Project updates; LEAP-1A, B747-8F/-400F deck, A350 new sharklets and decals

Hello all,

Here are some updates on the current projects:

LEAP 1A engines:

I’ve been able to start working on the pylons. My initial idea was to use the 50% of the PW pylons, but decided to start fresh. This is a very rough shape, pylons are glued to the wings and now I will put a little bit of putty for two reasons; 1- make sure that the fitting to the wing is 100% perfect, 2- finish to give volume to the pylon, when looking from the top, the pylon is thicker towards the inner side. After putty is applied, I will then remove the pylon and continue sanding/giving a more three-dimensional shape.
I am also going to do a light modification on the lump, I will try to make the edge just a little bit more sharp.

 

B747-8F/-400F deck set:

Although it may seem there hasn’t been a big update on this project, it has definitely been a very important step. I have been able to prepare the unions on both fuselage halves for both; the ceiling and the deck.
In order to make the ceiling easy to place I did the following steps:

  • Filled up with putty the left top side of the fuselage in order for the ceiling to be placed in one position and one position only.
  • By using putty and from the inside of the fuselage, I put putty between the ceiling edge and the fuselage wall, upon putty dried, ceiling was removed and a mark was left for the ceiling to sit on precisely.

Having completed these steps and knowing that both the deck and ceiling fit inside, I am starting to consider the two remaining areas; the rear final deck section and the cargo holds.

Cargo holds will definitely be easier to make since they have flat surfaces which appear to have the same profile shape of an LD3 container (or vice versa). The step to do on this matter will be to open the cargo doors and set a floor inside leveled to the door, then from there make the two remaining walls.
Because of the deck touches right on top of the cargo doors, the main deck will also be the cargo holds ceiling on the other side.
I am also considering to leave the cargo holds “built in” the fuselage.

About the rear section deck; this will be a set of deck/ceiling/rear wall that will fit inside the tail cone in one position. The main reason why I think to do this is because although the -8F does not have a pax door there, it does exist on the -400F and some BDSF models (pax converted to cargo).

I am also starting to work on a minor cargo stuff which I hope to upload next week.

A350 New sharklets:

There are still some things that need to be done but I am currently decal testing these sharklets in order to start to design decals for all airlines, my intention is to serve these sharklets with decals to chose from similar to the GSE decals choice at the store.

White of decals:

Although results proved me that printing two separate layers on top of each other is not fully viable due offsets, I double checked using two separate decals and in my opinion, two layers of white decal does look opaque white on a black surface.

I first put one white decal, removed the excess of water and once it was settled, I placed the second white layer on top and the result is as seen on image above, decal was placed on a black plastic surface. Placing the two white layers when required (visible white) is actually easy to adjust the second decal to fit the first one and it does not take much time/effort.

I take these matters very seriously because before selling these things I was a customer (still am) and I want these decals to be as they are expected to be, I would have not continued with them if I knew the white wasn’t possible but overall I am very satisfied with the result and I am currently working on new liveries, during the week I will put the current ones of the store back in stock again.

 

As  the 747-8F/-400F deck project is advancing, I wish to start soon the new cargo loader, before that I plan to release the LEAP-1A engines and the A350 new sharklets.

Best wishes,
Guillem

 

Updated country list

Hello,

This is just a quick update to inform that countries have been added to the store where it was not possible to ship items before:

Afghanistan, American samoa, Andorra, Bhután, French polynesia, Guam, Guernsey, Iraq, Ivory coast, Jersey, Maldives, Marshall islands, Mayotte, Mexico, Micronesia, Mongolia, Nepal, Niue island, Norfolk island, Palestinan territories, Saint pierre and miquelon, San marino, Sierra leone, Somalia, Tokelau, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Virgin islands (usa), Wallis and fortuna and Yemen. Users will now be able to register a shipping address with these countries.

At the same time I want to take this chance to comment that I was able to advance further with the B747-8F/-400F cargo set and that I plan to upload more information about this and the LEAP engines this weekend.

