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I finally got a bit of time to take my foot off the gas and start working on this kit. I bought this kit in September of 2018 at the Berlin IPMS, and now almost four years later I’m finally starting to get to work. The kit has a few refinements over earlier ones, like the fan moldings on a small strip of resin that requires less cutting:
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The engines are masterpieces. The fit looks good, and the detail inside the exhaust is stunning. The edges are very thin, so for white schemes, I recommend people first prime with gray and then add white so that it doesn’t look translucent.
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The tailcone includes the stabilizer mounts, so careful alignment is required. Fortunately, it didn’t need too much puttying after I glued it on:
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Kurt did a good job of capturing the winglet shape, including the subtle curve on the top edge and the concave airfoil section. To minimize puttying, I glued them on with extra-thin CA in a butt join and then used Mr Surfacer 500, which is a bit softer than the resin. This can be thinned with lacquer thinner as well to remove excess, and then sanded a bit to get the right shape.
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The first round of primer helped find a few high and low spots to fix:
Then QA had a look:
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A CAT scan is highly necessary in many cases.
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I like your QA Inspector. 🙂
Discovering Clint Groves and his ATP/Airliners America catalog in the late '70s made me realize I wasn't the only hobbyist with an interest in building airliner models. Beginning with Aurora kits and now enjoying the latest offerings from Revell Germany and Zvezda in 1/144 scale, it's been a fun ride.
Nice work @LH707!! Keen to see more progress on this build. Speaking of which, I better get back onto my builds.
George
AKL NZ
George
AKL NZThanks! @gebbw not making any delivery promises, especically with summer coming up in the northern hemisphere, but I’ll definitely post more as I advance.
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Slowly making some progress on the build. I followed Sergey and David’s threads about mounting engines with no gaps, and spent some time experimenting. The AA A340 pylons swoop up to meet the wing, and the swoop shrunk a bit in the casting process, so there was a slight gap that I had to fill. At first I tried Mr Surfacer 500, but that didn’t work. Next I tried Milliput, and that cracked as well when I tried to pull it free. What finally worked was putting masking fluid on the wing, then using Milliput on the pylon, and once fully cured, putting the entire wing and engine pylon in a bath of water to loosen the masking fluid. That made it slimy, so the Milliput stayed on the pylon and detached cleanly, allowing me to sand it. I also painted the intakes and fans, then set them all out to dry:
In parallel, I primed the wings and worked out a few little mold-release lines on the trailing edges, then gave them a little sand-down:
The fin also had a few small gaps in the join, so I set out to fill those in as well. I tried doing the Milliput trick, but it was too thick and didn’t squeeze out the sides correctly, so I yanked it back off. I’m not sure if thinning Milliput with water into more of a paste works, I’ll keep that idea in my back pocket. What I tried instead was the masking fluid trick and Tamiya putty, slightly thinned with lacquer thinner. As you can see, it’s a very tiny gap, so fiddly to get something to adhere to the fin without breaking loose:
I’ll give this a few days to cure, then give it a bath and try to float the fin free with the putty base and sand it. If that fails, I’ll go out and get some Bondo or other epoxy-based putty, hopefully something that adheres better to the resin.
Whatever approach works well there I’ll use for the wing joins as well, there are a couple small shrinkage gaps on the underside that I want to fill in. I downloaded the ACAPs document for the A340-300, I’ll use that to make a jig to set the dihedral and ensure a snug fit of the wings.
Meantime I’ll make the fans look a bit sharper, I need to fix the black spinner cone tips on a few of them and then give then blades some depth, likely with a wash of thinned black paint in the gaps to make it look like shadows:
https://www.airliners.net/photo/Lufthansa/Airbus-A340-313/2068636/L
Then I’ll glue those bits together and fill any seams. After that, it’ll be time to paint the whole thing.
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Quick update: after some trial and error, I got the “float it free” approach to work out:
After a bit of sanding it looked pretty good, so the fin’s almost ready to go into the paint shop. Figuring this out was a big help, because I hate masking tails that are attached to the fuselage.
Then I got back to the engines, namely the spinner cones. I had some spare spinner swirls from a Revell decal set, and they did not want to curve around the pointy spinner cones. I ended up chopping the front bits off and just making them comma-shaped swirls. Good enough…. Half the time the front tip is rain-eroded anyway, so who cares?
