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Paula & Dan · Posted: Fri 04 Apr 2008 12:36 pm Post subject: Dan's "Orion" 737-200

Progress of Dan's 737-200 in "Orion" livery will be reported here,

Dan
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Paula & Dan · Posted: Sat 12 Apr 2008 20:06 pm Post subject:

I've had a flick through the contents of the kit today and found that the one that I intend to use for this build has got a cracked front fuselage, that has seriously split under the cockpit. One of my first jobs is going to be to correct that.

This isn't nearly as bad as the problem with the other kit, though...

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Sat 19 Apr 2008 11:31 am Post subject:

Okey dokey - progress! This is the simpler of the two builds because it's actually got all the parts present....

However, this was a "buy" from another ATF member and came without a box, so no box shot for this one! Here's the sprues, all parts nice and clean and molded in the nice silvery '70s stylee plastic, along with the aftermarket Orion decals from TwoSix:

First up, I've had to address the big crack in the front of the fuselage with glue dribbled to hold everything together and then, due to the fact that I'll be using the window strip from the decal sheet, I need to fill all of the windows. In the usual fashion, I've glued sprue across the back of the windows comme-ca:

and then filled the front face with the Humbrol type filler. At the same time I've filled all the gaps around doors and cargo doors too, like so:

Now for a few hours of sanding, re-filling and re-sanding. Ho hum!

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Wed 23 Apr 2008 08:45 am Post subject:

Sanding of the windows is now done, wings are together, weighted the nose, painted some H11 inside the engines, on landing gear etc., painted H30 in landing gear bays, glued the fuselage halves together and attached the section that has the main landing gear bays attached. Fit of the whole thing was fine apart from the main gear bay which had some ejector pin marks and a bit of flash which needed to be taken care of before it would sit flush.

No pice of this as yet but will do shortly.

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Sun 27 Apr 2008 19:54 pm Post subject:

Current state of play:

No progress this weekend, sadly.

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Wed 30 Apr 2008 09:32 am Post subject:

I've now primed the top half of the fuselage with H64 and sanded and filled areas of the engines that needed attention. Tonight hopefully I'll get the underside and the fin primed so I can start the process of spraying the fuselage either tomorrow or at the weekend (we have a bank holiday here tomorrow, so time for a bit of attention to the 73s!)

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Thu 01 May 2008 20:59 pm Post subject:

Spot the difference with the Aloha bird!

They'll start to get different soon... promise!

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Sat 03 May 2008 21:41 pm Post subject:

This is where, finally, the two models start to diverge. For some reason, I'm still running with the Orion 737 first, but they are both at similar stages.

The wings for the Orion aircraft follow exactly the same pattern as the stock kit, so H40 centre section (wing centre box) with H11 leading and trailing edges. The engines are a bit different and will be primarily H11 but with H56 thrust reversers. In this way the aircraft is also different from the Hooters Air 737 we built before as it had painted nacelles (orange in that case).

The upper fuselage has now had 3 coats of Revell airbrushed gloss white, which has done a good job of giving me a nice even base coat from which to work. This is the fuselage all whited up:

I've since masked the lower fuselage with Tamiya tape ready for the lower fuselage colouring. The tape passes just above the wing/fuselage interface as the lower fuselage colouring runs just over the wing:

Finally, this is the first coat of H11 for the lower fuselage, following with my current philosophy of two coats of H11 applied by hairy stick:

It's coming on, slowly but surely!

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Fri 09 May 2008 21:39 pm Post subject:

Once again, these are pics actually taken last weekend but as you all know, due to Paula's illness neither of us have had the time to move them on any (until tonight!).

This pic shows the second coat of silver on the Orion 737.

Since then, tonight, in fact, I've taped up the nose section and masked off the centre wing box and brushed on a coat of H129 as the belly and nose are a basic grey colour.

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Sun 11 May 2008 17:09 pm Post subject:

As the Aloha aircraft progresses, so does the Orion one!

The same layout of fuselage and engines as the Aloha bird shows the wings and engines as well as the fuselage. The engines are fully silvered and the masking now needs to be reversed to paint the reversers H56. The wings are the stock H11 and H40 and the H129 on the fuselage belly can clearly be seen contrasting against the H11. I'm surprised but a single coat of H129 has done the job admirably. the nose is now masked for the black nosecone and that'll be job done for the painting of the main assemblies.

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Mon 12 May 2008 17:36 pm Post subject:

Another update - this is the state of play this morning, with the wings in place. The fit was OK, neded a bit of sanding on the rear edge but other than that, no real worries.

Since then, the horizontal tailplane is on, the landing gear legs mounted, the engines have gone on and I've done a bit of touching up of bits and pieces. A bit more touching up and the wheels can go on.

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Wed 14 May 2008 12:51 pm Post subject:

So here's Orion with engines, tailplane and gear legs/doors:

A bit of touching up to do before the Klear goes on. Wheels coming soon, too.

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Mon 26 May 2008 12:16 pm Post subject:

In spite of appearances this build hasn't come to a standstill - well, not a complete one, anyway! I've been touching up little bits and pieces here and there and have now added the wheels to my landing gear. The only thing to do now, before Klear-ing ready for decals, is to paint the APU exhaust.

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Fri 06 Jun 2008 18:53 pm Post subject:

Like the Orion one, guess what? This one's on its wheels too! When I'm through posting here I'm going to get Klear onto both this model and the Aloha one. Hopefully I'll have the time to get two complete coats on. I'll also get a coat of Microscale Liquid Decal film on both sets of decals, too.

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Paula & Dan · Posted: Sat 07 Jun 2008 15:47 pm Post subject:

And Orion has rolled out of the paintshop.... I used all of the twosix decals bar the windscreen as it was way oversized compared to the actual screen. Talking of which, the fit of the screen was a bit of a fiddle to get right, though with a bit of trimming and sanding it went in. The final touches were a silver APU exhaust and a touch up of the top of the flap track fairings and the wheel centres.

All in all, a fun build!

More photos will go in the gallery and the civil aircraft section.

Dan
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Airbusians. Medium Bombers GB now underway.

Ratch · Posted: Sun 08 Jun 2008 08:23 am Post subject:

Nice finish Dan

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and was Jerusalem, builded here
The new No. 2
500287

dancho · Posted: Sun 08 Jun 2008 15:45 pm Post subject:

Inspiring!
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“Build what YOU want, the way YOU want to, and above all, have fun.”
- Al Superczynski (1947 - 2007)