Well I finally took the plunge to start this beast just after christmas.
Work so far has included reshaping the cockpit area…
moving the wing root back an inch…
reshaping the tail…
moving and lengthening the main wheel wells…
started to update the main wells and the way the kit supplied struts are represented…
and lengthening the starboard main wheel well sponson.
Recent work has been in the cockpit and fuselage after a month or so away from the project.
I have now got most of the forward fuselage/cockpit sorted out. Last night I got the loadmaster’s area and stairwell on the way to completion. Also finished installing the bunks in the crew rest area and repositioned the window into the cargo area (I missdrilled it first time around). I also beefed up the avionics racks as they were looking too thin.
The cargo floor was put together and cut to shape but still needs some adjusting. Finally I cut out the crew entry door out and started on the stowage racks in the main cargo compartment.
My hat’s off to you, sir, for even attempting that beast. Out of curiousity, how big is it in that scale? Any chance of a ref shot with another 72nd plane and a ruler?
Here is a picture of the kit before I started it, I taped it up to see how big it would be. These were taken next to a 1/72 C-130 and 1/72 Hornet (sorry about the quality of the picture). I didn’t think to put a ruler inthe picture when I took it but he Hornet is about 8-9 inches long. From the Anigrand website is states a length of 736mm (29 inches) and span of 722mm (28 1/2 inches).
I am not sure what they used for refs when they created this kit, though it looked a lot like the Combat Models Vacform when I had both kits. The kit is now OOP and I don’t think they would entertain correcting it now. Their 1/144 C-17 has a much better shape and does not need correcting as a far as I know.
And since it is the kit in town other than the Combat kit that is all I have to work with.
I have finally pulled my C-17 out and done a little more work to it
Along with tinkering in the back end…
…I decided to see how to tackle the engines and pylons.
After an afternoon in the garage I have had some success. I glued one nacelle together and attacked the sides with files and sand paper to flatten them.
Picture is not that good but shows a slight shape change from the unaltered nacelle. I found after flattening the sides not as much work will be required with the lower lip.
I have added some putty to the inner intake lips to thicken them up after removing about 2mm of resin from each side.
I then turned to the engine pylons.
Anigrand supplies different shaped pylons for inboard and outboard. After looking at the Revell 1/144 kit it seems the inboard and outboard pylons should be identical.
The top pylon is an unmodified Inboard pylon, the hatched areas are to be removed to correct the shape.
The middle pylon is the unmodified outboard item and finally the lower is the modified lower pylon. As you can see I added material to the top as it is fairly flat on the actual aircraft and not sloped as Anigrand portrays it. I also extended it aft as it was too short.
So the engine intake needs cleaning up and some more shaping and the other 3 pylons need modification.
While I am at that I will tinker with other areas I will figure out how the cockpit windscreen and roof will be rectified.
Well back to the nose section, I have used an upsized scan of some decals for the Revell 1/144 kit as a template for the windscreen panels. I transferred them to tape and then to a CD case.
The outlines were then scored with a hobby knife and removed from the surrounding plastic
Then test fitting and slight reworking of the cockpit area to get the bits to fit.
Finally I took part of the kit cockpit roof to fit back over the panel parts. All test fitting at this time.
Finally a comparison of the modified cockpit/forward fuselage shape compared to what the unmodified kit clear parts are like.
So it looks like I have overcome the dodgy windscreen shape of the kit.
Man, that’s a lot of work. My hats off to ya, Ray. I had no idea their C-17 needed that much work. I’ve got the 72nd C-5 kit, and it has its problem areas as well, but not as bad as the C-17 apparently.
Some more progress, a couple of pictures with the eyebrow windows added, just need to do the sensor ports next to the nose wheel well now.
Work has progressed down the back. I have been adding some detail to the left side including the now dissected wing spar box in the ceiling of the cargo bay.
I have also started to experiment with the insulation matting that seems to cover most of the exposed ribs. I am using kitchen towel roll wet down with diluted white glue.
On the other side, I have just about finished adding ribs and storage compartments and the other half of the wing spar box.
Finally, I hit the almost completed main wheel well with some paint…
Nice work Ray! I had thought I wanted to get my hands on this kit; that is until I saw exactly how much re-work of the kit there is. You are definitely doing a bang-up job on her!! Looking forward to watching this one.