Once those were done, I started masking the intakes and assembling the engines. First I’d test mount the fan and intake, then slowly lift the fan and glue just a tiny bit (left):
Then I’d test fit, and if it was good, I’d flow more thin CA onto the surface to secure it. Same idea with the intake until I had all four complete:
I managed to get the alignment much better by holding it in one hand and just touching a small amount of CA to a join, then checking it and adjusting before committing to more CA. That should minimize the sanding and puttying. Here’s the full quartet of hairdryers:
Next up I’ll clean up those joins. I also figured out the dihedral measurements that I’ll use for the wing mount. I’m planning to do the same thing as I did with the fin to get a good snug fit without needing to glue the wings on before painting, because then masking is a PITA. I learned that lesson the hard way on the 747-400 build….
Speaking of 747s, I’m realizing that the A340-300 is not that much smaller than a 747-400. About 10% shorter (63 vs 70 m) and 6% less span (60m vs 64m). This bird will take up a lot of shelf space.
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Got a bit more progress done on cleaning up the engine joins:
One more to go, then it’s on to the wing mounts and detail bits.
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Excellent thread Merlin which I’ll use as another reference for future builds.
I especially like the approach of temporarily attaching the tail and wings using putty to minimise masking, which is probably my least favourite task since it’s so time-consuming (and patience-challenging).
I’ll try the Tamiya epoxy putty which is easy to source, unless there are even better products for this application.
So many kits, so little time …
Finally got some more work done. Getting corona in Jan gave me a few days to work, now I’ve gotten some work stuff sorted and decided to take 2-day weekends to move this up my priority list.
For the wings, I used Mathiemca’s wing jig method and Convair 990’s joint filling thread with Tamiya putty to get the dihedral set correctly using info from the ACAPs. I used Microscale blue masking fluid in the joins, then put putty on the wings, and stuffed it into the slots to get a neat fill:
After about a week of curing, I used a pipette to drip water into the joint to loosen the masking fluid:
Then I slowly pried it apart:
The masking fluid did its job keeping the putty only on the wing side:
The clean-up went pretty quick, now I’ll sand the remaining bits and then get them ready for paint.
The engines are in what I hope is the last sanding cycle. I’m trying to be more precise about the joints versus my previous builds to have half a shot of placing in this year’s IPMS show, we’ll see how that goes.
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Lots of life happened in the last year and a half, so I barely did any modeling. New job, training, different base, and now finally back in Seattle for the foreseeable future. The Tamiya putty did not work out, so I used Dave’s idea of CA in the gaps. I went and got the Steven’s International Extra Thick CA, then ran it into the seams and put the wings in the jig:
I had previously done the fin, so while the left wing was curing, I got to work cleaning up the fin base:
Hopefully the nth time is the charm with this process!
The engines are pretty much good for final primer and then paint:
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I have this kit and have not started it, so appreciate the help and insights.
What is the issue with Tamiya putty as it usually works on other resin kits? Trying to unpack this part of your feedback. Is it a resin to Tamiya issue? I prefer it given the best of the best Squadron white putty seems to be discontinued from what I can tell.
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@dullesflyer the Tamiya Putty is great on resin for filling in low spots or reshaping things, the fine grain and hardness work well on resin. Where I struggled with it is in filling the very tiny ~.3mm gaps that you sometimes have due to part shrinkage in the casting process. I used to sidestep this issue by gluing the wings on and running some thin CA into the joint, but then it became a giant pain to mask and paint the different bits and pieces.
My experience trying to get that thin of a layer of Tamiya Putty or Mr Surfacer into the gap was that it would crumble along the edge when sanding, thus ruining the gap fill. I’ve been told that some 2-part epoxy putties work, or thick CA, which is what I tried this last time around. I met up with @convair990a today to see his technique for the CA in the joins. He recommended grabbing the Godhandtool foam sanding blocks, which I tried on his workbench with solid results:
We went out to his local hobby shop and I promptly picked up a set, so I’ll play with those some more tomorrow to see if I can get that perfect fit of the parts without any glue. Then I’ll paint the sub-assemblies and decal them.
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I got the fin properly sanded with Dave’s CA technique, but then I had a small chip on the left side where some of the old Tamiya putty flaked a bit and gave a small pinhole-sized gap. I had it on my workbench as I was debating to continue with the slight imperfection or spend the effort to redo it. I went into the kitchen to make more coffee, and then I heard “TIGER!!!” Turns out one of the four-footed QA inspectors was unimpressed by my work and knocked it to the ground, which chipped the aft and front ends of the CA loose. Well, that cemented my idea to redo it:
Stripping the CA and sanding it took about 30 mins, then I used Bondo on tape:
Less than an hour of sanding got it looking sharp again:
In parallel I did the same with the engine pylons and flap track canoes:
Now I’ve got all the big parts ready for paint after a final panel line rescribe. I’m planning on airbrushing white Tamiya primer thinned 50:50 with Tamiya Lacquer Thinner. My results with rattle cans are inconsistent, so I want to remove that variable from the equation.
