1/144 Revell Germany Boeing 747-400

by Christopher Price

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I was a kid the last time I built an airliner but became inspired to do so after seeing a picture of a 747 in Quantas livery with some really cool Formula 1 racing art applied. The fact that the 2005 Formula 1 season was a few months away and an ARC airliner group build going on provided all the motivation I needed to search the net for decals and a model of a 747. I ended up purchasing the decals by Jet Decal and the Revell Germany British Airways 747-400.

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I had assumed this would be an easy fun build. After all, I mainly build military aircraft and a variety of racecars so I thought I'd combine my skills at getting a smooth gloss finish with my plane building ability and bam! I'd have a great model! After examining the kit and decals I realized what I had gotten into. The kit, while mostly accurate, didn't contain a single part that wasn't surrounded by flash. I also decided to fill in all the windows and use the window decals that came with my aftermarket set. The decals looked nice but when comparing them to reference photos I realized they were sorely inaccurate. There are no gradient or blending of colors on the decals as on the real plane. The checkered red squares of the decals were rectangular boxes, not wavy as the real scheme is. The red of the decals had more orange than the "Quantas Red" I had grown accustomed to seeing in my references. Also the area were the red checkers gradate to black on the real plane were represented by solid burgundy checkers. I couldn't correct all the inaccuracies without printing my own decals so I planned to paint the checker scheme and use the rest of the decals.

After assembling the model entirely except for the landing gear (should have left the engines off to be painted separately but live and learn) I primed the model with white primer and used Tamiya pure white lacquer spray. Tamiya spray paints are awesome and if you take your time with them you can achieve a perfectly smooth gloss finish. I found that MM Italian red matched the decals perfectly, even though it is a shade too orange to be "Quantas Red." I used a roll of Tamiya tape and a number of new Exacto blades to mask the plane. First I painted the wings using a custom mix of MM aircraft grey. I used MM Chrome Silver for the bare metal parts and a custom mix of Tamiya grays for the center of the wings as well as MM Metalizer titanium and jet engine exhaust for the engines. I finally masked and painted the Italian red checker scheme. When I removed all the masking I was elated! a perfect paint job! Sweet! If only I had foreseen disaster was yet to come.

After the paint was thoroughly dry I applied the decals. Despite their inaccuracies they went on like a dream and only required a little Micro-Sol where the images of the cars meet the wings. After the decals where dry I washed and dried the model in preparation for the final clear coat. I chose Tamiya clear gloss spray lacquer having used it on my many car models in the past. What I failed to realize was I had never sprayed over MM enamels before with this stuff and despite what I already knew (never use lacquers on top of enamels or lacquers or enamels on top of acrylics) I proceeded to paint the plane. It looked good after the first light coat of gloss but while starting the second coat I noticed that the paint on the wings and the red on the fuselage started to lift and wrinkle.

Totally frustrated after all the work I had put into the paint job I went to bed and let the model dry completely. a couple days later I used Tamiya polishing compound, an old t-shirt and Q-tips to try to rub out the wrinkles in the paint. This was fairly successful although the compound dulled the MM Chrome silver on the edge of the wings. I also ended up repainting most of the top of the wings (very carefully around the decals). After a final two coats of Tamiya Acrylic clear everything seemed to blend nicely and I took a deep breath having only to attach the landing gear and other small parts to complete the model.

I knew it would be tricky getting all 18 wheels to touch the ground! I Attached the nose gear and two sets of fuselage gear. The sets of gear under the wings seemed to be the real problem. They were slightly too long (or the fuselage gear were too short) and wouldn't sit right. I shortened them a hair with a file and glued them with 5 minute epoxy. I then immediately turned the plane over on it's gear and let the wing gears touch the ground so I could adjust them before the epoxy set.

Finally completed! Even though it's not perfect I learned a lot and the next time I decide to build an airliner I should have a much easier time of it. Knock on wood. Below I've included a picture of the real plane as well.
If you would like to see more pictures you can visit my web site at
http://www.scalemodelart.com

Happy Modeling,

Chris

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Photos and text © by Christopher Price