I’ve been continously working and testing the decals and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t viable to print two layers in two separate prints. Some tests came out very well, but the success rate was low and thus I decided to include the white decals in a separate sheet and provide two or more white decals when white is placed on dark surface. With a recent test on a black surface I was able to see that with two white decal layers, white was bright and opaque. More info on this coming up soon as I will restock the catalogue during the middle of next week.
In the meanwhile projects that I almost completed are; A320N Frontier N301FR (LEAP), China Southern A320N (PW), Philippines A350 “Love”. Currently also working on all A350 sharklet livery decals for the new sharklets.
These and other new liveries will be available on next month as “April” releases.

Also I updated the shipping info page and removed the “7 day preparation time” in some cases for the decals. They won’t require that time period and will have a maximum of 3 days preparation prior shipping, same rules applied from the other items at the store as usual since they are all shipped from my location.

Best wishes,
Guillem

747-8F / 747-400F – Working with the deck (6)

Good afternoon,

The rear section of the cargo deck is finally done, adjusted into place and also a new middle rib was made (since I wasn’t happy with the result of the previous one), this rib holds into place the edges of the middle and rear deck.

Everything is done so that everything can be mounted and fitted together. The rear deck has two beams where the final rib gets into place, this way the deck, once fitted together, won’t have other position than that.

I am planning some changes in the schedule, so I will dedicate more time with these projects. It all looks plain and dull and empty so far, but that is the required base for the detail. I expect to make a initial cast of the entire deck to make it as finished in order to see what the detail and color would be.

Notice on the “mouth” photo, the left sidewall (looking from the front) has the edge smoothened whereas the right side still has the plastic edge which will be covered with putty and sanded soon.

Next step; continue with the ceiling.

I want to take this chance with this post and say that I am currently working on the livery decals. They are not available as I am waiting for material and I am taking this time to do some improvements. I am working into making the white more opaque for certain decals, thus there should be no need to put 3 or 4 layers of them, another area I am experimenting with is mixing color decals with white decals, this is a very big challenge for me right now and still can’t do many tests due lack of material (still on its way). I will decide what to do once I experimented a little bit more with this because if I think I can present something better, then it is worth the time.

Best wishes,
Guillem

LEAP1-A progress, A350 new sharklets and continuing the B747-8F/-400F deck.

Good Sunday everyone,

In a scale of 0 to 10 my current stress level is at 12, not feeling too happy neither, could it be the spring coming.

I must admit that I am struggling to keep items in stock, cast those tiny parts and then prepare/clean them takes time, it is not just take them out of the mold and put them in bags.
However, I go step by step because it is the only way to not to drive oneself crazy. During the next week I expect to upload the 1/144 AST-1, A320 galleys/cargo holds, belt loaders, a couple GPU, A319, A320, A321 sharklets, WiFi antenna radome and hope to start casting more baggage carts and catering trucks. PW Neo engines are on hold once I finish the LEAP ones for a multiple mold casting since the current mold said “I give up”.

As you may have noticed I am not good at keeping decals in stock neither. I am currently awaiting more material and also working on new liveries, A320Neo (PW) China Southern and would like to start a few Frontier A320Neo (LEAP) as I feel there is a progress on these engines currently and would like to work on LEAP liveries as well.
I wish that I could get material and have some margin to not to end up with 0 papers to print on, most of the decal sets takes almost two A4 size papers and I guess I am still learning about keeping enough material.

In any case and leaving aside how I am feeling lately, I would like to upload a few photos of the progress done so far on the LEAP engines, A350 new sharklets (this was started a long ago) and the tiny process on the cargo deck.

This is second stage casting where I engraved the lines and reworked the end of the engine cowling.

Do not think too much about the upper flap on the engine cowling, I will probably take that away when placing the pylons and re work it again on top of both areas.
I will also fix a few things around the final section of the cowling, fix the shape a little bit. So next step will be to cast the second master part and add the left and right pylons.

As for the A350 new sharklets, I am currently polishing  them and fine tuning a few things, my goal is to have decals available for them so customer can chose which airline goes with these resin sharklets (or none).

