A 'different' Airbus A-400M Atlas - FINISHED!

[rickshaw]

Some kits fall together, Kit.  Some kits fight you all the way.  Others just fall apart...   

[NARSES2]

Looks quite Soviet/Russian'ish to me addled eyes

[PR19_Kit]

Looks quite Soviet/Russian'ish to me addled eyes

I agree, it's the anhedral, t-tail and four BIG props that all scream 'ANTONOV', but it'd need a glass nose to and a tail turret to go all the way. 

If it wasn't such a ruddy awful kit I could be tempted to do that to one, but not now!

[Scooterman]

Wow, Kit.  Just wow!

Y'know, I don't remember that kit being a bear of a build for my Atlas Atlas.  Then again, I didn't use the props and created all sorts of headaches myself getting the CFM motors mounted.

[PR19_Kit]

Was yours the 1/72 or the 1/144 version Scooterman? I can't imagine they'd have thinned down the wheel axles smaller on the 1/144 version, they'd be human hair thickness! 

[PR19_Kit]

I planned to start painting the vast acreage of Light Aircraft Grey on the Atlas tonight, and to that end I'd bought a new tin of Humbrol 166, a satin finish paint. Previously I've always used Xtracolor's gloss LAG, but it's taken an age to dry and I developed a technique of giving it a coat of Klear after 5-6 hrs, usually overnight, which worked fine, and I was expecting better performance from the Humbrol Satin. I started off with the tailplanes, side sponsons, ventral strakes and the #2 and #3 engines.

The finish was fairly streaky, which didn't please me, but after an entire evening waiting for it to dry, it didn't.........

It was still sticky at 1145 and it looked as if it would need 3-4 coats as well, so I went to Plan B and got out the old Xtracolor. That went on much more smoothly and covered in almost one coat, so I'm expecting to get the Klear out in the morning.

Sometimes the old ideas are the best ones. 

[PR19_Kit]

This LAG paint will take an age to do. 

I've got a 2nd coat of Xtracolor on the parts I did y'day, and it won't be hard until late this evening I expect, but there's ACRES of plastic to paint yet. 

[PR19_Kit]

The Halfords Ford Dove Grey paint is a really good match for Xtracolor Light Aircraft Grey. 

After a mammoth masking tape session I sprayed the first lot of Dove Grey and it's looking good. It's VERY gloss and may need some satin or matt varnish eventually, but the colour match is great. I've only done one wing so far as I have to hold the darn thing somewhere. 

[rickshaw]

I tend to hold large and small planes by the tail, Kit.  Allows an even coverage over the wings/fuselage.

[zenrat]

I have a selection of "holding sticks" ranging from a car radio aerial with a cocktail stick jammed in the end (for shoving in the prop hole of single piston engined planes) through a piece of dowel with a U shaped piece of 1.2mm wire taped to the end (to be shoved in the undercarriage holes of larger planes) to an actual stick with the end wrapped in masking tape (remove or add tape to get it to fit into the jet pipe).
Nothing would suffice to hold this build though.

I also have specialised car body holding sticks with reshaped wire coat hangers on the end.

[PR19_Kit]

The problem with this thing is it's a) HUGE and b) weighs a lot. I tried holding it by the fin, but it threatened to break off. And I have a collection of re-bent clothes hangers too, but none are large enough or strong enough to hold the Atlas.

Luckily the Dove Grey dries pretty fast and I was able to do the starboard wing after a couple of hours, and the whole grey coat is on now. Some of the white will need re-spraying sadly, as the tape pulled some of it off under the tailplane, and I made a total hash of masking the underside of one wing root so there's a chunk with no colour coat at all! Also the cockpit will need some attention, it just doesn't look right, but I'm not sure what's wrong yet.

The whole thing does look a lot better now though, now it's the 'designed colour scheme'. I'm really looking forward to getting the decals on.

But after all that I've STILL got to get the blasted landing gear sorted. 

[PR19_Kit]

I've got the main colours done and dusted now after another 'mask and spray' session, and I've added a matt black lower surround to the windscreen too. I'm still not sure about that, and I'll wait until I have some decals on to see how it looks then.

It's not the best paintjob I've ever done by far, there's a couple of thin runs, on the underside thank goodness, and some rough borders too, but frankly I'm past caring with this blasted thing now. So long as it looks approximately as I intended it'll have to do.

Oh yes, the AAR probe snapped off AGAIN, and I've lost a few more aerials, ho hum..........

[Weaver]

I have a range of holders including full-size clothes-pegs hot-glued to wooden skewers, miniature clothes-pegs hot-glued to cocktail sticks, various tubes and rods with varying amounts of tape wrapped around them to adjust the width, and some old felt-tipped pens with flat caps that make a good stand for something with a base, stuck on with Blu-tack.

Having said that, I don't really have anything that could hold a really big, heavy model up in the air: i'd probably have to paint it in sections...

[PR19_Kit]

Having said that, I don't really have anything that could hold a really big, heavy model up in the air: i'd probably have to paint it in sections...

Hehehehe, I did........... 

Trying to re-engineer the main landing gear this evening, and a RIGHT pain that is. I've glued the nosewheels on either end of a piano wire axle, which will be superglued across the end of the nose leg, and that should work OK.

I've also painted all the zillions of tanks and landing gear doors too, but ran out of paint, so it's off to Halfords again in the morning.

[zenrat]

I think if it was mine i'd try to hold it for painting by shoving a stick up it's cargo bay...

Looks to me a bit like a winged Narwhal.