Hasegawa 1/200 B.767-200
A Primer on building Airliner Models

KIT #

Lc13

PRICE:

$17.00

DECALS:

See review

REVIEW :

Scott Van Aken

NOTES:

 

A primer on building airliner models

HISTORY

The 767 is a fourth-generation airliner developed with an eye on improved fuel economy, better performance and the desire for a 'wide body' medium/long range airliner. To give this, the 767 has 3-2-3 seating in coach class, fuel efficient high-bypass turbofans and the ability to fly on only one engine, thanks to the excess thrust provided by its new engines. The 767 is also one of the earlier airliners to go to the 'glass cockpit' design of digital instruments and CRTs. The aircraft is still in production at Boeing's plant in Washington state.

THE KIT

While it may be a model of a fourth generation airliner, this is a first generation Hasegawa airliner. As a result, nearly all the panel lines are raised. It also has a separate transparency for the windscreen, though none for the cabin windows. There is no interior or cockpit in this scale. The kit is designed to be built wheels down so any desire to display it in flight will require some card stock and filler. A nice nose weight in the form of a big screw is provided. To display it on its stand, a hole in the fuselage bottom will have to be opened. 

I bought this kit on the second hand market and as such, it didn't come with a decal sheet. Not a problem as I plan on using Liveries Unlimited's new 767 Ethiopian Airlines sheet for this one.

Just a note, this is a 767-200. Most of the currently available kits are the longer -300 version. There is a note in the Liveries Unlimited sheet stating that the -200 molds were permanently modified  to make the -300, however a quick check of the Hobby Link Japan website does show a couple of -200 kits still available. It is quite possible that these are left-overs from the -200 production run and just reboxed with new decals.

CONSTRUCTION

The first step was to decide if I wanted to fill in the cabin windows. Most airliner modelers replace these with decals and since the decals I am going to use included windows, that is what I did. First of all, I used some strip styrene to back up the windows so that I wouldn't have an interior full of bits of putty. Then the nose weight was installed in one fuselage half. This wasn't painted as suggested in the instructions as the windscreen would be filled in as well for the decal. 

When dry, the first of several coats of filler was applied. I say several coats as fillers tend to shrink, leaving indentations of where the windows were. For the decals to be effective, the fuselage must be very smooth. After the first coat was applied, the fuselage halves were glued together. Once the fuselage halves were dry,  the windscreen was glued in place. I figured I may as well get all the fuselage puttying done at the same time!

Meanwhile, I glued together some of the other components including the wings and the engines. You can leave off the aft section of the engine until the final construction as they just pop right in.

Back at the fuselage; after four filler applications (actually, it isn't as bad as it sounds because the third and fourth application were just spot ones to take care of some rough spots), the fuselage was pretty smooth and ready to go. The way to tell if you have it smooth enough is to run your finger over the window areas. If you can feel the windows, it needs more filler. Alternatively, you can get it as smooth as you can and hope that the paint will take care of any minor rough spots. You can see my final result on the image to the left. It was now time to add the wings.

Once the wings were smoothed up a bit on the leading edge, any areas that needed some filler were attended to. Then the wings were glued onto the wing root. Mine fit pretty well, though the very front part was in need of filler. I suspect I had gotten too eager with the sandpaper doing the fuselage!

Once all that was done, the kit was set aside for about two weeks. This let the filler do a good job of completely curing. After that time, it was obvious by running my finger over the fuselage windows that another application of filler was needed. That was done and smoothed down. Another day or two of curing and it was of to the paint shop for the first application of paint.

PAINT 

The Ethiopian Airlines planes are, like most airliners today, mostly white and grey. Being a Boeing aircraft, there is a non-standard grey that is used on all their aircraft. This color is made by Xtracolor, but the paint is often difficult to find. After many e-mails and inquiries, I was told that probably the best substitute is Testors Canadian Voodoo Grey, a paint that is quite easy to find. The tailplanes were snapped into place and they, as well as the wings and engine pylons, were painted in Voodoo Grey. All the areas of filler were also painted this color. The reason being is that regardless of how many coats of white one puts over bare filler, the filler always seems to show through! The Voodoo Grey also helps to fill any tiny pinholes that inevitably show up in fillers.

Once the grey had dried, the wings and areas around the wing root as well as other grey areas were masked off using Tamiya tape. Then the tailplanes were removed and the rest of the fuselage painted using Testors Gloss White. After the white was successfully applied, it was masked off and just the spots on the lower fuselage to be painted aluminum were left showing. This was then painted using Testors Metallizer. After all the tape had been removed, I noticed that I missed a few spots that needed to be white. I had no choice but to mask off some of the aluminum areas. The spots were then painted and when dry the tape was removed. Miraculously, the Tamiya tape did not lift up any of the Metallizer!  I did notice that there were areas near the wing root where some of the paint had pooled and built up quite a bit. I removed as much as I could using a sharp Xacto blade and some very fine sandpaper. 

During all of this, the engines and pylons were painted. Despite being rather small bits, they require the same three colors that the rest of the aircraft does as well as some extra. The pylons are in the grey color. These were then masked and the cowlings painted white. Then the body was masked and just the edges of the intake and the inside of the intake were painted aluminum. The exhaust cones are two colors, aluminum and a darker metal. I used Magnesium. Again, the Aluminum Metallizer was masked with no problems. The landing gear components and wheel wells are grey (like the underside) and the wheels are aluminum.

