210922: Closing out the fuselage. A bit of flash on the nose gear doors.
210922: Closing out the fuselage. Hole for the pedestal socket, which will be epoxied in.
210922: Closing out the fuselage. The plasticard work is to (1) close out the gear well and (2) to keep the epoxy from running out the well when I inject it.
210922: Nose gear doors welded shut and back-filled with 5-min epoxy for strength.
210922: Plastic rod used to help position the nose gear doors. I later enlarged the holes and filled with epoxy.
210922: 10g nose weight from car tyre balance weights.
210924: Installing the socket for the in-flight mount. Note wheel bays (partially) closed out.
210924: Filing down the socket for the in-flight mount. Fit of the well bays part was surprisingly good.
210924: Trial fit of the in-flight mount.
210924: Nose weight (10 gr. Pb alloy) epoxied in and sealed to avoid problems.
210924: Trial fit of the cockpit hood. Again, surprisingly good.
210925: Fairing in the cockpit hood with CA ($ Store Superglue).
210925: Fairing in the cockpit hood with CA. Silver is Artist Loft paint pen.
210926: Installing the flap fairings
210926: Final sanding for the canopy hood.
210926: Installing engine pylons. OK fit, but still needed a plasticard shim and a bit of CA.
210926: Engine pylons. Fit is OK, but will require some craft work to hide the top/bottom joins on the intake lip.
210928: Extremely fragile decals!
210928: Extremely fragile decals!
210928: Installing a spar of brass rod to help set the dihedral.
210928: Showing off her white fuselage. The wings wil need their in-spar panels painted.
210928: First flight of the Boeing 737-400 glider!
210929: Engine cowlings and some of the smoothing tools I use. Filler is SuperGlue.
210929: Engine cowlings after filing and sanding.
210929: Engine cowlings after filing and sanding with silver paint as a scratch indicator. I wipe it right off after use.
210929: Fuselage cheat lines were incorrectly designed backward and therefore unuseable, so I decided to paint my own. First is the yellow (MM Acryl Chrome Yellow) for the stripe ...
201929: ...then masking the yellow stripe for the blue topcoat. I used a strip of tape to set the proper distance from the white (under the masking).
201929: ...then masking the yellow stripe for the blue topcoat. I used a strip of tape to set the proper distance from the white (under the masking).
201929: Cowlings, fuse bottom, and vertical stab all in MM Acryl Insignia Blue.
201929: Cowlings, fuse bottom, and vertical stab all in MM Acryl Insignia Blue.
201929: Success! To my eye, at least.
201929: The yellow may be a bit light, but it will do.
201929: tail looks good, too.
201929: At altitude in her new colors.
210930: Masking for the chrome leading edge was easy with 2mm Tamiya flexible tape.
210930: Masking for the chrome leading edges on the wings.
210930: Masking for the chrome leading edge on the cowlings. I should have sanded the blue for better chrome results.
211001: Getting the decals off their sheet in one piece was a time-consuming, difficult struggle. Getting them to conform was, too. Warm water helped.
This aircraft, part of the "Classic" series of 737s, was delivered to Aloha Airlines in 1992 and flew with them for a number of years before being passed on to several other operators, eventually going into storage sometime after 2010. I flew in this airplane – or one just like it – when we lived in Hawaii leading up to Y2K.
I bought this kit at the base Hobby Shop in Norfolk, VA (yeah, base hobby shops were a thing!) when it was first released and stashed it for two decades before I brought it out of storage for construction.
The kit was pretty simple and surprisingly good, with rather excellent fit and good detail on the wing and engine pods, although the fuselage is devoid of detail save the APU exhaust and some heavy-handed trenches for the doors and overwing exits. Undercarriage was good although I chose to build an in-flight display. The clear canopy was a great drop-in fit, and the clever wing interlock made it easy to get the wings to agree. Still, I installed a spar of brass rod in both the wings and horizontal stabs to lend rigidity and to make it possible to tweak the dihedral angle.
The decals… <sigh> are Cartograph, beautifully printed and extremely thin, but with an affinity for the carrier paper that nearly made them useless. They refused to come loose and cracked when I tried to force them, even though I had applied two coats of Testors Decal spray. I had to harass each decal off the sheet, finally succeeding with the help of warm water. They turned out all right In the end, but what a pain!
Paints are WalMart rattlecan grey primer and gloss white, and Testors Model Master Acrylics for the trim colors.
