A330-200 (Revell A340-300 conversion) 1:144

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

On 9/14/2022 at 8:27 PM, Flying Badger said:

 

It was a fiddly pain in the bottom to fit and being resin it's heavy so it needs extra support as well.

 

If I did it again I would:

• Cut the resin tail off the sprue sand the bottom of it flat, mark the centre line on the flat bottom and then drill two long vertical holes up into the bottom of the resin tail to take some thin metal rods
• Glue a piece of plasticard to fill the hole cut in the fuselage left when you cut off the kit tail fin and mark the centre line on that fill piece
• Then glue a plasticard brace within the rear of the fuselage a good centimeter or two below the new hole filling piece.
• Drill holes to match those you drilled in the resin tail along the centre lines through both pieces of plasticard so that the metal rods when glued in can provide alignment and strength to hold the heavy resin tail fin in place.
• minor filling at the fuselage to resin fin join.

Incidentally this build is still on the shelf of doom after over 11 years since I started this thread 😳.... I have the DIY decals but I lost my DIY photo etch design for the GE engines when a hard drive died and I seem to be missing part of the main landing gear.... however, I am buying a resin printer soon so that might solve the engine and gear issue and let me finish the damn thing once and for all!

I have done this conversion twice, the first time I pretty much did the above. The second time I just glued the vertical stab straight to the cut out area with superglue. There was enough plastic for the glue to take hold of (it is still OK BTW)

[Flying Badger]

Opposite way round for me 😄 I did the glue straight to the plastic method with mine and the weight of the resin made it flex too much at the join so the filler I used to finesse the appearance of the join kept cracking.... ended up opening up the rear fuselage again and adding some rod / bracing from below. Although in retrospect if I'd used CA glue and talc as the filler it would have been much stronger and not cracked - so I guess that would work.

[Diogo Monteiro]

On 9/14/2022 at 11:57 AM, Flying Badger said:

 

It was a fiddly pain in the bottom to fit and being resin it's heavy so it needs extra support as well.

 

If I did it again I would:

• Cut the resin tail off the sprue sand the bottom of it flat, mark the centre line on the flat bottom and then drill two long vertical holes up into the bottom of the resin tail to take some thin metal rods
• Glue a piece of plasticard to fill the hole cut in the fuselage left when you cut off the kit tail fin and mark the centre line on that fill piece
• Then glue a plasticard brace within the rear of the fuselage a good centimeter or two below the new hole filling piece.
• Drill holes to match those you drilled in the resin tail along the centre lines through both pieces of plasticard so that the metal rods when glued in can provide alignment and strength to hold the heavy resin tail fin in place.
• minor filling at the fuselage to resin fin join.

Incidentally this build is still on the shelf of doom after over 11 years since I started this thread 😳.... I have the DIY decals but I lost my DIY photo etch design for the GE engines when a hard drive died and I seem to be missing part of the main landing gear.... however, I am buying a resin printer soon so that might solve the engine and gear issue and let me finish the damn thing once and for all!

I was exactly thinking abut making some small holes and use them as main support core in the tail. Thanks a lot for the feedback!! @Alex1978 was very kind by providing me the PW4000 engine set that I will need. The tail I've bought it in Aviation MegaStore in Amsterdam and I just need to finish my Tu-154 and I will move forward with my A330 sooner than I was expecting. Hope you can make the landing gear in your new printer. I follow two German planespotters/modellers (aileronvideos) on Instagram. They are currently assembling an Airbus Beluga XL that they've printed on their 3D printer. Maybe they can help you somehow with the process!