1/72 Eastern Airlines 737-800

[f5guy]

Hi all,

      I've been eyeballing BPK's 737-800 and P-8A Poseidon kits in 72nd scale since I got them in a few weeks ago. I was leaning hard towards the P-8 until today when I got some really nice Eastern Airlines decals in from V1 Decals. As I've also been working on another large gray aircraft, a Heller 72nd E-3B, I decided to do something with a little color!

 

      I'll be getting off to a slow start as I'm having a blast building the Heller AWACS, but will post here as I progress. Thanks for checking in 😉 Fred K.

[Trojan Thunder]

I'll be following, I have both of those BPK kits and will be interested in how it goes together

[f5guy]

Hi all,

     I got a little bit done last night. The stabilizers and tail halves are together, as is the nose gear bay, and cockpit flight deck. I also got one of the forward and rear fuselage halves together. Since its just a butt joint, I reinforced it with some scrap plastic sheet. Now its solid as a rock. All for now. Fred.

[Trojan Thunder]

Good start, did you drill out all those windows?

[f5guy]

36 minutes ago, Trojan Thunder said:

Good start, did you drill out all those windows?

 

No, the windows came like that. I'm going to glue the clear window insert in and fill and sand right over it, and just use the decal windows. I made the mistake of using the kit masks to protect the clear windows on my 737-200/Rat 55 build. The masks worked fine, but in the end it would have been a lot easier to just use decals instead of trying to sand around them. The side windows are the weakest part of the BPK 737s in my opinion. I would have been much happier with a smooth sided fuselage, and just use decals to represent the windows. I'm hoping to have some time later today to start work on the engines. Fred.

[Trojan Thunder]

Thanks Fred, great insight

 

[f5guy]

Hi everyone,

      I had a little free time and got the engine parts painted up. I'm hoping to get them assembled this weekend. Regards, Fred.

[Trojan Thunder]

That is some lovely paint work Fred, some nice masking there.

[f5guy]

3 hours ago, Trojan Thunder said:

That is some lovely paint work Fred, some nice masking there.

 

Thanks! The front part of those compressor faces were a bit tricky, but I'm happy with how they came out. Fred.

 

[Bendinggrass]

How would rate the quality of the kit, fit, etc.?

Looks interesting.

[Drifterdon]

Great start Fred.   I'll be following along with this one.

[f5guy]

10 hours ago, Bendinggrass said:

How would rate the quality of the kit, fit, etc.?

Looks interesting.

 

 

Hi Bendinggrass,

     Take a peek at this link. I did a detailed build of BPK's 737-200 as "Rat 55" . I'm just getting going on this -800 so I can't really give a detailed breakdown of the build just yet.  I do suspect though that -800 will largely build up in a similar manner.  In short, they're both short run kits, so if you're expecting Hasegawa or Tamiya fit, you'll be disappointed. Everything needs to be trimmed, and test fitted, but once you do that, fit is surprisingly good.  The instructions for the -200 can be a little vague in spots, but I noted in my build where there were problems. It seems like they did a better job with the instructions on the -800. With a little work, and patience, BPK's 737's can be built up into really nice models that you don't see every day. And they're big too! The -800 is almost the size of Hellers 707/E-3B! HTH, Fred K.

     

Edited December 9, 2022 by f5guy

[f5guy]

2 hours ago, Drifterdon said:

Great start Fred.   I'll be following along with this one.

 

Welcome aboard Don 😉 👍 Fred.

[Major Walt]

Does it have a flight deck interior?

[f5guy]

3 hours ago, Major Walt said:

Does it have a flight deck interior?

 

Yes. All of the BPK 737s, including the P-8A, have a cockpit. However, there is no passenger cabin interior. HTH, Fred K.

[Sodasorb]

Very interested in seeing how you tackle this one.  Get work so far!

 

[f5guy]

5 hours ago, Sodasorb said:

Very interested in seeing how you tackle this one.  Get work so far!

 

 

Thanks! It's a little slow going now as I'm trying to finish off a 72nd RF-4C and 48th T-38A, but I work on it as time allows. Regards, Fred.

