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Well.
It all started when I decided to build a Minicraft 1/144th scale
Boeing 737-400. Having recently built their 737-300 kit there were no nasty
surprises so I thought. I figured it would be a quick easy build.
For
those non-airliner types the Boeing 737 is considered a narrow body short to mid
range airliner. It came in three sizes in this series. The –400 was the
longest with 170 seats. The –500 was the shortest with 130 seats. The –300
was probably the most popular with 149 seats. Recently this series of 737s are
being replaced by the 737ng (new generation) which have modifications to
fuselage length, wings, and flight
deck instruments amongst other things.
Basically
the kit is fantastic and a lot of fun to build. It is finely scribed in grayish
plastic and comes with US Airways decals. Throw the glue in the box and shake it
up and pops a nice airplane. The only areas of the kit, which needed a lot of
attention, were the wheel wells and the engine intakes.
I
started the kit by scratch building wheel wells for the nose gear & main
gear. There is an empty void in the belly of the aircraft so sheet plastic took
care of this. As with my building technique superglue with accelerator was used
for all assembly. Putty was only required for fairing the windscreen and engine
pylons. A tail bumper was made with sheet plastic and glued in place. It got
shaped on the airplane with wet sanding and “Mr.
Surfacer
500”. The nose profile looked incorrect so it was reshaped with wet sanding
400 and 600 grit sandpaper. All Boeings have a lobe crease where the floor meets
the fuselage so this was scribed in then wet sanded between coats of Mr.
Surfacer 500 & 1000.
Discussions on the Airline Modelers Digest had suggested the rear fuselage of
this Minicraft kit was incorrect. I checked it against some drawings and found
it a little wide with not quite enough of a taper. This was fixed with a neat
tool called a Flex-I-file. It is an ingenious sanding invention. It takes a
strip of sandpaper and stretches it tight between a metal C shaped holder. It
loves to sand round or curved surfaces with precision not possible by hand
sanding.
One
thing after another I just started doing all these extra things to the model.
Looking at it one night I decided to actually do some detailing with a brass
detail set. This set is made by Daco of Belgium and includes Scale pitot tubes
and blade aerials. Boy are pitot tubes small in this scale!! I scribed a small
slot for each blade aerial and attached them with superglue. I drilled holes for
the pitot tubes and different lights on the Aircraft which I planned to use MV
lenses which are manufactured for model railroads. They are a real authentic
scale item that I use on all airliners I build. These holes for lights included
fuselage ice lights, logo lights on the horizontal stabs and landing lights on
the underside of the flap canoes.
About
this time I was trying to decide on an Airline livery. I happened to pay a visit
to AHS (Airline Hobby Supply). Russ Brown the owner whipped out this decal that
Daco had just recently released. It was a sheet for a stunning color scheme of
Citybird of
Belgium.
I just fell for this dark green scheme. Very classy! Of course I ended up buying
two sheets unknown to me that I would end up needing both!
Back
at the shop I continued with the build. Next came the engines. They required
some work on the intakes otherwise you would see seams and locator pins. I
solved this by gluing the engine cowlings together then inserting a plastic tube
up to the fan blade. It was glued then cut flush and wet sanded to finish. There
we go a home made seamless sucker. The engines were attached to the wings ready
for Boeing gray paint.
Now
for the exciting part the painting process. This turned out to be a new
adventure in modeling. I thought I had seen it all! The fuselage color was
painted with a Tamiya spray can Lacquer British Racing Green. This paint gave me
a smooth as glass finish. I happened to notice the color was too light so I
decided to repaint it with Gunze “Mr. Color”. It is an acrylic lacquer so it
was well thinned with lacquer thinner and darkened to the correct shade of
green. It sprayed on to a nice finish. Much to my surprise the finish was an
absolutely flat sheen. Then the gray color was sprayed on the underside and it
too was a flat sheen.
This
where I decided to be lazy and break all the modeling rules. Decal over flat
paint? I figured that Solvaset
would settle a decal on any surface. Of course I was wrong. A few of the decals
silvered. At this point I had to leave the model alone for a few days to recoup
from my errors. I ended up peeling the decals off with masking tape. Fortunately
lacquer finishes are very tough and can take the abuse of sticking masking tape
on and ripping off to get the decals off. With it all cleaned off I started to
spray clear lacquer on the fuselage to give a good gloss for the second set of
decals decals. Another painting adventure. I didn’t thin the clear laquer
enough and as I sprayed it created a lot of dust and cobwebs from the lacquer
drying before it hit the model. The CityBird fuselage was a real “Pity bird”
now. I was ready to quit at this point. I took a quick break and took some paper
towel dampened with lacquer and cleaned the dust and webs off. Another try with
the clear lacquer thinned about 80% and about 12 psi. gave me a glass finish. It
was finally looking like I would finish this kit with out throwing it out!
I
then applied the decals for a second time with no problems. I let them dry for a
few days. At this point the fuselage was clear coated with lacquer thinned to
about 90% thinner to give an absolutely glassy finish.
Next
came the flying surfaces. The engine/wing/tailplane assemblies were painted with
lacquer as well. I used a new product called Alclad 2 bare metal for the engine
fans and leading edges. Decals were used for the Coroguard anti corrosive panels
on the wings. I then clear coated the wings with Testors Dullcoat.
The
landing gear was straight out of the box. It got painted with Alclad and tires a
dark grayish black. A quick coat of Dullcoat sealed the gear.
Now
for the final assembly. The wings and tailplanes were glued in place and
alignment checked visually. The gear and wheels were set with fifteen-minute
epoxy. I assemble gear with epoxy so I can take the time and place the aircraft
on its gear. The gear was aligned pushing the gear legs with a pencil until they
all lined up and the aircraft is sat correctly. I used MV Lenses for the various
lights glued in with white glue. The final parts to be attached were the very
fragile etched pitot tubes.
After
this model was all finished I took a bit of time to reflect on all the
challenges I had caused myself. It was definitely a learning experience and a
real Pity bird.
Suppliers:
MV
Lenses, Gunze Mr. Color - Northstar Hobbies
Daco
Products- AHS (Airline hobby Supply)
Alcald
2 bare metal finish – Aviation World
Andrew
IPMS
Toronto
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