 

The tiny progress I was able to do with the 747-8F/-400F deck project is this:

The final portion of the deck is being fitted, fits well on the right side, but a lot of work to do on the left side. I would like to dedicate a whole weekend to work on this because I want to keep things moving.

I wish I could feel more motivated, I guess there are too many things I am doing and I don’t have spirit for all of them to work on simultaneously, this and other things are putting me down for a while, will try to keep things in order to work better and be more optimistic.

Best wishes,

Guillem

 

 

Advancing little by little with current projects

Hello all,

This weekend I did a very tiny step on the current projects but it was a very good step for me to know where I am with these and what is coming next, alternatively I also have two good news.

On regards the B737NG cockpit:

I’ve finally got a piece of a composite fiber panel which is 10mm thick and that I cut down to 30x30cm, later I draw a grid of 5x5mm so that I could place all the elements of the 1/12 B737NG cockpit and start to see where everything has to go.
I am going to be using this grid for reference and symmetry since one of the steps I want to do later is to start with the glareshield and that will lead me to complete the front section structure.

Now, to hide all the rear side of the panels, I’ve considered two options; make just a flat wall or make the actual B737NG shell, so a portion of the cockpit would actually be a portion of the fuselage.
One of the things that I must keep in mind is to prevent the cockpit to have lots of shadows and therefore become dark, so I am studying every possibility and the same applies with the overhead panel. Perhaps the best choice would be to do half the shell such as a “cutaway” model and thus allowing the cockpit to have plenty of natural light.

While positioning the different elements, I realized that some work has to be done on the FMC pedestal panel and the throttle quadrant structure for them to fit better. I will actually set the center of the elements on the FMC pedestal since from it, every other panel follows.

Before I move onto the glareshield, I will finetune these unions as well as those for the MIP/sidewalls.

 

As for the B747-8F/-400F deck set:

I have been able to add  two new ribs which are fundamental to hold the deck as well as be a part of the AFT cargo holds. Now that the two rear ribs are made, I will proceed to make the last section of the deck.

I am also starting to study how the rear end wall will fit in the tail section. I am trying to avoid to end the deck with just a circular part with the shape of the fuselage, what I intend to do is create a conic effect as the wall gets smaller inside the tail cone.
This rear wall will be fitted in the fuselage section and will then fit inside of the tail cone once this is attached to the fuselage. The deck set won’t include the tail cone, so that will be cut off from the fuselage kit and placed onto the casted fuselage.

One of the things I am concerned about is that if I add a “false” cone to create that effect, the model may go “nose up”, so I am also considering using ballast towards the front section of the fuselage.

 

I am advancing very slowly with everything, perhaps I should restructure my schedule but I don’t want to leave a project for too long time or else I will forget where I left it. This coming weekend I would like to at least have the LEAP-1A engine with the panel lines engraved and complete the rear section of the cargo deck. As for the B737NG cockpit, I will require a longer “session” to do the steps mentioned at the beginning, but now that I know what do I have to do next, I feel more confident and wishing to start adjusting those panels very soon.

On regards the two good news; one is that this past weekend I have been experimenting with a filler for the polyurethane resin and I am very happy about how it performed, this will therefore save a lot of costs to produce the B737NG cockpit since I want to make the different panels and pedestals solid, saving costs with this material will also represent in a cheaper price for the product. I liked the initial test very much, so I am really looking forward to make use of this on the cockpit.

I am also considering using the filler for the 747-8F/-400F cargo fuselage, but for that I still need to do another test.

The second good news is that I am doing some tests in order to achieve the white of the decals to be more opaque on bigger dark areas. It does not mean that the whites aren’t opaque now, but that I may be able to add the white with less decal elements. This will only work on bigger decals such as tail logos or the overwing emergency exit marks.
It is something that I am still experimenting with but that the upcoming liveries will be designed having this in mind.

Wish you all have a very nice week!

Best wishes,
Guillem

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

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