Ukraine International Airlines - Embrarer ERJ 190, Revell 1/144

[JohnB]

I look forward to see it Peter!

[Peterpools]

Major Assemblies Come Together

Yup, 1/144 scale is small but when most of the aircraft are so large, it’s an excellent tradeoff.

Fuselage – The instructions called for 20 grams of nose weight, I went with 25 grams to be on the safe side, as there is no way to actually cram all that weight in the nose area, forward of the cockpit. The fuselage was glued together with Revell Contacted Professional Glue, allowing time to align both halves, cutting off the alignment pins, as they actually threw the two halves out of sync. The lower fuselage center section for the main gear was glued into place, fit wasn’t bad but some filler and sanding was needed.

The wings were cleaned up, assembled and carefully glue into place, checking to make sure I had the dihedral as equal to each other as I am capable of. The front glass is in, seems and gaps need some attention.

I’m ready to start filling, sanding and blending in the wing fillets for a neat and clean fit and when done, will be in striking distance of priming.  

A few issues needed to be dealt with.

          The wings had a slight warp which I fix as best as possible

Neither winglets were not the same shape, requiring some gentle sanding to get them close.

I’m still waiting for my Ukraine International Airlines decals to arrive, so I can find a match for the, dive into painting and then decal work.  

Next up: Engine pylons and tailplanes all of which will be added after painting.

Thanks for checking in

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

 

 

[DocRob]

Only the toothpick showed the scale Peter. Nice work on the fuselage and wings. She will be beautiful in yellow and blue.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Thanks Rob

The Embraer is a small regional jet and needs gentle and careful handling. Looking forward to making progress on her this week and getting to the primer stage. I have a few more 1/144 airliners in the stash a  , both being 787 and they are big and I mean big!

he Embraer is sharing bench space and time with the GT40 and I'm finally starting decal work on the her using Indycals terrific decals.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[GazzaS]

Wow...   the toothpick really makes it appear small.  Nice work so far.

[Peterpools]

Thanks gaz

The Embraer really isn't that small - she is about 10 inches in length and 7.75 in in span. Regional airliners are on the small side as they need to operate out of much smaller airports. This week, I hope to get her ready for priming and even shoot the primer on. 

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[DocRob]

25 minutes ago, Peterpools said:

The Embraer really isn't that small - she is about 10 inches in length and 7.75 in in span. Regional airliners are on the small side as they need to operate out of much smaller airports. This week, I hope to get her ready for priming and even shoot the primer on.

You have bigger teeth then Peter, right? 

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Rob

Pretty close 😉

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Peterpools]

Rob

Decals just arrived and now it's time to start matching up the blue and getting the wing roots taken care of.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Peterpools]

PRIMING and COLORCOATS

Finally reached the point of being ready for the initially priming; MRP Light Gray, with the major goal of finding missed gaps, sanding marks and any assorted errors and I’m proud to say; I found them. Out came Mr Surfacer, Tamiya Filler again and back to work. Looking pretty good now and all the imperfections I found were cleaned up and gone. A few more layers of primer to cover the corrected areas and it was time for the color coats. The windows came out ok, not perfect and since I’m using decals for all the glass, the small imperfections will help locate the window and windshield decals.

I decided on Mr Color Gloss Lacquers for all color coats. First up was the wings and the aftermarket decals by BOA instructions call out FS 16492 Gray and of course, I didn’t have the color in my paint stash, I mixed the color and it matched the paint chip and color on my monitor. I have a BenQ photographic monitor that is color calibrated weekly so what I saw on the monitor was very close to the actual color. I couldn’t find any useable photographs of the upper wing surfaces for this specific aircraft and referring to the BOA instructions the upper and bottom surfaces of the wings were the same color gray, except for the leading ledges. Other Embraer’s in UIA markings wore a different color scheme and the wings were painted in a more traditional manor with the center area being a darker gray, which most modelers refer to as correguard.

Next up was masking out the leading edges: Alclad Polished Aluminum and it replicated the polished looked quite nicely. I gave each paint color a good 24 hours to dry to be on the safe side.

Finally, I re-masked the wings again and prepped the fuselage. Paint of choice: Mr Color Gloss White thinned with Self Leveling Thinners and a few drops of Mild Retarder was added to the mix, to ensure the paint would flow and self-level, leaving a wonderful smooth surface, so I can decal right just as auto modelers do.

