Revell B747-400 Ed Force One - Run To The Hills!

[nuuumannn]

Hi Guys, I've begun building this and am doing a follow-as-I-build on two different modelling forums, so I thought instead of duplicating it all, I'll just put a link to one of the sites. This is Kiwimodeller, for NZers and anyone else, really; nice guys as expected:

KiwiModeller .COM: Revell B747-400 Ed Force One - Run To The Hills! (1/1)

Thanks for looking.

 

[Wurger]

Nice. Good luck with the assembling.

 

[SANCER]

I like the group !! ... (suddenly ..! )
Pending developments will be interesting to your project.

Saludos!!

Luis Carlos

 

[nuuumannn]

Okay then, I decided I'd post progress here since it's drawn to a stand still right now owing to lack of paint. Here are some images to get things going. At first glance, there's lots of flash on the sprues and as I commented when I got this, the sprue thickness is a bit overdone in parts. Boy, I'm glad I'm not tackling the undercarriage. Sink marks, circular mould spots, surface blemishes, excess flash; this kit could have come from the 1950s or 60s.

As I mentioned elsewhere, the first thing I noticed was the nose shape; the 747 has a straight nose from the windscreen to the radome; as you can see here the kits' is not. I'm not sure at this stage whether I will actually alter this or not. I was hoping this would be a OOB assembly, but oh no...

Another glaring issue is with parts fit; for example, the holes for the hori stab don't line up with the part. I'll cut the pins off and make new ones with dowel. Also, the hori stab butts up to this bit of it that sticks out. Why didn't the kit manufacturer just butt it up against the fuselage? The hori stab, as on most big jet airliners is variable incidence and there is a flat plate here that's not represented, although I see some detail lines on the decal sheet that are vaguely meant to represent this.

I began with removing parts from the sprues and because of the excessive flash, each one has to be trimmed and sanded individually. The hori stab was glued first, which revealed big gaps in the leading and trailing edges and these were filled with putty and sanded - twice. The next bits were the engine exhaust cores, which were painted black (after the obligatory sanding and trimming of excess unwanted sticky-out bits).

More to come. This is not in real time as I'm much further down the line, so sit back and relax and enjoy the in-flight entertainment; a little Iron Maiden!

 

[Airframes]

Good start Grant.
That nose profile might not be too noticeable once painted and decalled, and I think, if it was me, I'd just leave it 'as is'.
I wouldn't have known if you'd not mentioned it.
It's a pain though, when lots of time has to be spent on clean-up and basic corrections to ill-fitting parts.

 

[nuuumannn]

Thanks Terry; initially I wasn't going to change it, but further down the line I couldn't help myself!

The next step was tackling the main wings - note that I've abandoned following the instructions - these were removed from the sprues, cleaned up and sanded as there was lots of flash in them, particularly around the canoe fairings on the trailing edge. The recessed panel lines aren't entirely accurate, particularly the Kruger flaps, which are set too far aft of the leading edges; their forward edge should be almost at the wing leading edge.

The leading edge landing lights are clear parts, which were covered in flash, see the picture below, they are the 'U' shaped parts to the left of the tree and these were cleaned up and cemented into place before the wings were glued together.

Problem is, and there's no surprise here, they don't fit the holes, which are far too big, so I covered the lot with putty and will use the decal that Revell has kindly provided as an alternative. Lots of putty required to fill the gaps between the two wing halves.

The engine cores have been assembled and engine nacelles have been removed and cleaned up and are ready for putty and paint.

 

[JKim]

Great to see a commercial airliner build here! Are you going to put a little Bruce figure in the pilot's seat?

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[Airframes]

Good progress Grant, and those clear parts would be getting a compliment if described as 'crude' !

 

[vikingBerserker]

"Ed Force One"

Brilliant!

 

[Wayne Little]

Cool subject.

 

[nuuumannn]

Cheers, guys. More on this; I'm out of town a lot at the moment, so don't get much done in between times. I've pressed on with cutting out the missing windows. The instruction sheet helpfully colours the windows to be cut out in green and those to be filled in red to match Ed Force One:

But... Of course there are compromises on the plastic. Most of those needed to be cut out are sunk into the inside plastic as seen in the pic below, but not all of them. The windows needing to be removed from the top deck are not sunk, so a bit of forward planning required. I, of course chickened out and decided that these'll stay configured the way they are.

A bit of before and after going on here: the windows were drilled out first, then pruned into shape with a scalpel. I did cock it up a bit and they are too big, but I squirted a bit of putty into the holes and cleaned them up and they now look better, but are still rubbish. Nevermind. I'm falling back on the window decals to give them a bit more definition once the lot is painted. From a distance they look okay, but close up they are quite noticeably askew.

A bit more progress with engine nacelles, exhaust cones and LP fans painted dull aluminium.

Next the fuse goes toge3ther... Big visual progress.

 

[JKim]

Cutting out multiple small rounded squares uniformly is extremely tough. You done a great job there!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Nicely done so far!

 

[nuuumannn]

Thanks guys; lots more to come.

The Fuselage! In trial fits it didn't go together well at all; lots of gaps and the pins didn't line up. Some were so badly misaligned that they poked into the fuselage and missed the holes altogether and when they were forced into the holes, there was a step in the fuse halves, so they all went. Aerials and protrusions along the centreline were cut off also, as the gaps and steps between each half will have to be filled in with putty. Because of the thickness of the plastic in places, I made some tabs to align and support these areas. They also close the undercarriage bays and provide a surface on which the doors can sit.

put the fuse together with the wings for a wee look-see. It's big, alright.

This did highlight the worst areas where there'd be gaps and misalignments between each half, so served its purpose.

A coat of grey undercoat was sprayed into the fuse interior before assembly. The problem with these rattle cans is they spit a little and you get wee lumps coming out.

While I waited for the grey to dry I did some more work on other bits; undercoat was sprayed on the wings and hori stab and more coats on the engine components, adding black to the LP fan centre bodies, then I stuck the fuselage together and bound it with tape.

That's it fer nooo, well, for a few days at least. Thanks for looking.

 

[fubar57]

Looking good Grant. I find those locating pins a hindrance at times as well. Fuselage test fit seems not too bad on my screen

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

Looking good Grant.

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work so far!