1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One" FINISHED

[NecronautDrummer]

I got inspired to build an airliner recently, and found the motivation necessary to see it through: turn it into Iron Maiden's personal tour airliner, Ed Force One. I have listened to these guys since I started high school, and learned to play drums by listening to their classic albums: Live After Death, Powerslave, Piece of Mind, Number of the Beast, Somewhere in Time, and Seventh Son. As well, this is an impromptu wedding gift for the guitar player in my metal band. The wedding is on July 2, so I have a deadline to finish this.


Here we go!


I am using Revell's 1/144 Boeing 747-400 as the base for this build. Not too many sprue or parts.


These resin exhausts from Brengun were pretty cheap. They will save me a lot of work trying to get the kit exhausts to look even half as good as these.


This PE set from ExtraTech will help add some much-needed detail to the gear doors, landing gear, and engines.


These decals were sourced from V1Decals in Victoria, British Columbia. Canadian-made!


Image courtesy of Rolling Stone/Getty Images

 

[NecronautDrummer]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"


The sprue gates on this kit are enormous. No sprue cutters here, I need to saw them off!


Revell kits don't come in boxes with lids. I wish they did. I sliced the top off their box and glued up the sides. Now I have somewhere to store all of the sprue for this kit! Until...


...I get to this stage and realize that there is only one sprue left in the entire kit. :
What can I say about this kit? It has flash. Lots of flash. It has locating pins and holes that don't fit into one another. When the odd pin/hole do marry up, it results in mis-alignment of the parts and panel lines. I have nipped and sanded off pretty much every locating pin on this kit. The bottom of the fuselage on one side is pretty warped as well. Speaking of mis-alignment...



The molds must have slipped apart or slid apart during the injection moulding of this last remaining sprue. Every part is misaligned by 1-2 mm. That's no big deal for parts that are only molded on one side, but the gear and wheels are single pieces, and they all have this alignment step. I could stand to fix up 1 or 2 wheels with this issue...


...But there are 18 wheels and 5 sets of landing gear to fix. At this stage, I will be building this with the gear up and gear doors closed. Meh, it's probably going to get hung up from the ceiling in our rehearsal room anyways! Onward!

 

[Quaralane]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

Looks to be a fun project here

 

[smokeriderdon]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

I would suggest sending an email to Revell with a pic showing that and requesting a new sprue. They are pretty good about that stuff.

And only some of their kits are those annoying ass end opening boxes.

 

[urumomo]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"



Well , you learn something new sometimes ;D

I did not know they had their own 747 .


I've yet to see a decent Revell offering .
I thought it was the few older kits I had dealt with , but it looks like they all have issues with their production quality .
I consider them donor-kits only

 

[NecronautDrummer]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

I would suggest sending an email to Revell with a pic showing that and requesting a new sprue. They are pretty good about that stuff.

And only some of their kits are those annoying ass end opening boxes.

Done! I'm waiting for a reply from Revell, but their timelines are on the order of several weeks. I'll try and hold off on sealing up the gear doors for as long as possible, but the wedding is July 2. Time is ticking, and I'm out of the house more than in the house during May. Actually, that might work to my advantage...

 

[smokeriderdon]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

I've yet to see a decent Revell offering .
I thought it was the few older kits I had dealt with , but it looks like they all have issues with their production quality .
I consider them donor-kits only

Really? Huh.

Lets see... 1/48 F-15E. Absolute best 1/48 version on the market.
1/72 C-54. Incredible kit.
1/32 Tornado. Great kit as is the 1/48 version.
1/48 AC-47. Another fantastic kit.
1/48 B-1B re release. They made improvements on the intakes and landing gears. Which were the only major drawbacks of the first kit. Even the original was a solid kit.
The 1/32 F-15E, if you can find it, is a great kit. I wish the would re release that one.
The 1/48 F-105 that has been around and modified to the T Stick version. All iterations are solid kits.

I can keep listing kit after kit from Revell that are solid or better. Yes, they, like every other company, have had their turds. What you said is a vast over statement.

As for this kit in particular. Stuff happens. These kits ARE mass produced, so things like this will happen. If they provide acceptable replacement, then the kit is far from a donor kit.

 

[smokeriderdon]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

I'm waiting for a reply from Revell, but their timelines are on the order of several weeks.

I got a replacement part for the one I lost on my C-54. It does take longer for the Revell Germany stuff to get to you. But, you may be able to make that deadline.

 

[urumomo]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

As for this kit in particular. Stuff happens. These kits ARE mass produced, so things like this will happen. If they provide acceptable replacement, then the kit is far from a donor kit.

Every kit that crosses my path could become a donor kit .
Big small cheap expensive rare or not ;D

I must qualify my derision of Revell with the fact that I really don't build aircraft .
& my experience with them is certainly limited and mixed . Every manufacturer indeed has their regrettable kits
.. . .. it's just that all of Revell's are krap ;D ;D

 

[NecronautDrummer]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

I picked up Revell's 1/48 F-15E Strike Eagle last month, based on the many excellent reviews its had over the years. In fact, it's pretty high up on my to-do list!
To be honest, when I got back into the hobby a few years back I was not at all willing to take Revell seriously as a good kit manufacturer. This is my first Revell kit since getting back into the hobby, and I have just started another one this weekend. All kits have their challenges, but I'll try and do my best. Neither of these Revell kits are really passion projects where I sink in wads of cash on aftermarket bits and months of blood, sweat and tears into them anyways.