Locating the correct blue turned out to be a hunt as usual, as the BOA decal instructions calls out for FS15052, which I could only find here in the States only in the Life Color range. It’s in the paint stash now just in case I need it for a touchup/backup.

Next up: decaling and working on the engines, pylons and the gear.

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Looking nice and smooth Peter - great job!

[Peterpools]

Thanks Mike

Making slow progress as we're in the very last stages of our renovation and the cleanup and unpacking is also underway. 

Keep 'em comin

Peter 

[DocRob]

That looks like a perfect finish Peter. The decals will marvel on that surface. 
BTW: I always liked the LifeColor acrylics. They spray very smooth and issue free.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Rob Much appreciated.

Took a bit of extra work to get to this point and I'm hoping from this point on it's downhill to the finish line. Once she is done and in the books, I'll need to finish the GT40 which isn't too far either from the finish line and then I feel the call of a 32nd scale aircraft kit.

Thanks for the positive thoughts on Life Color paints - if needed, nothing now to worry about.

Keep 'em comin

Peter 

[DocRob]

Totally OT, other than sporting some yellow, but I know you will like it Peter. The Tamiya 1/12 Renault RE20 became available. Mine is already ordered and somewhere in the mail.

Cheers Rob

[JohnB]

2 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Rob Much appreciated.

Took a bit of extra work to get to this point and I'm hoping from this point on it's downhill to the finish line. Once she is done and in the books, I'll need to finish the GT40 which isn't too far either from the finish line and then I feel the call of a 32nd scale aircraft kit.

Thanks for the positive thoughts on Life Color paints - if needed, nothing now to worry about.

Keep 'em comin

Peter 

A 1/32 aircraft sounds like just the thing Peter. 🖕

[Peterpools]

Rob

The Renault has been on my radar since Tamiya announced the re-release and I’ll certainly be buying one. I have the Brabham in the stash and don’t want to miss the reissue so I don’t have to walk away from the insane eBay prices when the kit is no longer available.

Keep ‘em com

Peter

[Peterpools]

John

Absolutely and I’m planning on building a few more 32nd scale kits this year.

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

[belugawhaleman]

On 5/24/2022 at 9:58 AM, DocRob said:

Totally OT, other than sporting some yellow, but I know you will like it Peter. The Tamiya 1/12 Renault RE20 became available. Mine is already ordered and somewhere in the mail.

Cheers Rob

I've always liked the big Tamiya f1 cars but have been afraid to try the paint/decal finishes. Looking forward to you're build. I did build their six wheeled (Tyrell?) Back in

the late 80's and it came out ok though.

[Peterpools]

BW

I learned my lesson with the Tamiya 1/12 F1 Ferrari 312T kit. I wanted to start and work on it as time allowed and didn't do my homework. I wound up buying an original kit form 1975 and I mean everything was from back then - old decals and no PE. I paid as much for the original kit as I would have for the re-release on ebay - shame on me. And of course, the best way is to keep an eye out and buy the kit when Tamiya releases any of the F1 1/12 scale kits you're interested in. I'm on the "notification list" so I won't miss it

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[DocRob]

7 hours ago, belugawhaleman said:

I've always liked the big Tamiya f1 cars but have been afraid to try the paint/decal finishes. Looking forward to you're build. I did build their six wheeled (Tyrell?) Back in

the late 80's and it came out ok though.

I've heard, the Tyrell six wheeler is about to be re released soon in 1/12. Sorry Peter for the OT. We should start something own for the Tamiya 1/12 kits.

Tamiya: Model car kit 1/12 scale - Tyrrell Ford P34 Tyrrell Racing Team sponsored by ELF #3, 4 - Jody Scheckter (ZA), Patrick Depailler (FR) - FIA Formula 1 World Championship 1976 (ref. TAM12036) | SpotModel

as well as the Tyrell Ford 003

Tamiya: Model car kit 1/12 scale - Tyrrell Ford 003 Tyrrell Racing Team sponsored by ELF #11 - Sir John Young 'Jackie' Stewart (GB) - Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix 1971 (ref. TAM12054) | SpotModel

Cheers Rob 

[Peterpools]

Rob

Thanks for the heads up - will keep an eye open for it's release.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Peterpools]

DECALING

WHAT A NIGHTMARE

With nearly all the paint work finished it was time to move onto decaling and what normally is my favorite portion of any build, almost turned into a nightmare and disaster. I’ve always been a military aircraft modeler and you learn to do things in a certain way and sequence, that is repeatable from build to build and one of those disciplines is decaling. As I’ve discovered ‘that ain’t the case’ when it comes to auto and airline modeling. With military aircraft modeling for the most part you are working with flat paints and it is imperative to first apply a smooth clear gloss finish so that the decals will conform, lay down properly and help eliminate the dreaded silvering in the clear carrier film

In both airline modeling and auto modeling, the paint work color coats are applied as smoothly and glossy as possible, requiring a good deal of time and effort. Since the painted surface is so glossy smooth there is no need for the customary clear gloss at this point at all. So, it’s straight onto decaling.

