B737 cockpit progress – starting to adjust MIP-Sidewalls

Hello all,

Just a quick update this weekend.

I haven’t had enough time for more, but I am finally starting to adjust something that was bothering me very much. I started to adujst the union between the side walls and the main instrument panel.
I have added a plastic extension so that the panel joins together with the side walls, there is another thing I must do in order to adjust it a little bit more.

Circled in white there is an area that is slightly lower in comparison to the other side, so I am also adjusting that.

The next step that I will do is to make the windows support that goes on each side so that I can have a reference point at the moment of making the glareshield.
This work will flow downwards and will end in the extension of the side walls that is yet to be made.

I am going to be working on this during this week and I hope to upload more images soon.

Thinking ahead, once the main shape of the sidewalls and the windows/railing are made, I would like to focus in one particular panel (the radio/com panel) with the idea of finishing it, with the buttons and all the other elements. Reason for this being that after this long time working mainly on structures, I want to do something different and see which level of detail I can put in it, to me it will be a guideance, an example, of how all the other areas should look like.

Wish you all a nice week,
Guillem

747-8F / 747-400F – Working with the cargo holds (2)

Hello all,

After the release of the new items at the store I encountered an issue that has been already addressed. The issue was caused by the recent items to have “manual stock management” set at the back office instead of “advanced stock management”, this caused some orders to split charging a second shipping (that was later refunded) separating items according to their stock setting.
This problem ocurred because in the past, decals were sold by using a different shipping carrier and therefore the “advanced stock management” needed to be activated, but this is not the case anymore since all items are shipped with the same carrier and I preferred to set the stock items manually, it is more straight-forward.

Store is set and ready, but I would like to remind you that if you ever encounter a problem while at the checkout or have a question, please do not hesitate to contact me at any time.

Now I would like to upload some photos of the progress I did with the 747 cargo project (and with more and more desire to retake the 737 cockpit project which I don’t forget and for which I apologize for not showing updates yet).

Everything is getting very very tight at the cargo holds, all what I present here is just main structures, putty needs to be added and adjustments need to be done, but that is my intention; the cargo deck will be at the same time the cargo holds ceiling.

LD3 containers were used for dimensions reference and as you can see, they enter perfectly tight through the cargo door.

There was a new wall made which was needed to use as a back wall right at the nose area. In reality, those walls are displaced to create more room to allocate more containers, but I am a little bit limited with the kit’s original design and I already calculated so that several containers can go in there.

The walls on the inside are not round, they have the shape of the container profile, and now that the shape is obtained, I will backfill with putty these walls and make sure these plastic parts adjust well onto the fuselage.

Depending on the time, I may proceed with that either during this week or next weekend, I still have to officially start the new cargo loader for which I am really excited to start, but I also wish to continue with the 737 cockpit. In either case, both projects need some time for me to think and plan, although I have started to sketch the parts for the cargo loader, I still need to do more drawings and on regards the 737 cockpit, it has been so long time since the last update, that I need time to look at which step has to be done next, and as I recall, the priority was to set up every panel on the base and start adjusting structures, a major step in the project that has to be done properly or else everything to add later won’t fit.

That is all for now!

Best wishes,
Guillem

Released: 1/144 LEAP-1A engines, A350 New sharklets, A320Neo liveries

Hello all,

Finally after a few months since I started this project, I have been able to upload the LEAP-1A engine into the store. There have been 9 new livery decals made as well of the A320Neo and a new one for the A350-900. The P&W Neo engines have also been re stocked.

After the last photos, I wanted to attach the engines to an actual model, in this case the A321 from Zvezda:

This has been quite the inversion for me, I used more material than I thought in order to have a backup step in case things got messed up. I do not use a 3D printer so everything is done according to blueprints and images, thus if I did a wrong step on the master part, without the continuous casting, there wasn’t a returning point and work of months would have gone down the drain.

I also wanted to pay special attention to the engine decals because I think those will give an extra realism finish to the engines. I must confess that the P&W engine decals did not sell that much together with the resin set, and I understand that is because customers already purchased A320Neo decal sets from other manufacturers, however, you need to take into consideration that the decals that are sold separately (and included in each Neo livery decal set from the store) are specifically designed to fit the resin models, this is important on regards the pylon decals as I used the resin parts as template.

Why I decided a long ago when I released the P&W engines to sell the resin sets and engine decals separately was because a couple of reasons; one to make the resin engines more affordable if you really did not want the decals and second, because if a customer purchased a livery decal set from the store, those engine decals are already included and therefore there was no need to have them in the engine set.

The LEAP-1A engine is not the only item to release today, but also the A350 new sharklets for which I made all the decals of the -900 version to choose from.

The new liveries included in the catalogue:

A couple things that I wanted to mention on regards these decals:
The EasyJet decal does not include the orange areas as decal, the reason is because the engines share the same color as these areas of the fuselage, so I preferred the modeler to actually paint these areas rather than having to try to find a paint for the engines that could match the orange decals, does this make sense?
I also plan to make the NEO titles version of the EasyJet A320Neos, this decal set will be released next month.

On the China Southern A320Neo, the dark blue cheatline between the two lighter blue decals wasn’t made. I know that it is perfectly possible to make that decal, make a cut so that it could fold onto the nose, but I had experiences with that before and, as the real aircraft, I preferred that color for that particular cheatline to be painted.

