ungerskpappa

So. This is it, I hope you enjoyed the review and can hopefully get some inspiration to your own build. Since it was my 3rd model, I am quite happy with the result. There are loads of things which could have been done better and prettier but the more you build the better you become. You always learn from your mistakes and you improve. I welcome any advise, suggestions, please comment the review if you liked it, and even if you didn't. Thank you for watching!

The belly of the beast :) How I hated those little antennas... :)

Here can you witness how ugly the nose have turned out. I did all I could at my knowledge and skills, the result is kind of okay I guess. The window could sit a bit tighter but... I will survive. :)

As you can see, the exhaust pipes are not sitting very tight to the fuselage, but they are okay I guess.

Here is the handle on the tail I was talking about. Not so pretty but it's there. :)

A few comments here: The painting is not very nice at the doorhandles, but it was too small detail to be able to correct it pretty. There is a black bar / handle on the side of the fuselage to which the staff can hold on to, now these tricked me because the holes are wider than the actual bars that go there. It was too late to get out the putty paste trying to fill them in, I just left them as they were. The windows. I don't see any chances that I will one day be able to mount windows without screwing them up with the glue. You put too little they don't hold. You put too much they overflow

And so it is done! :) Close-ups are coming. :)

This was the last stage - just hours before getting it done - where I had to leave for work for a week.

PLacing decals on a not flat surface is a nightmare, especially when a piece should go through them later. It didn't turn out the nicest, but practice makes perfect. At least I didn't break them. :)

Starting to look like the real thing, began with the decals.

Okay, so this is what I did with the windscreen/fuselage 'not fitting together' problem. I cut the windscreen in the middle and placed a rubber band there, strengthened it with a normal see-through tape from the inside and the outside so it's not that visible.

That back panel was very challenging too with the turbines' exhaust pipes. They just would't fit and it was impossible to get them to stick to the fuselage wall in a nice angle. I ended up creating a bridge inside the fuselage which then held up the two pipe in place. I don't have a photo of it but you don't want to see it, it's a lot of masking tape and extra plastic put in not in a very nice and clean way. :) Here the fuselage is getting the first coat of white at the top.

The big moment of truth - I had a really hard time fitting the two sides together and it isn't perfect.

Before glueing together the two fuselage halves I faced the problem of the weight balance. According to the instructions you should put 15g inside the instrument panel. I was trying to find something to fit in there which is heavy enough but didn't succeed. A little Blu-stick went in there but it wasn't close to 15 gramms. Then I found 2 norwegian coins which were quite heavy and so the model is now at least worth 30 NOK. :)

I found it disturbing that the cockpit didn't have a roof so I attached a plasticard to the "motor block".

I couldn't help but notice that a quite important part was missing on the fuselage, on the tail, this bar which helps move the aircraft around. So I made a hole, glued a plasticard as back and placed a wire later on in the middle. Under this link you will find the photo about what I mean:http://www.nordicrotors.com/SE-HPZ/2474My link

Here the other seats have been placed inside the cockpit with handmade belts. For the buckle I used tiny stripes of coca cola can. Unfortunatelly the floor had the holes in them for another row of seats behind the pilots, but the only row in the kit goes at the back and then it's two other seats facing them. I decided not to put in the last seat, to make it a little different.

Here the cockpit starts to look quite good. I did a few extra items for the cockpit, for exemple this little orange box - which is the "black box" as I understodd - correct me if I'm wrong. Then that little red thing to the left is a fire extinguisher which is also not included in the set. The headphones are for the passangers in real life, since the two pilots wear helmets with built in headphones and mics. But instead of following the instructions and hanging them up on the middle coloumn / console, I decided to place them on the front seats, thus trying to give it a more realistic feel. I

I was wondering if I should cut out at least one of the doors so it could be open, but I decided not to do it, fearing that I might make more damage to the fuselage than good. I do not have all the equipments to do such a task and I didn't want to go for it with the scarpel only.

Before and unfortunatelly even after applying the base grey color I had to clean up the parts several times, as the kit was made in a quite bad condition. As you can see I came across this problem for example at the joint of the windshield and the nose of the fuselage, it didn't really fit well. I will show you later how I fixed this problem.

This is the very beginning of the building, as the instruction booklet suggested I started with the cockpit. I wanted to make my own instrument panel but I was afraid I'd just srew it up and it is not so visible anyway, so I stayed with the decals.

As soon as someone enlightens me about how I can upload photos here. The only thing is url link, I uploaded the pictures to my Picasa webalbums but that won't work. The help menu is not really helping...