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Ok guys. I picked up a Nitto 747 at expo without knowing it was a POS even though there was also a Revell one sitting on top of it. Anyways I picked up a Revell kit yesterday for $20 and just had to compare the 2. Wooooow that Nitto one IS a POS.
Top Nitto
Bottom Revell


The differences in the nose, hump and vertical fin are HUGE. But I have a cunning plan. With the nose shape I'll just sand the shit outta it till it looks better. The hump will require extending and a shit load of sanding. With the tail I was gone cast the Revell one in resin when I get the hang of that and slap it on the Nitto fuse. Obviously there are other inaccuracies (wing/fuselage fairing) that might just have to stay. I haven't even looked at the wings, engines etc yet. Anyways I think a bright colour scheme to blind veiwers to the bad shape will be needed. Something like this I reckon

The Nitto kit is just a friggen shocker!!!......worst 747 kit ever!!!
The irony is that Nitto produced just a superb 1:100 747-100/200
TOR

As previously discussed with ya, you coulda let me know that BEFORE I bought the bloody thing Ah well. Good challenge to try to make a silk purse from a sow's ear as they say

A bit of putty to reshape the hump and you will be right as rain Paul

It would make a good Whiffer Tupolev Tu111, unfortunately or fortunately depending on your point of view no plans or schematics of the Tupolev have survived, so it's good to go as an Aeroflot bird.

I once bought the Nitto for the decal sheet, but when I looked at the decal sheet, it wasn't going to fit the Revell kit, so offloaded it

By order of crappiness the 747 listing in 1/144th for future reference
Kepuan ( a copy of the Nitto kit, but much worse, apparently Kepuan is the Chinese word for crap) they once claimed one was a -300 with Ansett Decals,Yuk avoid at all costs
Nitto, 2nd only because it has better plastic, I believe this was also copied by Trumpeter once, maybe where the Kepuan one came from avoid at all costs
Airfix, No Wing Body Fairing, overly fat tail avoid at all costs
Dragon, a newish kit. but a lot of problem areas
Revelll, nose needs fixing a lot, the wing incidence needs fixing, commonly available for reasonable price
Welsh, Vacform fuselage, I think the wings are resin these days, but originally were also vacform, resin engines, WM U/C
Zvezda, actually the late -8I version, but really very nice, need to shorten the fuselage for and aft, alter the wing tips, and new engines if you want to build an earlier one
Revell, the new Revell 8F and 8I are both good for conversion to earlier models, or build as a Whiffer, see RayS's QF Freighter
Authentic Airliners, lovely resin kit, but quite expensive, multiple versions available with different engines, only true -300 in 1/144th


As TOR says the 1/100th Nitto is really great for the era it came out, builds into a very impressively big model, Roodecal once did the QF decals for it, huge sheet and probably hard to find these days.

The best of the lot for the price are the Hasegawa 1/200th scale ones, they make most except the SP, great little models

The biggest problem with the Nitto kit is the uooer deck is nearly as wide as the lower deck, good luck fixing that

as to what can be achieved with the Zvezda kit, have a look at this

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/ind ... nt-3069290

Just to add to Graeme's comments:

I bought the Kepuan kit of the Ansett International 747 in Hearn's Hobbies many years ago because of the decals. It is a truly dreadful kit but I made it anyhow. That's many hours I won't get back.

Revell did/do two versions, the early one is a -100/200 and okay if you like that kind of thing. Once very common and cheap on ebay but not very common now.

The second Revell version, the later one, is a -400, a much nicer kit.

To make a reasonable -300 you need the wings of the -200 and the fuselage of the -400, once a fairly cheap proposition but not so much these days.

I haven't seen an Authentic Airliners 747, I'm not that rich.

Welsh Models do a 747SP with Qantas decals, not an easy kit to make but about the only way to make a SP without going nuts.

The Zvezda and/or Revell kits of the -8, both the 8C and the 8I, are very nice indeed and a pleasure to build.

Leigh

Best 747SP = Platz 1:200.....just beautiful!!!!
And for those who are interested, where the Revell 1:144 747-100/200 is concerned, some issues of the kit come with P&W JT9s while others, (the USAF Boeing E-4B for example), come with GE CF6 engines.
TOR

I won't be going the Zvezda coversoin route that's for sure. There's some nice 747-8 schemes out there. I'm not an anal retentive rivet counter so with the Nitto one I'll just do the mods I mentioned and that'll do. It'll look like a 747 to me. Still not sure what scheme I wanna do with the Revell kit just yet. Once again so many cool schemes to choose from. I wouldn't mind getting a Revell 747-400 either, the Iron Maiden one for sure.

hrtpaul wrote:I won't be going the Zvezda coversoin route that's for sure. There's some nice 747-8 schemes out there. I'm not an anal retentive rivet counter so with the Nitto one I'll just do the mods I mentioned and that'll do. It'll look like a 747 to me. Still not sure what scheme I wanna do with the Revell kit just yet. Once again so many cool schemes to choose from. I wouldn't mind getting a Revell 747-400 either, the Iron Maiden one for sure.

I hear ya about not going too far overboard with the Nitto 747 corrections......but maybe a nice set of After Market engines may be in order. The kit-supplied engines are so bad they look like toys .
TOR

tor lives wrote:I hear ya about not going too far overboard with the Nitto 747 corrections......but maybe a nice set of After Market engines may be in order. The kit-supplied engines are so bad they look like toys .
TOR

I hadn't got as far as looking at the engines but I think that'll be on the cards if the kit ones are crap as you say. So what engines are required for the orange Braniff one above?