I was away all week this week, so there's not much to report on this. I spent whatever time I had at home yesterday filling and sanding the joins. After a little tweaking of these parts and what felt like miles of re-scribing of panel lines (some of my own making, some just not molded very deeply or consistently) this morning, I laid down a coat of black Stynylrez primer to check my filling work so far. A couple bits need just a touch more Mr Surfacer, that's about all. This week, I'll glue in the wings and attach the undercarriage plate to seal up the fuselage. Then more filling and sanding to smooth that join out.

Cheers!

 

[NecronautDrummer]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"





The last two weeks have been a lot of filling and seam repair. I have used a variety of techniques to accomplish this: home-brew styrene filler + Extra Thin, plastic strip shims, plain old filler putty, and building up layers of material using thin pieces of plastic sheet.

Tonight should be the final filler application. Tomorrow, I'll sand the filler flush and apply a coat of Stynylrez to check my seam filling progress. Hopefully after that, I can move onto white paint, decals, and a little weathering.

 

[JMac]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

Just getting caught up on a few threads. Small scale civil air stuff doesn't usually interest me, but very cool with the "Ed Force One" markings.

How do you like the "Stynylrez"?

Jason

 

[NecronautDrummer]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

When it's on the model, it's quite good. The issue I have with it is the process of getting it on there in the first place.

My first two bottles of white have gotten so thick that they are almost un-spray-able. I've thinned them down with some 99%IPA, which helps a little.
I'm using black right now, and it works fine so far. We'll see how well it sprays a month from now, when it starts setting up in the bottle.

Different colors seem to spray differently. White is universally accepted as a waste of money and materials. Gray is better, and black seems to be pretty heavily favoured, amongst users. I have no experience with the coloured versions yet.

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

And of course Murphy's Law rears its ugly head, and Revell is now going to release the kit with the Iron Maiden decals! LOL

At least it shouldn't be hard to get sprue replacements as the kit will be in production.

You might be able to get the sprue out of Revell USA, if they have the kit in the warehouse, at least you wouldn't have to wait for it to come from Germany/Poland

 

[NecronautDrummer]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

Well... I have kind of already buttoned up the landing gear bays...

I did inquire with Revell, but it was going to be an 8-12 week wait before I saw the sprue. Wedding & due date on July 2, so I wasn't going to be able to wait that long.

 

[NecronautDrummer]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

Update time!


I just realized that I only have 10 days until I have to present this. Time to get cracking on these engines! I pulled these off the sprue, cleaned them up, and primed them in Stynylrez this morning. When I got home and got motivated, I sprayed down some Vallejo Metal Colors: Semi-Matte Aluminum for the painted silver on the engine casing & compressor fan hubs, Dark Aluminum for the photo-etched compressor blades, and...


...Steel for the engine thruster bells. These are the BrenGun resin replacements for the kit parts. I'll be adding some sort of weathered semi-bright metal effect on the metal band around the front of each thruster, much like the weathered pontoons on the float-plane from the Saturday Q&A this weekend. I'll also likely add some of the Pale Burnt Metal around the ends or tips of these too.



The entire plane is now filled, sanded smooth, primed in black, and painted with a few coats of Tamiya White. I also 'bleached' the insides of the panels with white mixed with just a drop of Tamiya Orange in the airbrush color cup. I think I will overcoat the entire plane with a light, transparent coat of White tinted with a drop of Buff, to kill the orange a little but add that slight discolouration to the plane's paint. In fact, I'll go do that right now so that it's dry when I mask off and paint the steel for the leading edges of the wings tomorrow night.

Cheers!

 

[urumomo]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"


That's a lotta doing to get a big white bird

What is this Sat Q&A you're talking about ?

 

[NecronautDrummer]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

Doh, that's from the Flory Models Saturday Morning Q&A members-only show. That's what you get for copying & pasting updates st 11 PM... My bad!

 

[urumomo]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"


Don't let it happen again



heh heh Eager to see these engines .

I admire your dedication to all this surfacing

 

[NecronautDrummer]

Re: 1/144 Revell Boeing 747-400 "Ed Force One"

Hey guys, this will likely be the last update before the final reveal photos...


I installed the ExtraTech photo-etch engine compressor blades into the engines. The PE is a bit too small, so it's off centre a bit. The spinner cone is cut off of the kit part. For the engine exhaust cans, I sprayed them with Vallejo Steel, then masked them off to spray the between-area with a mix of Vallejo Magnesium and Pale Burnt Metal. This was stippled with some Dark Aluminum. After unmasking, I dry-brushed the tips with some Pale Burnt Metal and Gold.




I did the decals tonight as well. I still have to mask off and spray the engine bodies white, then apply their decals. I will do that tomorrow night. As well, I'll clear-coat the entire model. I may also do a little weathering, just to add some interest to the model... but it's getting handed over on Friday!