Boeing 307 Stratoliner

Roland Sachsenhofer
A few first pictures of the 'Stratoliner': in contrast to Academy's B-17B, this kit shows a love of detail, but the accuracy of fit has gone to hell. The parts are also very roughly moulded and all have to be shaped with a scalpel and sandpaper. Nevertheless, the whole thing is great fun - the Boeing 307 not only seems to be big, but also quite voluminous thanks to the shape of the fuselage!

Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat, of course!

Roland Sachsenhofer
Feel welcome, Robert!

Cuajete
Great! I have the military version, so I can't miss this one.

Roland, I'm sure that after the Mil Mi twins you'll be able to do this without so much effort.

Good start! 👍

Pietro De Angelis
Double effort, double satisfaction, this too will not disappoint expectations!

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thank you, mates, for these encouraging words!
Cuajete, a C-75 version will follow in a few days as a contract build. I'm glad to have already had some experience with this not entirely un-tricky kit.

Roland Sachsenhofer
A little filling here, a little sanding there.... and everything will be fine.

Marco Gallmann
A lot of filling indeed, i take a seat too

Cuajete
Roland, I'll be happy to see that C-75 🙂
The cracks between the pieces in this kit are huge. But you are a great, experienced tamer of crowding plastics. Cheer up!

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thanks for the encouragement - I'll take that literally: off to the putty rodeo!

Ben M
I'll join the putty rodeo, lol

Cuajete
😄 😄 😄

Nicolas
Count me in as well.

Zbynek Honzik
It's gonna be a ride again, Roland! Taking a seat!

Ben M
Wow. This may be the worst fitting kit I've ever seen.

Łukasz Gliński
Oh man, what a lovely fit 😄

Roland Sachsenhofer
Yeehah!! Thank you all for these appreciated comments, mates! 🙂

Finn
Hope you make it to the other side (Lord, Give Me Patience, and Give It to Me Right Now!)

Guy Rump
Looking good, following. 👍

Roland Sachsenhofer
Good prayers are welcome!
Something is happening here too: wings and fuselage have found each other - now I have to find the tube of filler!

Juergen Klinglhuber
🙂 - one tube enough?

Cuajete
Roland, this seems much worse than the Mil Mi. It should be a crime to sell these sufferings with all the money they cost and a monument should be made for you for what you are capable of doing by transforming the beast into beauty.
Cheer up!

Skyhiker
How did I skip this?

David Taylor
Looks hmm, challenging.

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thank you all mates!
I like the thing with the monument.... I can already see the plaque on it: 'donated by the grateful putty industry'.
But what can I say: the C-75 arrived today.... and will soon be joining its civilian sister on the workbench.

There are a few things that I would like to do completely differently on this second run. For example, the fuselage windows: I'm going to make them from scratch out of clear film I cut myself..... that will - must!- simply look better!

Skyhiker
Well it's not a Bandai... It's more like a Bandaid kit. Nothing a lot of super glue can't fix!

Skyhiker
I just saw the price for this kit... Holy sh*t Batman that's nuts.

Ben M
Gotta wonder if the 1977 amodel vacform is better

Hans-Jürgen Haag
O you are addicted to pleasure! 😉

Bernd Grün
Modeling the hard way, Roland. Admire your persistence with that kit. 👌

Roland Sachsenhofer
I take your words and your interest in this building as strong motivation and encouragement! Thank you for your feedback!

Roland Sachsenhofer
Putty queen! But the whole thing is actually half as bad, I'm already looking forward to the wet sanding.

Gordon Sørensen
Great work towards making this kit. I thought Starfix kits had a bad reputation for fit - seems Batkits wants to de-throne them…

Michael Kohl
Oh, an overweight looking putty queen I've missed here. But not any more. 😉

Consider clear resin for the windows of your second build. Just cover the outside of the windows thoroughly with Cela-Tape and pour the resin in (jep, bubbles are a pain). The glue residue from the tape which tends to stick to the outside of the windows after removal of the tape can easily be removed with IPA.

Roland Sachsenhofer
Michael, that sounds very appealing - a technique I've heard of but never tried. I have two questions: Can you give me a tip on where I could get the clear resin? Do you have any idea how dangerous it can be to my health and how best to protect myself? Thank you in any case for the inspiration!

Ben M
I found clear resin on amazon. It is epoxy based, so standard precautions apply - wear gloves, do not expose your skin to uncured resin, over time you can gain a severe allergy. Use in a ventilated space, I do it in my garage.

Łukasz Gliński
For the first trials I bought a cheap small bottle via the internets sold as "jewellery resin". It's about 25g.
Or you can try this one: UV Resin 17ml (Green Stuff World 8436574503784, No)

Roland Sachsenhofer
So, mates, after some quick thinking I have ordered a bottle of UV Resin and will use it on the C-75 - somewhere I should try it out first! 🙂 Many thanks for the ''push'' and the advice - I'm looking forward to it!

Łukasz Gliński
Just remember not to use it in a sunny room - it can cure before you spread it 🙂

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thank you for the tip! I will also keep my sunny disposition in check

Roland Sachsenhofer
I need a lot of patience with this project: the road to a result that I will be happy with is proving to be a long one! So it's only after a long time that there are a few new pictures here again: the roughest filling and sanding orgy is over, but the first layers of Alclad are still in need of touching up. Slowly, however, the end seems to be in sight, so that I can already work on building up several aluminium tones during the final sanding work. The last three pictures of this new series show such a working state.
Since I want to depict the 'luxury yacht' of the legendary Howard Hughes, the surface will be kept in shimmering and polished aluminium tones, similar to what I have seen in pictures. By the way, I'm going to completely rebuild the fuselage windows - so don't worry about their rather wild appearance! 🙂

István Szücs
Everything fits well, I don't know, what is your problem 😉

You did a great job!

Michael Kohl
I see that you resumed your studies in Gap-ology with an intesive F&S-course (filling&sanding). We expect your defence of the final result any time soon. 😉

Ben M
Great work carving an airplane out of putty.

Cuajete
Great (hard) job so far with this huge mass of plastic, Roland.
Cheer-up!

Roland Sachsenhofer
I had a lovely time reading your comments! Gap-ology as a course of study, which all modellers will probably take at some point, meets with my fullest approval! 🙂 Well, the idea of 'getting' a model out of the filler probably also coincides with an experience that many modellers already have had....

Skyhiker
Wow, that fit is amazing. So crisp, so clean. No filler needed at all. Goes together like a perfect snap kit. Bandai's got some real competition there... Or NOT. Roland you're doing a great job. Gap-ology. Love it. You know your starting to get good when a model like this becomes normal. I truly find them the most satisfying because when they are finished and look great you know it made you work for those results.

Ben M
I agree. I am a member of the non aligned movement. I only build kits where the parts do not align.