Building Minicraft’s
1/144 Delta DC-8-71
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Overview
When I reviewed this kit back in December, I was very impressed with
how it looked in the box. This is easily the best Minicraft airliner to
date, and I was eager to dive into building it. For those that are familiar
with my building speed, well, let’s just say that the glacier gets
more bets than I do. However, this kit, with its simple construction and
creative design, made for a great ‘quickie’ project, or so
I thought. Planning on having this model finished for the January 2006
issue, I dove in.
 The
Build
What makes this kit so nice is its engineering. If I had not rushed
things too fast, I could have had this model together and ready for painting
in maybe an hour. But that would mean that I CAN build models quickly,
so of course I went a bit too fast and forgot to test fit things. Which
meant that on my example I needed to use some filler. Not much, mind you,
but enough to keep me from painting the model the same day I built it.
The potential “problem” areas are the nose and the main gear
center section. I say “problem” because they are not issues
with the kit, per se, but rather with my building. The main gear center
section requires some careful and slow gluing to make sure that the seam
remains flat across that section. With this long fuselage, a slow and
steady assembly is a definite must to make sure that everything remains
lined up. With such a process you can be guaranteed of a seam that will
require only a slight sanding to polish it off.
The other area I had issues with was with the nose. Again, the mantra
here is go slow and test fit often. Normally with one of Minicraft’s
airliners, all you would have to worry about is fitting the one-piece
clear canopy section to the fuselage. Here, though, we have the added
bonus of a separate nose piece. This piece is essential for alternate
versions, but it also means that the modeler will have to take care to
make sure everything fits well. Of course, I was greedy, so I rushed things,
and the result was my needing filler along the top of the nose. When I
build my DC-8-63 (when it comes out), I’ll definitely go much slower
along these areas, to avoid using filler.
 Setting
the long fuselage aside for now, the next step was the wings (the tailplanes
were easy: trim them off the sprue and sand the edges). The wings have
some issues with them that the modeler should be aware of. First off,
there are separate wing tips. Be sure which tips you need, if you are
building something other than what’s in the box. While these have
tabs to fit into the wings, I cut those off to make sure I had a solid,
flat surface to glue. The wings themselves went together well, with only
a bit of sanding on the leading edge to eliminate the seam.
Moving on to the engines, these were a joy to put together. I was worried
initially with the separate intake section, but they met up beautifully
with the main body, and again only a bit of light sanding was needed to
smooth them all together. One problem I had was with the inboard engines,
or more specifically the pylons. The inboard pylons have a long, thin
extension, and it did not take long before I snapped one off. I don’t
know how this could be done differently, so modelers beware: protect those
pylons! I’m still searching for that piece in the carpet.
Painting
 With
all the major assemblies finally together and ready for paint, it was
time to start thinking about how to finish this model. I was set on doing
the Delta scheme in the box, so the first step was to lay down a nice
glossy white. I used Tamiya lacquers throughout in painting this model.
These are the spray can Tamiya colors, which were decanted for use in
an airbrush. Their white is a beautiful white, both bright and hard-drying.
Once that was on, I started to give some thought to the natural metal
sections of this plane. I decided to use Alclad, but I decided to try
something a bit different from the textbook method of applying that paint.
 What
I decided to do was only use Alclad Polished Aluminum, and create differential
panel appearances by undercoating with different colors. I kept it simple,
using only a primer gray, white, and blue for my variations. I masked
the fuselage and wings off and sprayed on some different colored panels.
When all that was done, and dried for a couple days, I tried out the Alclad.
The results were impressive, to say the least, and once I pulled all the
masking tape off, it looked even better. I was tempted to just leave it
like that, with that nice metal finish and glossy white top. However,
that Delta scheme kept calling to me, so I cleared the table and began
the joys of decaling.
 Decaling
The first step was to decide which aircraft to represent from the Delta
fleet. This was simple: N1305L. Why, you ask? Because its fleet number
is 871. Now every time I look at the tail of this plane, I’ll immediately
know that it is a DC-8-71. Hey, there has to be SOME reason you choose
a specific subject, right? On looking at the decal sheet, I was intimidated
by those long cheatlines, so I decided to work my way up to those. I therefore
started with the tail. That decal was a bit challenging due to the curvature
of the rudder, but after a bit of trimming with a sharp knife and a modest
application of Solvaset had that settling down nicely. While that was
drying, I turned to the engines and wings.
 With
the wings I encountered my first real issue with this kit. The decals
include some beautiful markings for the upper wing that includes fuel
filler caps and fasteners for all the oval panels on the top and bottom
of the wing. It is with these that the problem shows up, as the decal
ovals are of a different shape and size than the engraved panel lines
on the wing. It is not much of a difference, but it is enough to be noticeable.
The simplest solution is to fill in those panel lines on the kit, which
is probably what I will do on my next DC-8.
While the wings were drying up, I turned back to the fuselage. The tail
was dry, so it was ready to try that long cheatline. Boy, did I struggle
with this! The more I worked with it, the longer it seemed to get. I swear
that it was 25 feet long by the time I finally decided to cut it. Cut
it I did, though, and that helped quite a bit. Still, the left side cheatline
has the appearance of being seen across a hot, heat-wavy tarmac. When
I did the right side, I cut the cheatline at the beginning, and I was
able to put that one on much easier. Interestingly, when I got the left
side cheatline laid out and matched to all the door outlines, I had about
a 1/16-inch overlap, but with the right side there was no overlap. I cannot
explain this, as they were the same length on the decal sheet. Perhaps
in my manhandling of the decal it stretched slightly.
Final Steps
 At
any rate, once those were on it was all downhill. I put the remaining
decals on the kit, and then put a clearcoat over them. With this came
my next big problem. Apparently the clearcoat reacted with the Alclad
and over the blue sections on the fuselage the Alclad seemed to disappear,
leaving a metallic blue instead of a polished metal that was slightly
tinted blue. I will have to do some more experimenting with Alclad and
see just what happened here. For this model, though, it was too late,
as the decals were on and it was too close to being done. So I chalked
it up as a learning experience and moved on to the final details.
About all that is left for this build is the landing gear, and these
are some nice landing gear. The nose gear has a main strut, an oleo scissors,
a retraction strut, and clear landing lights. When put together the result
is a beautifully detailed landing gear strut. A similar experience shows
up with the main gear struts, and the only downside is having to paint
lots and lots of wheels (although my next 1/144 kit, the An-124, will
be MUCH worse, with ten wheels on each side). The only issue I had with
the landing gear was with the main gear and the gear doors. I am not sure
if I had things right or not, but I could not get the main gear wheels
to fit around the gear doors. As it sits now, the wheels are rubbing against
the doors, but it is not too noticeable. I will probably go back and look
more closely and see just what went wrong there, as it is probably a simple
thing. With the wheels on, though, this model was done.
 Conclusion
I think there can be no greater testimonial for the ease of building
this kit than the fact that I managed to build it in as short a time as
I did. If it were not for the holidays in December, I undoubtedly would
have had it finished for the January issue. Having built one, I now know
all the areas to pay attention to, and it should go much better. Thank
you Minicraft for using CAD/CAM to create this great model, and I look
forward for your next DC-8 release. My sincere thanks to Model
Airliners for the review copy.
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