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As I was prepping the surfaces for primer and topcoats, I chipped the trailing edge of the Tamiya putty/CA blend:
The way I ended up fixing it was taking a blob of extra-thick CA, gooping on the corner, then waiting about 20 minutes for the outside to be gooey but not tacky, then squeezing it down to shape. After about a full hour, I then sanded it smooth. I did a similar thing with the trailing edge of the fin after the cat’s QA pass. I will henceforth be like Convair990 and put little tape flags up to mitigate that threat.
Next up I found a slight low spot on the right wing where I’d over-sanded the winglet join piece. Not content to just move on with life, I added some Mr Surfacer 500 and let it cure overnight. I likewise refilled a panel line that I mis-scribed near the aileron.
I then sanded it with the Godhandtool blocks until it looked like the right shape. I rescribed the panel lines using a dull X-acto blade, which worked given the softer texture of the filler I used.
Next came some primer on the wings and fuselage. I decided to decant and mix the Tamiya Fine Surface Primer 50:50 with lacquer thinner, as I find it easier to control that way. I found a few faded panel lines and decided to go back and fix those before putting on another coat. The extreme inboard end of the wing posed a challenge as well with the CA gap-fill, as that was harder than the surrounding resin. Moving forward, I’ll just stick to Bondo to avoid that issue.
I’m much happier with the new shape of the wingtip. Though it can be frustrating to find these little things and take the delay, I’ve invested enough time in trying to get other parts of the build right that I’d have kicked myself if I didn’t clean it up.
I’ll go put what’s hopefully the last coat of white on before I get to the gray and blue. I think I may have to tinker with the mix ratio a bit, maybe more like 70/30 primer/thinner to get a better set of coats.
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Tinker with the blend ratio I did, and it was a bad idea. The 70:30 thinner:primer ratio dried a bit too quickly, giving a slightly rough and insufficiently opaque coat. I followed the suggestions in the “how to do white” thread about the Godhandtool sponges, using the 2k 4k 6k 8k 10k grits on the wings. I think they turned out ok:
Next, I fixed a few minor panel lines on the fuselage and then sprayed that with a thick coat of 60:40 thinner/primer, getting a much smoother texture:
I’ll plan to hit that with the 2/4/6/8/10 sponges as well before masking the waterline around the belly.
Next up, masking the wings for the gray undersides. I’m planning to paint the engines and wings gray first, then doing the leading edges using AK Interactive enamel. To keep the same color of the leading edge anti-ice panels, that means doing the wings gray along the jagged line we see here:
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/airliners/8/5/8/1926858.jpg?v=v40
I also need to touch up some gray primer on the undersides, so masking and painting the gray first will reduce the total masking workload because I’ll be able to do the whole area as gray, then just mask off the leading edge for the metallic color:
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I got the 2/4/6/8 polishing done on the fuselage, next up will be the gray undersides:
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I found a few translucent areas in the model after sanding, probably because I started with the 2000-grit, which took down too much of the FSP. Before using something new, I tested the Tamiya LP2 on a piece of scrap resin that I’d primed with 2 coats of FSP. The results looked pretty good with a 67/33 blend of paint and lacquer thinner, so I used them on the model as well:
I found a few areas where there was still some translucent coverage, so I committed to a second coat. I cleaned the surface with isopropyl alcohol, as I usually do before painting. Turns out that was a bad idea: the alcohol started to dissolve the paint, which marred the surface. I dimly recalled doing something like this in years past, but I guess every lesson needs relearning sometimes:
I let it all dry, then hit it with 8000-grit to smooth out the surface. For the second coat, I planned to go with a slightly thicker paint ratio, and ended up with closer to 60:40 thinner:paint. I started with a very light tack coat, then pulled the trigger all the way back to get a nice wet finish. Lastly, I ran lacquer thinner through the airbrush to spray all the parts and help the paint self-level. At first it looked a bit pebbly, but cured to a nice smooth semi-gloss within 24 hours:
Now that I’m truly happy with the white paint, I’ll start on the gray belly. Sometimes you have to go back before you go forward.
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