Braniff's Calder DC8-62

[PR19_Kit]

I last did any work on this RW job in Sept 2018, a fair while ago, and it didn't get past being primed. Original post is here :-

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=45752.msg822701#msg822701

And yes, I KNOW it's an RW build, but it's so bizarre it could be a Whiff, in the RW world it pretty well WAS one!

So to kick off it looks like this now.



It needs some PSR around the cockpit, as do some of the engines, and then all I have to do is paint it, and add the decals............

Yeah, right, that IS the whole job of course! The kit's incredible, maybe the best kit I've EVER built. The parts fit so well that it won't need glue to hold the wings or tail in place, I'll glue the engines in as gravity pulls downwards, and not sideways..........

And just to remind you, it should look like this when it's finished.

[The Rat]

Nice, which kit is it?

[PR19_Kit]

The Minicraft 1/144 DC863/73. The fuselage has grooves inside it so you can shorten the -63 length to the -62 length and it even has optional shorter wing tips for the lesser types. It comes with JT3 and CFM56 engines when it's in the plastic bag version, but that has no decals included.

It's superbly engineered, and the wings and tail really don't need glue at all.

I've done the extra PSR now and re-primed it and it's ready for the main colours now.

[The Rat]

The Minicraft 1/144 DC863/73. The fuselage has grooves inside it so you can shorten the -63 length to the -62 length and it even has optional shorter wing tips for the lesser types. It comes with JT3 and CFM56 engines when it's in the plastic bag version, but that has no decals included.

It's superbly engineered, and the wings and tail really don't need glue at all.

I've done the extra PSR now and re-primed it and it's ready for the main colours now.

 

[ericr]

And yes, I KNOW it's an RW build, but it's so bizarre it could be a Whiff, in the RW world it pretty well WAS one!

yes!
this is an example where RW deserves consideration as much as Whiff ;-)

years ago, it had a strong influence on my "style"
I wanted something big, tried the Heller DC8 (1/125 I guess),
and then transported the pattern on a 1/72 B707

[PR19_Kit]

Having finished all the PSR, what little there was of it, mostly on the engines and around the cockpit transparency, I've re-primed the whole airframe ready for the first colour coats.

This took some study as the main colour patches don't follow conventional airliner practice, anything but in fact. Alexander Calder was a master of the LARGE colour patches, and his work on the 'Calder Eight' showed that very well indeed. The instructions that come with the decal sheet tell you to 'paint the upper half of the fuselage yellow and the rest of the airframe white' and if you follow that it will be very wrong indeed! 

A close study of the many pics of the Eight which I have shows that it would almost make sense to paint the WHOLE airframe white, and then mask off the lower fuselage half in the correct pattern and spray the upper areas yellow. As the tailplanes are all white, top and bottom, apart from the elevators and leading edges which are NM of course, it made sense to glue them in place right away, which I've done.

But as the wings are a very tight, close fit in their fuselage sockets I could paint and decal them before assembly, complete with their engines, which are basically all over white too, and assemble the whole thing pre-painted. There are two decals which bridge the gap between fuselage and wing, but I figure they can be added post assembly.

Normally painting an airliner is pretty straightforward, not this one, but hen it IS a Braniff aircraft! 

[PR19_Kit]

Also available in white.   



The engines are glued to the wings now, and the tailplanes are glued to the fuselage ,but the wings are still just plugged into the fuselage.

There's a slight fault right on the top of the fuselage, and it might require some more PSR, priming and spraying, but I've got to mask it all up and spray the yellow top coat on first, and even then the well OTT decals may cover the fault anyway. Fingers crossed.

[PR19_Kit]

Figuring out quite HOW to mask up the currently all-white Calder Eight has kept me busy thinking for some time now. It's not as easy as it looks, and nowhere NEAR as simple as the decal manufacturer makes out! Their idea seemed to be to just paint the upper half of the fuselage yellow and slap the umpteen decal parts on top, but it really needs a much more sophisticated method.

