LEAP-1A Getting the main shape done

Good weekend everyone,

Today I want to give a very little update on the LEAP-1A status since I was able to continue working with the shape and add that sort of bulge characteristic of this engine.

There is still a little bit to modify on the bulge, have to move the mass a little bit forward and double check again with the blueprints. Once this is done, I will do a casting of this part in order to start adding the panel lines, following this step, I will then begin working with the pylons.

I also want to say that I am currently studying the next steps that have to be done with the B737NG cockpit project. This is what happens when you leave something for a while, you need to get back in time and check what was the last thing done in order to keep advancing from that point.

The B747-8F/-400F project is momentaneously on pause as I am gathering a little bit more material and once the LEAP-1A is finished, I plan to work alongside with the deck set and with the new FMC15i cargo loader, that will be the first GSE of this year that I will make, so I am hoping to make it as detailed and realistic as possible, I must give a huge thank you to my friend Michael who has given me plenty of reference photos to make this model as best as possible.

Now that the decal liveries are uploaded, I will try to keep them in stock as regularly as possible and will also focus on creating new ones. There are some colorful ones that catch my attention that I would really like to make, but there are also other older liveries non existant nowadays that are also my wish to make. I look forward to move onto a different model other than the A320/A320Neo/A350, so I plan to continue with a Boeing bird next.
I will also put special attention to liveries of aircrafts carrying the LEAP-1A engines since I have been a little bit more limited with the PW engines so far, most Neos are wearing the LEAP engines. A321Neo liveries are also on my plans.

 

Wish you all a very nice Sunday and hope to give another update on the next weekend, hopefully with more info on the current project’s progress.

Best wishes,
Guillem

Livery decals available

Hello everybody,

Finally after several days of practically non stop, the livery decals are available. I must admit that there aren’t as many quantities as I wanted just yet, one of each isn’t much, but because it is the start, quantities are a little bit limited.
As I still don’t know very well which livery will be requested most, more stock will eventually be produced. There is more material on the way, it is a start, so it is my goal to keep these available, so part of this update is to say that from now on, availability of these will be more frequent.

I wanted to share a few photos that I took of the first prints, I really hope that these will be of your liking. You will find more at the store for every specific livery.

 

Work will continue this weekend with the LEAP-1A engine and I am also going to do a review and a list on steps that have to be done next with the B737 cockpit project.

Best wishes,

Guillem

Upcoming livery decals

Hello all,

Last weekend I wasn’t able to work and give an update on the 747 cargo and Leap-1A projects since I am very busy working with the decals. Everything is being finished and printing will start very soon as decals will be available on Friday.

I have been writing down some extra information for certain decal sets in which I give a tip for that specific livery on how to place a particular decal, specially cheatlines. I wanted to give as much information as possible.

Three new liveries will be available; the A350 Air China “Horticultural Expo ’19” colors, the Hong Kong Express A320Neo and the Brussels Airlines A320.

All other liveries will also be available with the exception of  the A320 Lufthansa “Starhansa”.

 

I will be updating the product images during the week.
I have been doing lots of testing during the last months and set up the decals to be printed as best as possible, I really hope you will like these decals!

Best wishes,
Guillem

LEAP-1A First work in progress

Hello everyone,

This weekend I have been working on the LEAP-1A engines after having made the P&W set for the A320 family, and I thought to share how is the progress so far.

Before I show the pictures of the work done, I want to show one that ilustrates the basic physical differences between both engine models:

As you can see, both engines are quite different when examined carefully, it may be easy to not to know which engine is which on a real aircraft at first glance, so one of the things I do to differentiate both engines is to look at the nozzle tip. The LEAP-1A has a little protuberant tube whereas the P&W don’t.

The LEAP-1A also features a very different shape on one of the sides of the cowl creating a kind of a lump. There are many other differences on the pylons as well, being the one for the LEAP-1A  a little bit longer. I am working on the shape with the real dimensions of the engines.

Here is one of the first steps that I’ve done:

I started by using one of the basic shapes of the P&W and modified accordingly, the outer ring is also wider on the LEAP-1A so I was trying to make that area while afterwards I realized that there wasn’t enough material on the inside to give it the proper thickness.

So I decided to sand down kowing that I was also making the engine shorter, what I did later was to add an extension in the middle to get back the distance I “ate” sanding that down.

At the moment the engine does not have that lump as it had in the second picture, but there is the main shape done, however yet to be polished and to have added the lump as well as other details.

I casted the engine as it is because that is the master part, if anything wrong happens to it, there is a chance of having to start all over again. This is a process that I do in certain circumstances pretty much like a “backup copy” so that in case anything wrong happens, you can go back to a certain point of the process.

There is still a lot of work to do, although I have used the basics of the P&W engine, after the cut I had to do, only a 20% remains from that engine and this will also be modified somehow, what I wanted is to make use of the P&W in order to have a “skeleton”, a basic shape to start working with.

You can also notice that the LEAP-1A is a bit flatter than the P&W whereas the P&W seems to be more rounded towards the end of the cowl, it has a more remarked slope.

Still a lot to do, but I hope this one won’t take me as much time as the previous engines did!

Best wishes,
Guillem

747-8F / 747-400F – Working with floors, ceilings and fuselage.

Hello all,

This weekend I have been able to work on the B747-8F/747-400F detail deck project and I have bad and good news.

Bad news is that the deck is now useless, I had an issue while trying to remove the original paint that covered some details resulting in the multiple bending of the deck. To be honest, I was never happy since then every time I looked at the deck. This issue ocurred several weeks ago and is one of the reasons why I haven’t been able to advance as much as I liked with this project.

