SPA Modeler

Hi all,

my cousin is working in the airline industry and he asked me if I could build a civilian airliner one day... That one day came yesterday while visiting my local hobby shop Domino.
An interesting detail of the shop... it's located next to the French border... actually the border between Belgium and France goes along the street in front of the shop. So when I arrived, I had first to cross the border to France to park my car, then walked over the street to Belgium to the shop.... Needless to say, no border control there..


So here comes my special in-between-other-builds project, a classic airliner, Boeing 727, 200-series...



The kit is very very old, based on the information from Scalemates.com, main sprues are from late 1960's. And yes, you can see that well.. But then again, the kit was one of the cheapest Airliner kits in the shop..




Raised panel-lines, lack of details, thick plastic... really old quality..
But then again, an airliner in this scale does not have that much details anyhow, so I will do my best, putting most effort in the paintwork..

Practically the only job that had to be done before glueing the fuselage halves together, was to add 5 gram of lead in the front. Secured with some Milliput..



And then just "connection"...



Today the name of the game has been sanding and polishing, adding some Mr Surface and back to sanding and polishing...




Will try to do some paint work tomorrow..

- Kari

I want to do some civvie stuff, but the paint work sort of scares me off. These are so often overlooked.

Agree! I am mentally preparing for the paintwork.. luckily first a layer of primer...

- Kari

Civil aircraft scared me too, I completed a build of the Zvezda 787 in United livery a little over a year ago and I have to admit, it turned out much better than I had expected. One trick I learned was the primer layer. I had done quite a bit of reading different articles about how to get a nice, glossy white. It all started, for me with a light coat of grey primer. That showed me the areas that I had to work on for seam lines and sinkholes. Then after sanding and filling, I used a white primer coat and wet sanded it to a smooth coat. Then I added a very thin layer of silver paint followed by three thing coats of Model Master Pure White, with light wet sanding between each coat.

Thanks Jelliott for the tips!

That is really good stuff and yes, on an airliner it's all about the smooth and beautiful glossy finish of the white paintwork.

So if I calculate correctly, we talk first of 3 layers of primer (light grey, white and finally a thin layer of silver) and then on top of that 3 layers of the final color, which would be indeed also pure white for this Iberian 727. Wouh!

Let's see how this turns out after I have finished the 1st primer layer (with light grey)

- Kari

Those high-gloss perfectly painted civvies also made me evade them so far. I am going to watch you doing the 3x primer 3x gloss coat work. Maybe, one time, I will...

Heh, let's see how many layers.. still doing some sanding.....

It will not be easy... We will see if this is my first and last airliner....

(though, would still want to make an old DC-9, Super caravelle, DC-8 and why not a B737 and 707, the older generation... and and ....)

- Kari

DB Cooper's ride...

Indeed, of course back then it was a 727-100 which is shorter than the 200 series...

D.B. Cooper still going missing ?

- Kari

Yes he is still missing or un identified... no definitive solving of the case. It is still an open investigation. Only clues, unproven confessions, and unsolved mystery...