1/125 Revell Lockheed L1049G Super Constellation Lufthansa

Gallery Article by Juergen Baumgart on July 17 2020

 

      

Here is my Super Constellation L-1049G 3.0 :-)  

My first article on ARC, this Connie was also a first on a German model website 11 years ago...

1.0 – Initial build was at the end of the seventies, made of the old Revell-kit, which has printed "Revell Pat. 1956" on the wing (at this time the kit was "only" about 20 years of age !) .

I removed the way too big rivets and there wasn't even a glass canopy for the cockpit area, only window struts. But I had already cut out the fowlerflaps and glued them in partly extended condition to the wing.

Click on images below to see larger images

2.0 - Rebuild was about at the beginning of the nineties: I made a mold out of the front section for the glass canopy from a second kit I acquired at this time (same content, new box title picture, which looks more like a Starliner), and fixed this thermoformed canopy.

At this time there were almost no research possibilities like the Internet to look up for scale details.

Later when the internet came up with many pictures of the originals I always was disturbed when I walked by the Connie model because of the wrong colors of the decals with windows wrong and at the wrong positions (which was possibly also my mistake because I had only few photos of the original), and also because of some additional deviations in the engine areas.

Although, in this video these "wrong" colors appear around min. 0:37 !? :  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjXDWhYz9UU

What are the reasons for – I don't know. Has there in fact existed some single releases of these tourqoise-light-blue liveries in the early time of Lufthansa or is it a faded out technicolor film-strip ? By the way it is a pity, that this Starliner of LH is not going to be finished to flying condition, it would have really been a "star“ on the skies !

Regarding of how far they already went and how big the efforts already been made ,e.g:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr88hFNm6D8

Anyhow, most of the now available pictures of the LH-Super-Connies shows them in dark blue livery. Originally I wanted to buy one of the new and much better kits or at least one of these new and very good decals, but none of that was available, so I decided for :

3.0, as I hope - the final rework of my old Connie:

First I tried to draw off the old decals with tape :

No chance, they stuck to the model better than painted ! I overpainted the old decals with white paint for a better base, because I wanted to put on self-printed ones, which do not cover up that good. The decal sheets for self-printing were ordered for me from Thomas Brueckelt – first time I used them.

The decal layout was made with Gimp on basis of those from the second kit, which was a heck of a work.

But: I could easily reprint some decals that were damaged while putting them on.

Then the engines became a topic: exhaust pipes were made out of 3mm brass tube, the air intakes extensions on the bottom of the cowlings were thermoformed, glued on and puttied and sanded. Same for the engine mount compartments behind the cowlings (dark sheet metal, I guess stainless steel), PS drawn over the end of a drill (the engines originally were too short). First I sanded down the wrong placed cowl flaps on the original engines. Then I engraved the new and bigger cowl flaps at the right places at the end of the cowlings. At the new cowl flap hinges I milled down the material on the inside so it got very thin. Lateral slots were sewed in with a very thin jigsaw blade. PS-glue was added to the thinned hinges on the inside, then I waited till the plastic was softened and turned the cowlflaps slightly outwards to show a slightly opened position and left everything to dry out. Also the covers behind the props (better guidance for the cooling air?) were made on a lathe machine out of aluminum.

I added some pictures of all these conversion work steps.

All the antennas and very tiny windshield wipers were scratched and fixed, also additional decals for some round windows, fuel caps, Lockheed Logo, inner structure of the fowlerflaps and the black walkway limiters on the wings. Exhaust trails with candle soot and flat clear paint.

Calculations show the scale is about 1:125.

Now always when I walk by the Connie's new overall appearance makes me happy, now the only thing are the wrong placed exhaust flaps on the top of the wings which would have been a too big effort for me to correct. But I can live with that and hope you like the pictures ! Anyhow, it now looks better than my 1:72 Heller L-749 constellation...

And yes, somehow strange times ...the cranes on the fins in these times seem to fly more relaxed than those of nowadays...

Juergen Baumgart

Click on images below to see larger images

 

Photos and text © by Juergen Baumgart