French double-decker
Long before the A380 took to the skies, there was another twin-deck, four engine French airliner, the Breguet Br.763 'Deux Ponts'. When a 1/144 injection-moulded kit of the type was announced by F-RSIN, I immediately ordered one, seduced by the beautiful colour profile on the box lid.
At first glance in the box it looked pretty good – recessed panel lines, good detail on the engines and wheel bays, nice decal sheet and no clear parts to contend with. However a closer examination of the styrene revealed numerous surface imperfections: pebbly texture, odd lumps of excess plastic, gouges, divots, sink marks – even what looked like a human hair embedded in one component. There were ejector pin marks in glaringly obvious positions such as the upper wing, not to mention copious amounts of flash on some parts. In short, every single piece of the kit required some measure of clean up, a task made even more necessary by the unforgiving nature of a gloss white and natural metal colour scheme.
The kit's a real tail-sitter so needed lots of nose weight, in this case three hefty nuts, one filled with 'Liquid Gravity'. Styrene tabs were added all around the fuselage edges to add rigidity and a base for any filler that would be needed.
Overall, the fit of most parts wasn't too bad. The wing halves needed some giant ejector pins removed with a grinding bit, but the trailing edges were commendably thin.
Flash was everywhere, in fact I felt like I was carving the propellors out of solid chunks of plastic. The main undercarriage legs were cleaned up, but the forward leg was so deformed it was replaced from the spares box, as were all of the wheels.
With so much filling and sanding, re-scribing a lot of the lost surface detail was inevitable, but eventually it all went together. The decals were superbly printed but the cheatlines were too large and had to be trimmed, while the codes were too small and had to be enlarged.
Despite the battle I quite enjoyed it in a masochistic kind of way, and the finished model looks OK – from a distance.
It certainly looks as if you created the proverbial "silk purse" from that 'sow's ear', Mike. Fantastic job on this! Turned out really nice indeed. Good work.
Thanks Craig!
Beautiful work, Mike.
Glad you like it Rob, thanks.
I'll say it looks ok! Very nice - the old bird has a very pleasing aesthetic, and you did a wonderful job on her.
Cheers Greg, I agree about the look of the aircraft, I love the subtle curves on the upper fuselage.
Thanks, Mike! Never seen one done. It has a certain charm, don't it?
Thank you Bernard. I find most 50s airliners charming 🙂
That thing sure looks very "French"! Great work F-RSIN mut be the illegitimate red-haired child of Mach 2.
Merci beaucoup, Tom. Definitely some Mach 2 influences in this kit...
Hey Mike,
What a lovely build, I have got space in my display cabinet!, if you ever want to part with it. Nice one.
Thanks Marc!
Holy moly, that bare plastic reminded me of an OKB-144 Yak-40 that I did battle with years ago. You really whacked this one into submission. Superb.
Thank you Wes. I'm not familiar with OKB, presumably some early East European or Russian brand? Regardless, sounds like I should steer well clear.
As soon as I saw the first picture I knew this was one of yours Mike,absolutely amazing work and very nice photography ,more please !
N.
Thanks a lot for the kind comment Neil!
Nice build Mike, especially after seeing the state of the pieces before you cleaned them.
Well done mate, very fine work.
Thanks Simon 🙂
Fantastic work in any scale, Mike, let along 1/144, although I guess this is the correct scale for such a beast.
Cheers George. I'd love to see one in 1/72, as long as it was tooled by Tamiya...
Hello Mike
You did an amazing work on this French Beauty.
Nice
Definitively fan of it
Emmanuel
Hey, thanks Emmanuel.
Magnifique ! bravo for this marvellous build.
Eric
Thanks Eric!
Lots of work makes a beauty out of a beast, very nice job!
Cheers Mike 🙂
What a beautiful, clean and convincing build of an attractive and unusual subject. Top marks!
Jean
Thanks a lot, Jean!
Hello Mike, looking at the sprues, you did a marvelous job on this Brequet.
I have to get back to the real history of this plane.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Dirk!
beautiful metal on a dog of a kit...just outstanding
Cheers Bob!
Lovely Mike, looks more than OK even up close.
Thank you Allan 🙂
Superb model of a beautiful looking aircraft. Extremely well made Mike.
Whoa! Just discovered this entry - a breathtaking finish of a something just roughly resembling a plastic model kit! Congratulations, it is a beauty!