Minicraft 1/144 B.757-200
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KIT # |
14449 |
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PRICE: |
CDN $28.95 |
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DECALS: |
One aircraft |
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REVIEWER: |
Andrew Forster |
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NOTES: |
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HISTORY |
This kit was a long awaited kit by most airline model enthusiasts. The only other kits of this aircraft were by Masterkit which was a little rough for an injection kit. Welsh models of the UK did a vacuform / Resin kit of the 757 as well. So we weren’t really served with a really good injection molded model of the 757. Now this Airliner is my favorite and I was very much anticipating the release of this kit my Minicraft.
Being a very popular North American twin engine Narrow
body Aircraft. It is flown today in the Americas by United, Delta,
Continental,
American, UPS, and Northwest Airlines. It has also made it’s mark with European
carriers such as the German Condor airlines, Air 2000, DHL, and LTU to name a
few. This aircraft was so successful Boeing recently started delivering a 300
series 757 which is much longer than the 200. A very pretty aircraft.
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THE KIT |
With today’s technology quite a few of us airline modelers assumed the Minicraft 757 would be of the same quality of their fantastic kit of the Boeing 737. The 737 was accurate, simple, finely scribed, reasonably priced and lots of fun to build. This 757 kit was disappointing. For a look in the box at the very similar C-32, please visit the preview.
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CONSTRUCTION |
As modelers we usually can use experience, new techniques,
trial and error in building a model we so desire. I think my skills were pushed
to the limit with this kit. Most of the parts were a very poor fit. The worst
fit being the joint between the wings and fuselage. The engine pylons were angle
up and needed to be fixed. I rebuilt the engine pylons using sheet card. On the
engines I used brass tubing to create a seamless intake. The fin was corrected
by adding some sheet plastic to the top and reshaping. The Aerials were all
fabricated from sheet plastic. I used superglue (cyano) and Testors liquid
cement for all of the construction except the landing gear which was attached
with 5 minute epoxy.
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LIVERY |
Now for the painting process. I had decided to do the Royal
Airlines scheme as I had a friend who was flying this machine. So AHS ( Airline
hobby supply) came to the rescue with decals. The fuselage and engines were
painted with Tamiya Pure white out of a spray can. It’s a Lacquer paint which is
very white and gives a tough gloss finish. The purplish/blue tail was mixed from
Mr. Color (Gunze) lacquers. The wings were painted using Xtracolour Boeing Grey.
The gold stripe was painted with Mr. Color. All leading edges were airbrushed
with Alclad polished aluminum. Detail decals such as the coroguard (Grey panels
on wings giving anti corrosion) came from a great sheet for the 757 done by
Flying colors in the US. I added black ice inspection panels from decal painted
black. All decals were applied using Solvaset. I use it on everything as I like
the decals to look like they were painted on. For a final finish I brushed on
two coats Future acrylic floor polish on the fuselage and Horizontal stabs. The
wings and engines were clear coated with mixture of flat lacquer and gloss to
give a dull shine.
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FINAL CONSTRUCTION |
I then proceeded to attach the wings and Horizontal stabs,
lining them up with the fin. The gear was attached and the aircraft sat upright
on its gear so I could get the aircraft sitting just right.
This is where it got nasty. By using a ruler in this process to measure the wing tip to ground distance I could not get the 757 to sit right with out the tail fin being less than 90 degrees. It took me a while to figure it out. I looked at all of my construction and had fellow modelers look at it as well. The surprise was that the whole fairing for the wings that sits on the fuselage was tooled in the molds sitting higher on one side causing one wing to be higher than the other. What a mess. The only way to correct this in the future is to cut the tail off and the nose off and glue them on straight. I finished the kit up by adding rotating beacons and nav lights colored with Tamiya clear.
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CONCLUSIONS |
So overall my favorite airplane has not been done justice by this kit. Maybe take another look at the Welsh 757.
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