Hawaiian Airlines A330-243 - Revell kit

[QF747SP]

This is another build thread to show a basic conversion from an available kit. The A330-300 is the only A330 kitted in 1/144 at the moment (Eastern Express have announced an A330-200 for release later this year or next year but recent release have been very expensive compared to the Revell airliner kits). Even when I add the aftermarket engines and tail to the Revell kit purchase price it will still be considerably cheaper than the expected price of the new EE release.

This arvo I had a chance to start this one, let's start with the parts. The Thai Airlines boxing of the Revell A330-300, Braz Models A330-200 replacement tail (x2), Braz Model Roll Royce RB211s for the A330 and the decals from 8a Decs.


What's in the box?



The kit Pratt and Whittney engines and the roller replacing them


The tails, from the left the kit tail, Braz Models A330-200 premod 48979, Braz Models A330-200 postmod 48979. The last one is the one fitted to the Hawaiian Airlines aircraft. It differs from the premod tail by having the same height as the A330-300 tail but has a wider chord and larger mounting bulges (the premod tail was taller and had the standard sized bulges and was fitted to early production A330-200s).


The fuselage sections I need to remove to make a -200 from a -300, 21 mm (6 windows) forward of the wing, 15 mm (4 windows) aft of the wing and the tail.


My method, line the cutting lines with dymo tape, scribe the fuselage where the cuts are to be made as a guide and then cut though with a razor saw, 4 cuts on each fuselage plus one for each vertical stab 10 cuts in all.


Cutting done in about 40 minutes...


And we have an A330-200 length fuselage


Next was to remove the resin poor stubs from the vertical stab and engines, I used a razor saw on the stab but that was taking too long on the first engine, so I sanded the stubs down on my 60 grit sanding board I use for vacforms, top engine done in this image.


First fuselage half being reassembled, I cut up a couple of the sections removed and glued them in the fuselage to reinforce the join, you can see the reinforcement parts at lower left and mid right.



Both sides done and taped together to make sure I got the cuts/length right on both sides (looks like I succeeded)


The engines were glued together with super glue, but I stuffed them both up (misaligned).


Some filling and sanding now required to fix the offset parts. When you don't want superglue to set instantly it does.

[CBL]

I am impressed by your skills

Thanks for sharing, I love to see these threads.

[QF747SP]

No worries Phillipe, glad to contribute something here.

Some gluing and filling action has happened, I started to get the flying surfaces assembled


The cabin windows were filled and cleaned up, I also added nose weight


and then the fuselage halves went together



Finally the engines were sanded, I not happy with one of them (bottom one) as the nosed section was hugely off centre and has a noticeable hump leading down to the intake lip after sanding, so I think some more putty required to make it less noticeable

[CBL]

Nice progress, it is really interesting to follow your modelling