B-377 Stratocruiser

[VH-WAL]

Work on other projects has ceased whilst I bring this beastie to it's conclusion. The wings are not yet glued on. The model will be depicted wheels down but I have made a stand for it so that I have that option to efficiently use the space in the display cabinet.
Paint is done with fewer than normal (!) touch ups being required I am gonna decal and weather the components before gluing them together, various shades of Alclad and Tamiya rattle can white and silver leaf was also used. The varying shades are quite subtle in normal, no- flash photography, light.
smokey7
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smokey3


The stand is home made, with a craft board floor with sheet balsa over the the top to beef the stand base up. The stand arm is laminated balsa with rectangular section brass tube embedded in the centre which goes into another rectangular section brass tube glued into the interior of the fuselage. I am quite pleased with it though I lament the amount of time and effort it took to make it I wish I could buy something like this ready made in raw pine. I figured I would decorate the stand top with a facsimile of a typical (of the period) boeing control wheel hub (you know the horn button ) A few hours on inkscape and photoshop was required to draw this up. I am going to see if I can get it printed on glossy sticker paper at officeworks or somewhere
377 stand label

[kfutter]

Lovely work, Wal! Do you have any photos that show clearly what the variations in NMF are on the wings? All I could deduce was that the control surfaces are a different colour, and there's what looks like a darker panel atop each engine nacelle. Otherwise, the wings themselves looked to feature very little variation.

Good work with the stand, too. I do this sort of thing regularly with bases. The one closest to what you're trying to achieve is this one:



I just printed the design out on a colour copier at work, glued it down with spray-on adhesive for photos, and then sealed it with several coats of acrylic gel medium.

Kev

[Graeme H]

Sweet

You will be putting on the stickers any day now

[VH-WAL]

Thanks guys, hi Kev, re the metal variations I don't have any top side views but there are a few photos around showing some panel colour variations, I am just going for an impressionistic effect rather than faithful hifi reproduction I am going to tone down the wing tip panel variation as it is a bit distracting to my eye but I am happy with the rest.

https://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl ... MwhFKB8wHw

Re the stand print label I did the same thing as you with this,
sd1

I was not happy with the density of the white portion hence looking at glossy sticker for this latest one

[hrtpaul]

Fantastic work there Wally. Both the plane and the stand look great. I have the Academy KC-97 to do someday when I have the room LOL

[tor lives]

Do you have any photos that show clearly what the variations in NMF are on the wings? All I could deduce was that the control surfaces are a different colour, and there's what looks like a darker panel atop each engine nacelle. Otherwise, the wings themselves looked to feature very little variation.

You have probably already seen this one Kev and it is at best, of limited value for your purposes
http://www.airliners.net/photo/United-A ... 1d3bb45427
I will keep looking though.
TOR

[VH-WAL]

Not happy Jan!. The bloody vinyl masks provided in the decal package left glue residue on the white paint, a mixture of applying sticky tape to the area to remove some of the glue and using car wax and grease cleaner I managed to clean it off but leaving the paint work a bit mottly so I had to remask and respray the white, I have knocked down the tone of some of the alclad patches on the wing so I have lost 24 hours in the build. Decals tomorrow.

[kfutter]

Do you have any photos that show clearly what the variations in NMF are on the wings? All I could deduce was that the control surfaces are a different colour, and there's what looks like a darker panel atop each engine nacelle. Otherwise, the wings themselves looked to feature very little variation.

You have probably already seen this one Kev and it is at best, of limited value for your purposes
http://www.airliners.net/photo/United-A ... 1d3bb45427
I will keep looking though.
TOR

Thanks, Ray. I have indeed seen that one, and it's hard to glean much from it. The control surfaces are definitely a different colour, but there's no clear sense of explicit multi-coloured panelling. I'm hoping to have an update on my build this week, so I'll post more there, rather than hijack Wal's thread.

Kev

[kfutter]

Not happy Jan!. The bloody vinyl masks provided in the decal package left glue residue on the white paint, a mixture of applying sticky tape to the area to remove some of the glue and using car wax and grease cleaner I managed to clean it off but leaving the paint work a bit mottly so I had to remask and respray the white, I have knocked down the tone of some of the alclad patches on the wing so I have lost 24 hours in the build. Decals tomorrow.

That's a bummer, Wal. Depending on the underlying paint you've used, you could try WD40 to remove the adhesive residue. It works great for removing the gunk left behind by Bare Metal Foil.

Kev

[VH-WAL]

HI Kev, I had a bit crap left on the fin...WD40 worked a treat,will remember for next time works well with Tamiya rattle can paint anyway.

smokey8 r