BA 767-336 - One Refurbishment and Two New Builds.

[Back in the Saddle]

It's that time of year again when I find all sorts of new projects making their way towards the workbench...! 

 

I know I have plenty on the go already, but most of these are awaiting paint which requires better weather - I spray outdoors and need warmer, drier conditions. As @Paulaero will understand, these other models are generally at least 95% built, which qualifies me to start on something new in the meantime! 😁

 

This build is partly a new challenge and a bit of repetition too. The new bit is refurbishing one of my older models and this will form the bulk of this thread. The repetition part is concurrently building two untouched Revell 767-300 kits, which I did here a couple of years ago and I don't see any point in documenting it here again! However, these kits will throw up a few challenges along the way (more on this when I get to those parts!), hence their inclusion into this thread.

 

Let's start with the model to be refurbished. I would guess that I built it around 20 years ago, when my modelling skill set was rather more limited than it is now. It is the Revell 767-300, with RR engines and built to depict G-BNWA which I flew regularly at back in 2003. The model has been in the attic for years and I think it must have been dropped at some point too - luckily I still  have most of the pieces:

 

 

It's certainly been neglected and the attic did it no favours - it's covered in grime:

 

 

The refurbishment will consist of the following tasks-

 

1. Open the fuselage up and fill the windows with Milliput

2. Removal of the damaged undercarriage and rebuild the model with the gear doors closed

3. Replacement of the missing windscreen (the only piece that I cannot find!)

4. Removal of the old paint and re-spraying with an accurate demarcation line and correct shade of blue

5. Production of custom decals to give the model a new identity

 

To complete this introduction, the other two models in this build were purchased cheaply but with a few pieces missing. More importantly though, they both have the sprues for the RR engine option, so these will be built as BA aircraft. Here are the sprues:

 

 

And another shot, showing the first task completed - Milliput is applied:

 

 

It is well past its 'use by' date and quite dry and crumbly, but perfectly good enough for this job!

 

[FortyEighter]

Hi Matt,

 

I haven't flown in a BA 767 but will be interested to see your choice of livery for these three - World Tails by any chance?

 

Mike

 

 

[Back in the Saddle]

3 hours ago, FortyEighter said:

I haven't flown in a BA 767 but will be interested to see your choice of livery for these three - World Tails by any chance?

You know me too well Mike! 😁

 

The refurbished model was originally destined to become G-BNWV, a long haul aircraft in the "Colum" scheme. Decals were consequently purchased from F-DCAL:

 

 

I'm not entirely sure what happened next, as it was over a year ago... However, it involved scanning these, making a few amendments and reprinting them - I couldn't help myself as I felt there was room for improvement!

 

My corrected "Colum" decals will now go onto one of the two new builds.

 

The refurbished model is going to be a 'what if' model. I will depict it as G-BNWY, an aircraft that was repainted from the 'Landor' scheme straight into the 'Chatham' livery when the world image designs were being phased out. As an aside, the 'Chatham' livery it received was different from the current version, as the red/blue/red bands on the tail fin were lower, leaving a larger expanse of white at the top of the fin. Photos of this aircraft from that era look slightly odd as a result!

 

If the world image liveries had continued, G-BNWY would have received one too. I'm going for "Grand Union", one of the entries that won the Sunday Times competition to design a new tail fin and based upon the artwork on the sides of barges on the Grand Union canal - hence the name of this design. Out of interest "Chelsea Rose" was the other winner from this competition and was used much more extensively. Here's the image I'm replicating:

 

 

Quite an underused design, appearing on just eight aircraft. The 767 never received this one, so I thought that made it a good choice for this model!

 

As for the third kit, the jury is still out - there's plenty of time to decide!

[FortyEighter]

A pity that "Grand Union" wasn't widely used - I don't think I've noticed it before but it is a striking design and its roots are obvious to anyone who has walked along a towpath.

 

Interesting too that you scanned and made some corrections to the FDCAL "Colum".  I've got G-RAES (777-236 for other readers) to finish in "Delft Blue"; decals from FDCAL but they aren't quite right, especially round the horiz stabs but finding pictures taken from above (rather than side on) to refer to are hard to find.

 

Mike

[Gimme Shelter]

keep calm and '67 on.... enjoying this from the onset.

 

 

[Back in the Saddle]

1 hour ago, FortyEighter said:

A pity that "Grand Union" wasn't widely used - I don't think I've noticed it before but it is a striking design and its roots are obvious to anyone who has walked along a towpath.