I purchased a set of AM decals from Airline Supply by BOA and was very happy how the decals looked on the sheets and instructions are well done and printed in a color to boot; BOA is located in the Czech Republic. Along with the BOA decals I would need to use quite a few of the Revell decals as well, mainly for the wings, engines and a other fuselage details.  The BOA decals were just for the airline markings and not for the aircraft detail markings and stencils.

Never having worked with BOA Decals or an airliner either, I started with the right side front windows. I just followed the instructions and spent many hours over two full sessions just doing the right side fuselage decals and the front windshield, as all the glass was a double decal with the silver frames being a separate decals. All was going well and I reached the empennage area of the Embraer and here the first of the troubles showed their ugly face.

The blue decals for the tail end are two large pieces for each side, initially not too difficult to place and as I worked them into place, decals began to cracks and some small chips appeared. As I applied Micro Sol gently onto the decals the chipping and cracking continued nor could I coaxed them to wrap around the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer and the top. I let them to dry and thought I would just carefully trim and brush paint the thin edges that needed clean up. Nope, the decal kept on cracking and chipping. Some nice chunks flaked off the bottom as well when I touched them.

The instructions called out FS15052 as the correct decal blue and here in the states, only Life Color had the color in its line. I bought a bottle and when it arrived, OMG, it was way too dark and I’m guessing it’s the wrong FS number. I had no choice now but to attempt to mix my own and when all the decaling is done, I’ll go back and try and paint out the chips and cracks after all the decaling has been completed.    

The yellow stripe is a separate decal and a big deal. As soon as I put the yellow stripe decal in warm wet soak water, it broke apart into three distinct pieces and didn’t seem like a big deal as I would just place each piece on the fuselage in its correct location and move on. No way buckey, the second I brushed on some Micro Set, the decal shattered into a zillion pieces – totally unusable. So now what?

A new plan: I needed to mask out the yellow stripe, a tough act as the masking tape, no matter how thin I cut it would be so very close to the blue decals, which mine had marginal sticking power. Yup, by accident, in a few spots, the de-tacked Tamiya tape touched the blue decal and of course, a small chunk of decal pulled right off.

At this point, I needed a break and turned my attention to the wings, using the Revell decals which were just fine. I followed both the Revell and BOA instructions and the Revell decals went on perfectly with no issues. Getting such thin and small black lines straight took a bit of time, but all worked out very well. 

To be fair, as a newbie to airline modeling and this was my first-time using BOA decals, I could have been part of the problems. The blue and yellow decals cracking on the model are normally an age issue, I bought them new from Airline Supply less then a month or so ago – I just don’t know.

Decaling still needs to be finished and all the blue decal chipping and cracking still needs to be repaired.

Next Up: engines, pylons and the gear.

Thanks for checking in

Peter

 

[DocRob]

For the nightmare you described Peter, it doesn't look too bad on the pics. It will be hard to mix the color right I guess. In all it's a very attractive livery and a pain too hear about your issues. Scalemates claims that they are new, ageing can be ruled out, it seems. 
Other than you, I hate decaling, as so much can go wrong so late in the build, I think I would have binned the kit. I hope you follow up with your bravery and finish this beautiful plane, no matter what.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Thanks Rob, much appreciated.

I could pass off the blue decals chipping and cracking from even how I decal but the yellow bands, cracked as soon as they went in the soak wet water and when the Micro Set was applied, they shattered. Just not sure what or whys but I'm close to finishing the decaling and then working on the last assemblies - the engines and gear. Completely agree matching the UIA blue isn't going to be easy, but I'll take my best shot at it.

I never would have guessed you dislike decaling so much, for me it's the stage in the build where everything starts to come together and the model seems to come to life. Looking at my list of favorite and dislike parts of a build;  scribing is is my most disliked part of any build by a mile.so low on the list.

Keep 'em comin

Peter