The solution has been to start a new one, this is where I can say the good news; having learned a lot from the previous deck, I will remove the original system I had to hold the deck into place and instead, I will be using vertical walls, this will allow me more free space to work on the aft and fwd cargo bays and the same part that will hold the deck, will also be the part that delimitates the cargo bays.

The first step  I wanted to do prior working with the new deck was to cut out the tail section, this will save a lot of material when casting and reduce costs, plus ease things when adding the rear wall. For this step I used polyester thread, it broke several times so in such cases is better to use nylon threads.

Cutting with thread, the thickness of the cut is minimal. I cut approximately 2 mm from the vertical panel line, I will make sure to precise everything in the instructions.

Photo above shows the first portion of the deck. Another thing that I learned was that the deck is way too long to make in one piece. It would no be an issue for casting but it would be for placing. The final deck will consist of three portions.
The roof will be solid, and the decision for this is purely for ease of placement. Many things have to be done having in mind that later, this will have to be build and parts must join perfectly, having a solid ceiling will ease the building process.

The floor of the cockpit (marked with the brown arrow) will have to be modified to make that area solid.

In the photo above there are two things to notice:

One is the sidewall marked in light brown. This is the area that is actually seen from outside, thus the whole wall will have details and decal markings according to the real 1/1 aircraft. This area is very important and I am aware that detailing must be done as much as possible.

The second thing to notice is the blue section. You can see the vertical wall that I made in order for the deck to rest on it. In the previous version, the deck was going to rest on a solid part between the two rails just behind the nose gear. These rails as well as the solid block would have given me a hard time when detailing or even opening the cargo door, thus making the forward and rear walls (note that only the rear is made at the moment) I will have plenty of space for detailing the FWD cargo bay.

The vertical wall will also have detail where the arrow indicates. This will be the wall within the cargo bay, so the same part that helps keep the deck in place, will also be a part of the FWD bay.

As I was mentioning earlier, all of the parts must join as best as possible, hence I added a thin line that will indicate precisely where the vertical wall for the cargo bay will go.

Here it shows the work so far on the deck. Note that the middle section still does not fit perfectly with the first section, but that has already been corrected as I also needed to do some adjustments for both fuselage halves to fit together.

It may seem a lot of work and a waste of time after the first deck work. However, by doing this again, I somehow got more energies and hope for this project, because I wasn’t 100% happy after the issues appeared with the first deck.

I am still not sure what I will do with the several rails or tracks on the deck, the first version I used 0,5mm thickness parts, but I may go a bit thinner this time to keep these in scale.

The FWD bay wall has an extra part on its rear which is actually the part that holds the middle section of the deck.

This is a view from the tail side. Note the gap on the ceiling that I have to fix. I do not think it will be seen from the Side Cargo door nor the nose door, however, since it is a structural point, it must be fixed.

This is how the project is so far. Next weekend I will start the LEAP-1A engines, thus there won’t be more updates on this cargo bird until a couple weeks. I may work with it during the week depending on the work with the items I need to make, but this has been a very important update for me, even if I haven’t done anything new, I have been able to redirect the project and most important of all; feel happy with it again which is really needed for working in such long tedious projects.
I am not forgetting the B737 cockpit project, but everything takes time and I only have two hands 🙂 wish time could stop sometimes…

Livery decals will be available on February 15th, things are getting finished and I am about to start the first prints. There is still some work to do on the A350 instructions. I am also working on the white decals, will be able to make them more opaque after adjusting some settings.

I want to apologize for the delays that have been produced during this long time. Sometimes things aren’t as easy as click a button, adjustments have to be done and tests had to be done as well.

Next weekend I expect to start the LEAP-1A engines and hope to update the blog.

Best wishes,
Guillem

 

 

A320Neo Hong Kong Express finished

Hello everybody,

Finally I have been able to finish what was the decisive decal test, the A320Neo Hong Kong Express. I can’t say it is a project I enjoyed because I was feeling that everything was being delayed. This model should have been finished at least a couple weeks ago, but I had some issues with the approach I took to place the decals and I had to re make the model.

It is not perfect, I think the Zvezda kit does not only have the windows too big, but they are also too high, it was a mistake to follow their height but overall I am satisfied with the decals and this was a final test for them. I have to reduce a little bit the nose door registration, the green line decal inside the engines has also been modified afterwards to have a more saturated color.
Since this was supposed to be a quick out of box build, I did not do a mixture for the purple color, I used the best match I had on my shelf but the “Hk” decal is actually a closer match to the real aircraft rather than the paint I used for the tail and engines.

I can see that the decal sets will be bigger than an A4 sheet since I will be including enough decals for the white underneath the needed colors. The instructions also have to be redesigned in order to point where white underlaying goes and other tips for more complex liveries as well as a black/white decal layout to see everything in detail.
Since this film carrier is very thin, it is not troublesome to use white layers first for some specific areas because the decal dries and sticks to the surface very easily and rather quickly. So far this kind of film is the thinnest one I ever tried and it practically does not show the edge around the cut, at the same time, the film is very resistant. As always with all decals, placing the decal must be done with still the backing paper holding it and on the airplane surface just sliding the decal to place to avoid the decal to fold itself.

As you can see from the photos, this model also features my previously made PW Neo engines which include photo realistic pylon decals. After the completion of this model I can finally start working on the LEAP-1A engine.

 

Next step will be to finally resume the projects I have started and start the LEAP-1A engines. I will also be making more units of the out stock items so I hope to set them available in due time. I expect to have the livery decals available a month from now as I have to do these minor modifications to the instructions as well as print everything.

Hopefully I can upload some progress on the current projects on next week!

Thank you all for reading!

Best wishes,
Guillem

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