My Boeing 747 Project

[RayS]

Nice job on the Ansett 743 Leigh.

I started one of these a couple of years ago but exchanged wing root assemblies. Needless to say I had no end of problems and the project was binned. I think I will have another go of it. I have the 2000 Olympic decals for it.

With the left overs I was going to do a SIA 744f.

[F-27pax]

Yes Ray, making the modification around the wing roots was my first thought too. Than I figured that since the main external difference between a 100/200 and a 300 was the extended upper deck it made sense to just change them over. I used the window line to measure where to cut horizontally and it all worked like a dream. As a bonus I now have a spare shorter upper deck from the 100/200 and a 400 fuselage with a hole in the top and they fit perfectly. Now, if I had some nice Qantas Cargo decals I could make a model of the aeroplane in your posts.

[RayS]

As a matter of fact Leigh I have the decals for that scheme

Scotty made up a set and I am using the roo from the Hawkeye A380 sheet which looks like a close fit. Peter has not had any new white decals (for the tail) printed for a while so I am making do with with what I can get my hands on.

After I sort out my ham fisted painting issues this one should be finished up soon (I hope!). The sheet was designed for the-8 but I sure it would fit on a -4.

[F-27pax]

At last, some progress on my Qantas 747-400. How much do I loath masking!

[RayS]

I hear ya!

[hrtpaul]

Yep not a fan of masking either

[F-27pax]

Out of the paint shop and on to the decalling. I've made myself a paper copy of the Brazil Decals decals and I'm trying to figure out where everything goes. The decals are well printed but the instruction sheet is useless so I'm peering at lots of photos of the original to work out how everything fits together. I'm beginning to feel like somebody trying to put together some furniture from Ikea and I hope I don't have any bits left over at the end of the process.

[Graeme H]

OK Leigh, stating to get there now, can't wait to see her finished

[F-27pax]

Here's a photo of the model with most of the Wunala Dreaming decals applied:



I had intended to wait until the model was completed before posting another picture but applying the Brazil Decals decals has presented some challenges so I thought I might write about them now before I forgot, for information of those who have the sheets and might want to use them in the future.

First, several people have commented that the decals are thick and need thinning. It is true that the decals look thick on the sheet and I guess that this was deliberate so that the colours on the sheet do not let the underlying red of the model show through. I was worried that the decals would not be thick enough and the show through would be too much of a problem, making it impossible to build a decent replica. But, no, the decals do not allow much show through and, although the kangaroo on the tail looks pink in the photo it is much whiter in the flesh. So, if you want to thin the decals after they have been applied I'd be careful about it.

On the other hand, the carrier film for the decals is thin. I tried one of the black registration numbers first and found that it fell apart fairly easily, so I applied one coat of Microscale Liquid Decal Film before starting to use the decals. On a couple of occasions there were breakages on some of the big decals as I pushed them around to get them lined up properly, but in general that worked fine. The decals settled down well, sometimes with a bit of encouraging with Micro Sol, even at the difficult curves of the wing leading edges where they meet the fuselage.

I used twenty or thirty photos of Wunala Dreaming found on Airliners.com to guide placement, since the instruction sheets are not very helpful. I then used paper copies of the decals to locate where all the decals should go on the model. At this stage I discovered that the decals are not entirely accurate when compared with the original aeroplane. After having located all the decals as accurately as I could I found that there were some of perhaps the right shape but the wrong colours, there are several linking 'paths' between the main pictures missing and I have a couple of little bits and pieces left over.

When it came to locating the decals on the model I used the door outlines to place the decals as accurately as possible on the model. You need to work out which decals to put down first as some of the images overlay each other, mostly kangaroo tails overlaying some of the circular images. Some of the shapes are not quite as they appear on the real aeroplane so a bit of jiggling around is necessary so that they all fit with reasonable accuracy.

The decals from the main sheet of images settled down with little trouble and very little silvering. However, the decals from the sheet with the windows, etc, showed exceptional silvering that took a lot of time and effort to overcome for the first few that I used. After that I solved the problem by using water with a lot of Aquadhere mixed in as the wetting agent, which solved the problem most of the time. Even so, there is a lot of work ahead in making them settle down perfectly. Hopefully things will look alright after a coat of clear varnish after all the decals are in place,

In summary, a few dramas along the way, but it's starting to look not so bad.

[Graeme H]

It's good to see the decals worked mostly OK, as the Berger ad says "keep on keeping on"
When I originally got this sheet I had checked myself and thought some of the images may have been a little off, but in the scheme of things, unless someone is looking at a photo of the prototype and the model at the same time, they may never know, and let's face it Johnny public wouldn't have a clue.
Thanks for the heads up on the window decals, I will plan on not using them, and use a generic sheet instead.

I think it is possible you are the very first person I have seen use these decals, so good one, now, when are you doing a -300 and Nalanji Dreaming,
you know you want to