As you can see from the pic of the real thing below, the white/yellow demarcation is anything but a straight line, and in some places the decals themselves will mark the border, but the yellow will have to be sprayed with a masked up, curved edge to match how the decals lie.



Accordingly I've scanned the decal sheets and printed out some of the bordering shapes on paper so I can cut them out to act as paper masters for the masking tape that I'll be using in profusion!

[Gondor]

Photocopy the decals at a ratio of 1:1 or whatever makes the copies match the decal size and then use the copies as a mask/guide on the model to show where you need paint.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

That's exactly what I did do.................................

[PR19_Kit]

Just masking the wings for the NMF LE and flaps etc. is a major job on this particular aircraft. Most of the NMF areas are stock DC8 and I'm familiar with them after years of airliner building, but N1805 had to be different in some places of course.

Calder actually painted over the top of some of the normally NMF areas, and the decals should cover those, but I'm not 100% certain that they well yet.

And it looks like I'll have to match the decal red to paint the starboard side of the fin as well, there doesn't seem to be a decal for that, and of course thy don't tell you that in the instructions either!

The phrase 'Biting off more than you can chew' comes to mind.................... 

[Wardukw]

There's no doubt this will look great when it's done ..it's getting it to the done part which will be a mission..hope it doesn't become a shelf queen again mate 

[PR19_Kit]

It's been sitting there for a long enough time anyway, I'm determined to finish it now.

You would not believe the number of pics of it I have filed!  It's so darn complicated, from the colour scheme point of view anyway. One wing has already been masked and the NMF areas painted, and I'm just doing the templates for its yellow areas now.

Mind you, compared to the fuselage that bit's simple!

[PR19_Kit]

Having thought and thought how do paint the yellow & red areas prior to decalling the Calder Eight, I came up with a scheme that seems to work reasonably well, albeit time consuming to carry out. As luck would have it I found a YouTube video put out by the Braniff Foundation all about the Calder Eight, with loads and loads of air-air scenes as it turns away from the camera aircraft, and with the aid of my trusty 'Print Screen' button I was able to get many pics of parts of N1805 that I hadn't been able to see previously,

With the air of these and other pics downloaded from the Net I've managed to produce some templates from which I can make the masks.

I scaled the various pics to 1/144 scale with the aid of a decent 3-view of the DC8-62 and rotated the pics to be horizontal, and could then draw over the borders of the yellow areas, making due allowance for the fact that in some cases they wrapped right under the fuselage. I put them all on one template sheet and printed them out.



Here's five of the required templates as printed out. Then I cut out the templates as well as I could and taped them onto the model, comparing them with the applicable pics of the real thing. A couple required re-scaling and a few needed radical changes in their shape, but eventually I got what looked an OK set to me, and I taped them in position on the parts of the model.



From left to right, the template was taped in place on the port wing and the boundary pencilled along the edge.  I had to make 2-3 attempts to get most of the templates to look right on the model though.

Then the template was removed and masking tape stuck over the pencilled boundary. Then the boundary was trimmed to shape with a very sharp scalpel blade, trying not to dig too deep!That's shown in the centre pic. Then the rest of the wing was masked up and the yellow sprayed over the applicable area, as seen in the third pic.

The starboard wing has already had its NMF areas masked and painted, and has had the yellow inboard area sprayed too, but I laid the yellow on a bit too thick and it'll need some remedial sanding and re-spraying.

The wings are relatively simple, but the fuselage will be as lot more complicated I'm sure.

[PR19_Kit]

So far it looks like this with the wings plugged in.



The masking tape round the tailplane is the start of the fuselage masking process, which will take a while yet. Unfortunately I couldn't get any pukka Tamiya tape and the stuff I've had to use is distinctly inferior as it leaves some of its adhesive behind on the model! 

It'll take some getting off I'm sure, and will probably need some respraying too, darn it.