From the artist's own website here she explains it was only applied to eight aircraft. It was not used as much as it could have been, but the same can be said about many of the later tail fin designs...🙁

 

1 hour ago, FortyEighter said:

Interesting too that you scanned and made some corrections to the FDCAL "Colum".  I've got G-RAES (777-236 for other readers) to finish in "Delft Blue"; decals from FDCAL but they aren't quite right, especially round the horiz stabs but finding pictures taken from above (rather than side on) to refer to are hard to find.

I've PM'ed you about this - I might be able to help!👍

 

1 hour ago, Gimme Shelter said:

keep calm and '67 on.... enjoying this from the onset.

Cheers John!

 

Work on the refurb continues. The nose gear bay was removed and the remains of the undercarriage were discarded, just keeping the doors:

 

 

The large doors were a single piece of plastic and went back into the same place easily. The smaller doors were the ones that hung down and needed to be retracted - I glued these together on bent paper to introduce some curvature:

 

 

Then added scrap around the recess to give them something to glue onto, as they were too small for the gap:

 

 

Once in place copious amounts of filler were added:

 

 

The tail skid also needed to be retracted. First it was gently removed:

 

 

And then eased into the gap and glued:

 

 

The next stage is sanding everything - windows, joint lines, gear doors, the whole lot! It should look a bit different next time I post.👍

 

 

[Gimme Shelter]

76's played a big part in our family for the last few years of Dad's command in BA when he went from long back to short haul - his retirement flight below back in 1998, City of Frankfurt out from LHR and the same back home that evening, where the flaps jammed at 5 degrees. He hated the tail fin designs of the time....

 

 

 

[Alex1978]

Great to see a refurbishment on the 767.

I did a few refurbishments myself and find them very enjoyable,giving new life to an old kit.

👍

[Back in the Saddle]

On 05/12/2023 at 21:42, Gimme Shelter said:

76's played a big part in our family for the last few years of Dad's command in BA when he went from long back to short haul - his retirement flight below back in 1998, City of Frankfurt out from LHR and the same back home that evening, where the flaps jammed at 5 degrees. He hated the tail fin designs of the time....

A memorable final flight and a great couple of pictures too - it looks like he was in a 'Landor' aircraft for his final trip!

 

On 05/12/2023 at 21:51, Alex1978 said:

Great to see a refurbishment on the 767.

I did a few refurbishments myself and find them very enjoyable, giving new life to an old kit.

Thanks Alex. It should look much better once it's finished!

 

Time for a look at the two I'm building from scratch and there are a couple of issues. One of the kits has this entire sprue missing:

 

 

I intend to get around that by building it with the gear up! However, I'm going to have to venture into the realms of casting resin for the first time to make replacement tailplanes...

 

The other issue is distortion on the tail fins:

 

 

Strong clamps and wooden splints should fix that!

 

I glued some scrap sheet into the nose bay area, to give me something to work with when I fill this area:

 

 

I also made a tail skid for the back end, using the one I had for a pattern:

 

 

This will be attached in the retracted position.

 

I've also started to play around with Photoshop to create a tail design:

 

 

Generally getting there, but more tweaking needed at the base where it wraps under the fuselage.

[Gimme Shelter]

you know where I'm headed Matt, straight onto that 1/72 Concorde link of yours...... no pressure !

[Back in the Saddle]

On 20/12/2023 at 21:25, Gimme Shelter said:

you know where I'm headed Matt, straight onto that 1/72 Concorde link of yours...... no pressure !

Funnily enough John, that build is also due for an update - much like this one...! 😀

 

Work has been progressing slowly on these three models. The warped fin was easily remedied as expected, using wooden splints and a clamp:

 

 

Which gave me the three completed fuselages - the top one will be finished with the gear down; the other two will be built with the gear retracted:

 

 

I've also given some more thought to the liveries and have now made up my mind!

 

The model with the gear down will be depicted as accurately as possible as G-BNWV in the 'Colum' livery. The other two will be "what if" liveries, with G-BNWY in the 'Grand Union' design and G-BNWI in an unused Utopia livery devised by Timothy Noad. I'll post some pictures of this one soon - it's quite striking and a real shame it was never utilised at the time.

 

I've also started to address the issue with the missing tailplane components. I built up the tailplanes that were included and attempted to replicate them using resin. The first task was making a mold to cast the pieces. I mixed up some alginate and dipped the tailplanes into this until they set. Note the box from an old  Airfix BAC 1-11 kit, which has somehow made into onto my bench despite having plenty of other kits on the go!