USING BARE METAL FOIL

Next step was to apply the Bare Metal Foil (BMF) on the leading edges of the tail, tailplanes and wings. This stuff really is great. The one thing those of you new to it will notice, is that you tend to waste most of it. This cannot be helped as you want to make sure you have enough to cover the spot. Putting it on is actually quite simple. Just follow the steps below. The pictures of various steps are numbered and shown below.

First, you cut a section out of the sheet. By this, I don't mean you actually cut the backing, but you do want to slice through the foil itself. A new blade is paramount for using BMF. Take the piece and place it over the area to be foiled (1). Then burnish down one side of it. I use an Xacto knife handle wrapped in tape(2). The tape is softer than the handle and has some give to it. You can also use a toothpick as it is handy for tight places. Once the one side is burnished down, you'll see where to cut it. In this case it is a slat groove. Cut one side and remove the excess(3). Then burnish it down again to smooth out any ragged edges you may have from cutting it(4). 

Burnish the rest of the BMF around the leading edge and onto the underside. Again, cut the BMF(5). I make sure that I cut the foil at a natural break in the aircraft metal like a panel line or something similar. This is especially helpful when doing a long area. That way, you can do it in segments. If there are no seams to follow, as on the tail, then you just have to freehand it. Others have told me that they can burnish overlapping foil areas and have the seam disappear, but I have never been able to do it to my satisfaction. Once the foil is cut, then carefully remove the excess(6). Then burnish this piece down on the aircraft. If you want, you can follow up by burnishing the completed section with a Q-tip or cotton bud. That will help push the foil into seams. After all the areas are finished(7), you are ready to go onto the next stage.


 DECALS

Once finished with the BMF, I used a product by Liveries Unlimited called Corroguard Inspar Panels. These are decals that are used for the sections in the middle of wings and stabilizers. On real airliners, these areas are treated with a material called Corroguard that helps prevent corrosion. These decals duplicate that material and save you having to paint them in. They are available for all sorts of aircraft in both 1/144 and 1/200 scale and cost between $2-$5 depending on the aircraft. Naturally a set for the 747 will be more expensive than for a DC-9. They are easy to apply and really look nice when done.

Next the decals were applied. I used Liveries Unlimited set AGA2-101 for an Ethiopian Airlines 767-200. It is a very nice and colorful scheme and hasn't been turned into a billboard like so many other airlines. The first parts I applied were the cockpit windows and the tail markings. I did the cockpit early so that I would have a reference for the cheat line and cabin windows.  The next part to be added was the cheat line. This will determine the placement of most of the rest of the decals. I lined mine up and made sure it went through the tail plane attachment slot. It is important that you do NOT glue the tailplanes on this kit until the very end or this sequence will be a real disaster as you can see from the images below. I also put on the big tail marking at this time.

Once the cheat lines are in place and dry, you can add the fore and aft cabin doors. It was at this time that I discovered that I put my cheat line too high! Well, this makes error # 5,384,704 in my modeling career!  I just had to grin and bear it as my success rate with refloating decals of this size is about zero. Once the fore and aft cabin doors were in place and dry, I put on the first of the cabin windows. The front one is rather easy to put in place. Just remember not to put them in backwards. The part with all the gaps is to the aft. The rear section looks like a uniform row, but you'll notice one decal slightly farther away from the others. This is for the emergency exit so needs to go to the front of that decal section. 

Once those are dry, there is another decal that overlays them that is for window frames. You can omit it if you wish and no-one would be the wiser as they are not very obvious. I used them. Now you can put on the wing emergency exit door. It goes over the one window in the aft section that stands a bit apart of the others. Once that is on and dry, you can place the wing emergency exit walkway under that door. 

The rest of the decals are pretty easy to put on. Just follow the guide and take your time. The most difficult of the other decals is the black outline to the lion on the front of the cheat line. Again, easy does it. The 'Boeing 767-200' logos for aft of the rear cabin door are handed so make sure the proper one goes on the proper side. Throughout the decaling operation I used the Microscale setting solutions. These work very well and don't cause the colors to bleed, a problem you may encounter with stronger solutions. After the decals are good and dry, wipe down the aircraft with water and dry it thoroughly. You can then spray on your favourite clear overcoat to seal them in.

CONSTRUCTION
CONTINUES

Now you should have a pretty complete-looking aircraft. The only things left to put on it are the horizontal stabilizers, engines, and the landing gear stuff. With my kit, the stabilizers just snapped into place without the need for glue. Same with the engines and pylons. The landing gear components that had previously been painted, were now assembled. I don't know about you, but painting all those tiny wheels was not my idea of tons of fun. I'm just glad I wasn't building a C-5! These were then glued into place in their respective locations.

The final constructions of sorts consisted of snapping the nose gear into place as well as gluing the main landing gear and struts into the wings. A helpful hint is to let the gear dry with the weight of the aircraft on it. That way you can be sure that all the wheels touch the ground. Make sure this is done on a solid, flat surface. Last but not least, the engines were pressed into place under the wings. As you may have noticed, I prefer to press fit as much as possible. This leaves less chance for glue to mess something up, especially with all the decals used on this aircraft. 

CONCLUSIONS

There you have it. A completed airliner kit. These construction techniques can be used with airliners of any scale and complexity. What looks like a quick build can take a bit of time, but the result is well worth the effort. The nice thing about most of these 1/200 kits is that they can be built in just a very few hours if one wants to. It is a nice introduction to the genre for newer modelers and one doesn't have to fuss with interiors or other things like that.

I can recommend any of the Hasegawa 1/200 kits to those who like airliners or just want to do something different.

July 2000

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Review kit courtesy of me and my wallet; decals courtesy Liveries Unlimited  

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