A300B4 FedEx - Castaway

[RayS]

As If I did not have enough on the bench I decided to start on refurbishing the old TAA A300 as my contribution to the Expo display next year.




The model had original issue Hawkeye TAA decals which had faded a little over the years. My display case sat in a corner of the family room which got a lot of direct sunlight.

I started to sand back the decals



I took it out to the spray booth to prime the lower fuselage and subsequently dropped it





I suppose this was not too much of a set back. the engines and part of the gear separated, I lost one nose wheel well door which had been scratch built during the original construction so no biggy. The nose weight separated as well which meant I had to open the split fuselage further to refit it.

It is now buttoned up and putty applied to the seams. Next is to sand and re-prime.

[hrtpaul]

Good work so far mate. Spewin about dropping it. I have a few models that I built as a kid that I'll rebuild someday. With all you guys doing this it's inspires me to do something like this as well

[Graeme H]

Dropped it eh, haven't done that since last time I was modeling

Sounds like it will be a good refurb, looking forward to it, is that the Flying colors decals you are going to use?

Interested in what you said about the TAA decals being original issue, is there a later issue with more colour density?

[tor lives]

Love every aspect of the project!!!
A refurb that will represent a "star' from the movies....it's all good.
Can't wait to see her sitting in the ACAM display next year.
TOR

[RayS]

Thanks for the comments chaps, not the first time I dropped a model painting it and probably not the last.

Dropped it eh, haven't done that since last time I was modelling

Sounds like it will be a good refurb, looking forward to it, is that the Flying colors decals you are going to use?

Interested in what you said about the TAA decals being original issue, is there a later issue with more colour density?

I don't think so Graeme, I expect printers have gotten better though. I know this sheet was updated. Mine had black door outlines and later sheets were changed to have orange door outlines and extra data type stencils.

I was amazed how the cheat line had faded over the years.

[Graeme H]

Yes unfortunately the Lazer printed decals are very prone to fading, seems the yellows are the worst
I did an Icelandair B757 with F-Dcal, and the yellow on the cowls matched the yellow on the fin and line that separated the fuselage colours, now it's not even close

[RayS]

So while working on the DHL B767 I got back into a freighter frame of mind and started to clean up the A300.

I have sprayed the wings and tidied up the fuselage.





While looking at some reference pictures I noticed some features I could add, I knew his would not be as straight forward as I thought.

So I will be adding the 2 aircon/cooling inlets between the main gear wells. I have a Beluga kit that I can use to copy them.



And then the are the small wing lets found on the A300-600 which it looks like all FedEx A300B4s have been retrofitted with, again copies of those from the Beluga. Copying yet to start.



The engines will also need some minor tweaking as well.

[RayS]

And the engines will go from the kit shape (top) to the some like the bottom taking a couple of mm off the front of the intake



N731FD

[hrtpaul]

That's coming along nicely young fella

[RayS]

Thanks mate

So I was looking at a few pictures sorting out the engines and intakes under the fuselage and noticed the horizontal stab rub plates (that are missing from the Airfix kit...)



So I got out the trusty A300-600R part started conversion and made some copies of the plates



Looks better already...



I also removed the tail bumper, I noticed on some aircraft it was further forward on the fuselage and on others like this one that it was not there at all.