 

 

Here's the 1-11, as it doesn't justify having its own build thread!

 

The tailplanes were then gently extracted, ready for the resin:

 

 

Unfortunately resin and alginate molds do not work well together, resulting in moisture issues and unusable parts. Eagle-eyed readers will also notice that the alginate container is now a plastic mug - I had repeated the casting before learning about the incompatibly of resin with these molds...!

 

I will repeat my casting and use fine plaster instead - hopefully that will work better. Alternatively, I could try and source something other than alginate to make the molds, but I think plaster might be the easiest option?

[Back in the Saddle]

Having given this one a bit more thought, I decided plaster would not be the best material. Too brittle and weak - it has to be resin!

 

With this in mind I purchased a silicon mold making kit. Providing it works (🤞), I think I will have a few more uses for this product! Here's the kit:

 

 

The tailplane sections are already glued together and I need to completely submerge these until just the locating tabs are above the mixture:

 

 

I also mentioned the unused 'Utopia' livery I intend to use, designed by Timothy Noad. It is titled 'Heraldry' which is rather apt, as this is just one aspect of the work he does - more details on his website www.timothynoad.com. The design depicts the four flowers of the United Kingdom - an English rose, a Welsh daffodil, an Irish shamrock and a Scottish thistle. Here's a section of his design:

 

 

As ever, much Photoshopping will be required to transform this into something usable but I think it will be worth it to finally see a model with this livery.

 

[Back in the Saddle]

Time for an update!

I added the silicon compounds together as instructed in a 50:50 ratio and stirred briskly for 5 minutes to mix them. Quite a few bubbles were evident, so I left the mixture to settle for a while before pouring around it the tailplanes:

 

 

I also needed to cast some engine compressors for another project, so I did these at the same time. The silicon flowed very nicely around these complex shapes:

 

 

After 24 hours the silicon was solid and the pieces could be removed. I was a little trepidatious, but the tailplanes came out easily and left (what I hope!) is a perfect imprint in the silicon:

 

 

The compressor blades gave me a mixed result. One was too deeply mired into the silicon and came apart when I removed it. Fortunately the other one popped out easily, giving me a potential workable mold - I need to cast four fans in total for a 747 project I have on the bench:

 

 

The resin was bought online and was used in my first attempt to mold the tailplanes:

 

 

Again, the instructions were followed and mixed in a 10:3 ratio before adding to the silicon molds. It takes 48 hours to cure, so hopefully I will post an update on Friday!

[Back in the Saddle]

On 20/03/2024 at 18:25, Back in the Saddle said:

It takes 48 hours to cure, so hopefully I will post an update on Friday!

Or maybe on Monday, if the weekend is busy! 😁

 

The casting was suitably successful! 👍

 

The tailplanes are crisp and detailed, but both had a trapped air bubble on the trailing edge in the same place - I'm not sure why the air became trapped here but I'm hoping some filler will soon fix that! I think the resin may have 'subsided' during the curing process, as when I poured the resin the attachment tabs were present rather than being a hollow section.

 

The engine fan blades are actually better than I expected (but I had low expectations!). Unfortunately they are still not very good... The original part was from the Revell kit which was not a good starting point - the quality of that piece was poor, with distorted and damaged blades. The casting itself was very delicate, but I think it looks reasonable in the circumstances. Here are all the pieces:

 

 

Fortunately @Turbofan has come to the rescue again, with another offer of some Zvezda engine parts from his scrapbox - thanks Ian! I will use his blades on my 747-8 build instead of trying to mold replacement fans.

 

The tailplanes need a coat of primer to show any blemishes, but I'm confident I have some usable parts. The whole process of making a silicon mold and casting a resin replacement was an interesting diversion and one I would happily do again - providing the shape is simple. Molding fan blades may have been a bit ambitious...!

 

[Back in the Saddle]

A quick look at the refurbishment project now and specifically the engines. These were detached from the model and this their current state:

 

 

A good rub down is required then repainting - nothing more ambitious is planned, as that should rejuvenate them nicely.👍

 

I also did a bit more work on Photoshop to design the tailfin decals, which are now close to completion. The unused 'Heraldry' design by Timothy Noad is on the left; 'Grand Union' is on the right :

 

 

These won't be needed for a while but I'm hopeful that progress will be swift once the painting begins, so best to get them ready!

 

Talking of which, my next job will involve some paint, the new tailplanes and the engines...🙂