2022 Share Posted March 26, 2022 And I had no idea Matchbox had ever made airliners at all, let alone in that scale!!!!!! It can be made into a little jewel! Have a lot of fun. JR 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesModeller Posted March 26, 2022 Author Share Posted March 26, 2022 4 hours ago, PeterB said: As Dave says, the AK Xtreme Metallic paint is good, but when I started looking for some more a week ago I could not find it except on Amazon with silly postage costs. I believe it is Spanish in origin so may be down to Brexit, but at something like £6 a bottle as previously, but with a further £10 or so postage it is getting rather too pricy for me. Pete I know what you mean! The prices on a lot of modelling supplies on Amazon are getting silly. Even Prime stuff has a premium on it. Random stuff does still pop up at good prices but it’s getting rarer. I just ordered a load of supplies from Wonderland models. Might not need a lot of it for a while but the postage was more than reasonable enough for what I got. always good to support my LMS as well. Would much rather give them my money than some of the mickey takers out there. If I’m going to be honest chaps, I’ll try and get hold of this paint to try with the Tamiya ones I have. If I can’t get it for whatever reason and the Tamiya ones aren’t that close I’m not going to worry. They certainly look more metallic than the Revell aluminium (which I do like for certain applications) and the Vallejo model air metallic paints which have proven a disaster on a previous project. At this scale as long as it’s silver and shiny it’ll probably look fine. If it was a 1/144 model I’d be more discerning about the finish. It for a small, quick and fun build I’m happy for good enough. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesModeller Posted March 26, 2022 Author Share Posted March 26, 2022 2 hours ago, jean said: And I had no idea Matchbox had ever made airliners at all, let alone in that scale!!!!!! It can be made into a little jewel! Have a lot of fun. JR Me neither. I used to have the die cast Matchbox aircraft as a kid and don’t remember ever seeing these. Although I’d probably given up playing with toy cars and planes by the time these had come out. Early 90’s I think? Didn’t realise the Revell Air Canada one I had done was a Matchbox Rebox but as soon as I found out (I think someone mentioned it on here) I was searching eBay for the 747 and then the others. They come up fairly regularly and can be had in excellent condition for under a tenner. Seen them being sold for £60 too. Not that rare!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesModeller Posted April 8, 2022 Author Share Posted April 8, 2022 Well this kit is proving not to be the quick and fun build I was hoping for. Although I’m putting this on a stand like the 747 I wanted to add the undercarriage for a little variation. Literally the one part with flash are the wheels. I doubt I could remove it and keep them round. Far too small. Also, the wheel bay doors, although free from flash, are softly and poorly moulded. Wouldn’t be too hard to fashion some out of plasticard but I’ve decided to build it ‘in flight’. There are also a few sink marks and other unsightly issues with this particular kit. What looked like a crisp moulding at first glance turned out to be anything but once the first primer coat went on. So it’s been covered in various fillers and primed a couple of times so far. Still a few minor imperfections which I’ll touch up over the weekend and then I can get on with the painting. Things should move pretty fast with this and the 747 after that. Sounds like a downer post but there is nothing seriously off with the kit. Just a little patience needed with sanding sticks and filler. Am losing some detail but at this scale it’s not an issue. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliffB Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 You're right, it can be a bit of pain getting rid of these surface imperfections, but it's well worth the effort with a nice shiny airliner I'm looking forward to seeing some paint and decals Cheers 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesModeller Posted May 5, 2022 Author Share Posted May 5, 2022 Annnnddd…. Disaster strikes! The Tamiya masking tape has reacted with the Tamiya Chrome Silver and left marks all over the finish. I’ll gently sand it back, mask the other bits and re-do it. If I had time I’d get all the paint off and start again using the Mr Hobby Super Metallic II Chrome Silver I got recently for another project. The Tamiya looks ok but it’s a bit grainy whereas the. Mr Hobby looks much more like polished aluminium even if it’s not advertised as that. Lessons learned though, and that can only be a good thing even if it doesn’t seem like it at the time. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Alpha Yankee Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 I've had the same happen, though with me I think it was not waiting long enough for the paint to cure before masking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesModeller Posted May 11, 2022 Author Share Posted May 11, 2022 Not 100% sure why this happened to be honest Ray… You could be right with this particular paint. I’ve since resprayed it and it still feels a little gummy and fragile after several hours. Perhaps that in combination with leaving the tape on too long. I’ll get it glossed ready for decals tomorrow. Feels like it will flake off just looking at it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesModeller Posted May 20, 2022 Author Share Posted May 20, 2022 The original decals are not playing ball even with decal restorer applied. I’m making some home made decals which is taking some time. She’s all ready and looking pretty shiny… Hoping the decals work out or I’m up a certain creak without a paddle. The 747 can be resprayed white and I can use the Air Canada set from the Revell kit. Don’t want to and hopefully won’t have to, but if my home made replacements don’t work then it’ll have to be as it is. Not very exciting I know. We’ll see…. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesModeller Posted May 30, 2022 Author Share Posted May 30, 2022 Decals are on, just a final gloss coat and a couple of minor touch ups and it’s done and dusted at last! Was able to use most of the original decal sheet unlike the 747. Only issue was getting the red, white and blue stripe to conform to the shape of the nose. It just wouldn’t and eventually broke up. Thankfully, I had my homemade decals to hand and was able to use part of that sheet to complete the decalling. Still didn’t want to conform as well as I hoped but with a few coats of Microsol I got there, although it did attack the ink so some touch ups are needed. Only other issue is that the decals are not scaled / shaped right so the front isn’t completely accurate but it doesn’t look that bad either so I’ll leave it. Hopefully have this and the 747 in the gallery by tonight or tomorrow at the latest! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JOCKNEY Posted May 30, 2022 Share Posted May 30, 2022 They both look superb, congratulations Cheers Pat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesModeller Posted June 2, 2022 Author Share Posted June 2, 2022 Done and dusted!!! Pretty happy with the end result. Less drama than the 747. The nose area could be better and the finish a bit shinier, but not too bad either. Will post some better photos in the gallery later. Thanks for viewing! 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 Looks awesome, is that a coaster as the base? I hope you won't get into trouble with the Domestic Authorities!!! Chris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesModeller Posted June 2, 2022 Author Share Posted June 2, 2022 Spotted it in IKEA. I think it may have been a lid for something you had to buy separate. Nice and cheap, but looks nice enough. I think I’m in trouble for pulling an all nighter to get these finished. Way, way too tired to go to the shops now! 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JOCKNEY Posted June 3, 2022 Share Posted June 3, 2022 Congratulations, that looks the absolute business Cheers Pat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Alpha Yankee Posted June 3, 2022 Share Posted June 3, 2022 Looks fabulous! 🏆 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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