revell a340-300 SAS build (plenty of pics)

Jamenator1 · 09-05-2012, 01:32 AM

Here is the journey so far of my revell a343 SAS 1:144 scale. i am the kind of collector who looks for accuracy in the shape of a models nose, so as you will see on this model i have gone to extreme lengths to get it as accurate as possible

.

First of all i ordered a replacement resin replacement nose of the internet because the default revell a330/40 nose is a bit to fat. the nose then arrived 3 months later -_- and to my horror i discovered it was noticeably asymmetrical

. Never the less it was a good place to start to shape my own nose using endless hours of puttying and sanding. >>

So here is the build from soon after the new nose arrived till now when the nose is almost perfect (still tweaking it a little bit), the rest of the model still needs a fair bit of work like decals, engines and much more. But its got its basic primary colours on now.... and yes i know the blue is a little dark and the other colours aren’t perfect but its the best i could do with tamiya rattle cans (i don't have an air-brush).

these compare the basic shape of the new nose and the old nose (both having been tweaked a little. the old nose was tweaked because i was starting to think the resin nose would never show up).

noseless a340:

then i attached the nose, and set about shaping it into the correct (and symetrical) shape.

alot of putty and sanding later:

more to come soon

.....

Jamenator1 · 09-05-2012, 01:51 AM

so i had the nose in a reasonably good shape, but then i came to the conclusion, after all the hours of puttying and sanding that the wind sheild panels were too far back and away from the nose cone. this gave the nose an elongated look and somthing radical had to be doen.

so i cut 2 small bits of plastic to shape and glued them to the front of the cockpit:

after doing it i thought of myself as a little crazy but things started looking up after a little work:

looks really messy

but after many, many hours of puttying and sanding and puttying and sanding, it turned out with a pretty good basic shape and it was time to start fine tweaking it. to help with that prosess i gave the nose a light coat of primer so i could see where the shape of the nose needed to be changed, one of the hardest things about this build is getting the nose symetrical:

here is a shot of the bottom of the model after some filling and sanding.... its really hard to preserve those nice panel lines:

after alot of fine tweaking i desided to give the whole thing a coat of primer (which would also be the colour of the wings):

nice shiny(ish) wings

:

more to come....

Jamenator1 · 09-05-2012, 02:15 AM

here it is after the wings were masked off and the fusalage and tail were painted insignia white and blue respectivly (again closest colours i could get with the tamiya rattle cans):

here it is next to my a320 from revell, also 1:144

even now i'm still tweaking the nose a little bit:

the revell has very kindly supplied the kit's decals with 3 seperate cockpit window decals, one for the SAS version, one for the Austrian version (other kit option), and one set of decals for the rims should you choose to uses clear plastic cockpit windows. anyway this clear window decal is perfect for testing the shape of the nose and seeing what the decals would look like when applied, so throughout the entire prosess of shaping the nose i have taken the decal off the backing paper, checked the shape and then put it back on to be reused.

this is where i'm up to now (the cockpit window decal is now wrinkled from constant re-uses). i'd say its look rather splendid, definately more acurate in my mind than any hogan, herpa or die-cast a330/40 including the new gemini200 a330. i'm still as you can see finely tweaking the nose until i'm satisfied that it is more or less acurate and symetrical:

the decal is a bit used now but it does the job, and the actuall cockpit decal that i will use should look much better:

well thats all for now. That was by the way about 5-6 mounths of on and off modeling, and its turning out ok i reckon now.

i'll continue to update this thread while the model progresess, but its slow going so could be a while

hope you enjoyed it so far, all comments, advice and critisizms are welcome but keep it at a civilised level please

...... James

EGPFGLA · 09-05-2012, 02:35 AM

Beautiful nose!!!! Amazing work!!