[Bendinggrass]

On 12/8/2022 at 4:51 PM, f5guy said:

 

 

Hi Bendinggrass,

     Take a peek at this link. I did a detailed build of BPK's 737-200 as "Rat 55" . I'm just getting going on this -800 so I can't really give a detailed breakdown of the build just yet.  I do suspect though that -800 will largely build up in a similar manner.  In short, they're both short run kits, so if you're expecting Hasegawa or Tamiya fit, you'll be disappointed. Everything needs to be trimmed, and test fitted, but once you do that, fit is surprisingly good.  The instructions for the -200 can be a little vague in spots, but I noted in my build where there were problems. It seems like they did a better job with the instructions on the -800. With a little work, and patience, BPK's 737's can be built up into really nice models that you don't see every day. And they're big too! The -800 is almost the size of Hellers 707/E-3B! HTH, Fred K.

     

Thanks so much, Fred. I will enjoy looking at your linked build. I am amazed at how big the kit/plane is. I didn't realize it was almost the size of a 707.

[f5guy]

1 hour ago, Bendinggrass said:

Thanks so much, Fred. I will enjoy looking at your linked build. I am amazed at how big the kit/plane is. I didn't realize it was almost the size of a 707.

 

Hello again!

     I should have clarified.... the -800 is almost as big as a 707. The earlier 737-200 kit is a bit smaller with a one piece fuselage. It's still not small though, and I had a blast building Rat 55. The only reason that build isn't done yet is that the white paint is kicking my butt! Clearly I need to work on my gloss painting skills 😂 I tip my hat to the car and airliner modelers who can turn out those flawless glossy models! Take care, Fred. 

[Bendinggrass]

Thanks, Fred.

It is still a big plane. I had no idea. And with 2 engines. 

I have the KC-135 in 1/72. AMT.... and that is big!!

[AV O]

3 hours ago, f5guy said:

 

 

     I should have clarified.... the -800 is almost as big as a 707. 

 

Different kinds of 737s.

 

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/231458-hasegawa-1200th/page/2/&tab=comments#comment-2999043

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/27699-airliners-twin-jets-squadron-1200th/#comment-3623781

Edited December 13, 2022 by AV O

[f5guy]

Over the last few days I've managed to get many of the smaller parts that have to be glued together,  glued together, including the wings, and remaining fuselage half (front to rear). I also got the engines assembled. With the engines there a tab on the resin fan blade section that is supposed to be glued to the interior of the upper engine halves. The rear exhaust section is also to be glued in the same manner, then the lower half of the engine section is to be glued to the top section in a clam shell manner. You can see the tab on the left engine front in the second pic. I glued the exhaust section in without any problems, but if glued where its supposed to go I found that the forward fan section doesn't fit too well. Specifically the chrome ring to the forward edge of the pod. I decided to cut the tab off and then glue the engine halves together and once dry, file the forward face of the engine pod flat with a file, then gently squeeze the pod halves together to get the finished forward fan section inserted. That worked great, but there is still much filling and sanding ahead. Before closing up the engine halves, I glued a small piece of thin plastic card behind the circular holes on each side of both engine halves. There is a chrome vent insert that goes in there. I figured that it would be much easier to paint them later, then insert them once the engine has been painted blue, instead of some tricky masking. Fred.

 

Edited December 18, 2022 by f5guy

[f5guy]

On the forward fuselage halves there is a raised ridge that must be filed off in order to get the two fuselage halves flush against each other. The rear fuselage section doesn't have it as can be seen in the picture. Fred.

[f5guy]

I started to work on the window inserts today as well. As I mentioned before, this is my biggest gripe with BPKs otherwise very nice 737 kits. I really wish that they'd have just made the fuselage halve sides smooth, and let the modeler use decals to represent the windows. This is standard in 1/144th scale airliner kits, and still looks good in 72nd scale. Besides, its not like there's an interior passenger cabin anyway. It just makes for a lot more unneeded filling and sanding. 

     

One thing that I noticed is that the instructions call for window inserts for the right side of the aircraft to be parts B1 and B2. If you do this though, it will leave a 1/4" gap between the clear window parts. It shows the same thing for the left side, C1 and C2. In reality, you need to swap the rear window sections from side to side. So that would be C1 and B2 on the right side and C2 and B1 on the left side. It may sound complicated, but with a quick test fit you'll be able to figure it out. 

 

The pic shows one of the clear inserts along with an essential modeling tool for these BPK kits. Everything needs to be trimmed to fit! All for now, Fred.

Edited December 22, 2022 by f5guy

[Dutch]

Fred, Very nice progress!  And excellent build observations and tips. Cannot wait to see the finished product in new Eastern colors! K/r, Dutch