While making those decals I always keep in mind how would I do it if I was to make these models, which would be the best option and which one would give best results, and in this case I think that the combination of the two lighter blue decals with the painted dark blue cheatline would give the best finish. The instructions also cover the steps to do this process indicated as how I would do it.

 

That’s all for now guys, it has been a lot of work all this time, I must confess I am quite exhausted, but with the completion of the LEAP-1A engines, a new project will come in line, the FMC15i with the posibility of adding the double sill.
The 747 cargo project will also advance and hopefully I can get my hands on the 737 cockpit because it has been way too long since last time.

Thank you all for the support and looking forward to post new progress on these projects!

Best wishes,
Guillem

 

747-8F / 747-400F – Working with the cargo holds (1) – Neo engines release date

Hello all,

After starting to make the first units of the LEAP-1A and A350 sharklets I was able to continue working on the B747-8F/-400F project.

I made the three basic parts that are inside the tail cone, these parts will be assembled directly inside the kit’s tail, so the rear wall, the ceiling and the floor are both glued together but not attached to the cone.

I also started the cargo holds, the aft hold. Everything is very tight, it really was luck that the thickness of the deck matched the ceiling of the cago hold (although I did an approximate calculation based on the cargo door), thus allowing the cargo containers to fit right in. There is still a lot of work to do on the cargo holds, the most difficult will be to match both cargo hold sides, this is something that I am already doing on the other half of the fuselage.

I’ve been taking a look at how many containers does fit in the real aircraft, and I am afraid that because of the belly design of the Revell kit and the way I separated the three sections of the deck, there will not be as much space as the real aircraft, however, there is no space to see further than the current walls when viewing from outside anyway.
The model is not intended to be a cutaway model, so there are some things that I do not mind since my goal is to make the cargo set for a complete build, fully (or mostly) open but with the “outside view” idea.

Hope you guys see it promising, everything done so far is just pure base, plastic work and main structure design, there are no details yet, but I am really looking forward to start working on these.

Taking this chance with the update, I announce that the LEAP-1A engines, the A350 new sharklets and the new liveries will be available from May 10th, I need these ten days to finish a few things, make sure the instructions are correct, double check them, make the PE, print the decals etc.

Will give an update the next weekend with more info on this matter and with more progress on the cargo. I keep in mind the B737 cockpit, and I also keep in mind the new FMC15i cargo loader for which I keep designing its parts, but I just can’t do so much stuff simultaneously and I prefer to focus on current things at the moment 🙂

Wish you all a happy week!

Best wishes,
Guillem

LEAP-1A Engines finished

Hello all,

It has been a while since the last update, but I kept working on the LEAP-1A engines and I can finally say that they are finished.

At this moment I am doing minor adjustments to the photo etched and also including the two drains that goes underneath the engines.

I tried to represent what would be the Easyjet A320Neo engines since I also wanted to test the base white decals for the color decals that goes on top and also finetuned them after these engines were made.
The pylon decals are both photorealistic and vector following the same design of the real engines as close as I could make them. There are a couple decals that won’t have the backing white decal (top D shape panel line and the two panels at the rear cowling section) solely because when the engine is dark, these lines become unnoticeable on the real aircraft.

I hope you guys like them, it has been a bit long project for which I tried my very best to make them as accurate as possible and I am glad to see them finished.

From this point I will start with the production of the first units so once I have these a little bit more advanced, I will give a release date.

In the meanwhile I also kept working on the livery decals, China Southern A320Neo, Frontier N301FR/N308FR, I also include at release the same day the TAP A320Neo, Generic LEAP-1A A320Neo, and Thai AirAsia A320Neo, the other aircraft from the Airbus family, the Philippines Love Bus A350.
I may be working on a couple more A320Neo liveries while I am making the first units of the engines, all the new liveries will be released simultaneously at the same day of the engines and the A350 new sharklets+decal release date.

The photos of the LEAP-1A engines:

Best wishes,

Guillem

LEAP-1A Neo engines update

Hello all,

Apologies for the delay on updating the site. Last week has been a little bit busy with some things that I had to do, currently I am about to fully complete the LEAP-1A engines.

Although you can see them in a similar condition as the last update, this engine model was made from the two halves that have already been cut which are the parts that will be included in the set.

They are finished, but there are just a few things that have to be done prior the release, I will start making the first units during the next week. I currently started the photo etched parts which can be seen from the photos; the fanblades and spoiler supports, there are still other PE parts to make.

Decals are also another thing that have to be done, I couldn’t make them till now that I have the two engine parts assembled and thus can make the pylon decals.

I feel that I am way behind completing things but I am now fully focused on these projects. In the meanwhile I am also preparing new livery decals; Philippines “Lovebus” A350, A320Neo China Southern, A320Neo Frontier N301FR and N308FR, A320Neo TAP. I will be making a couple more for the A320Neo.

I am also preparing new A350 sharklets which will be released simultaneously when I release the LEAP engines, A350 new sharklets will include decals for all airlines, decals for these are now finished.

This week will be holiday but I will keep on progressing with the engines, although the main item is done, there are just few things that need to be completed.

Best wishes,
Guillem

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