I was searching on google for pictures of the ASDA logo for a project I was doing at work. But within a few pages of image search on google I found a picture which I thought was a bit funny. ASDA aquired an old boeing 747-200 from scrap and decided to repaint it for a promotion of their Trucker of the year awards. I just had to make a model of this unusual paintscheme.

The first hurdle was finding a model of a 747-200. The only variants of the 747 I could find were the 400 and SP which were no good to me. My preffered scale would have been 1:144, which would have been scaling down for me, but Revell's 1:390 version of the 200 had to do. The smaller you get in scale the less my wallet has to give up so that was a small bonus (tight git). So after buying the model I promptly took it home and put it on the shelf.

 

But I could not wait to do this model so all other models were put on hold. The kit is very simplistic as could be expected of this kind of model. Having said that the detail was quite good. The kit consists of 6 white sprues and a little horseshoe transparency. Flash was on the model on all the wing roots and openings. The fit of the model was quite poor and required a lot of sanding to level up the fuselage halves.

The kit requires a nose weight according to the instructions provided. Although I have now finished the model I can honestly say that the weight I put in was not quite enough, so I have been really crued and glued the model to the base.

 

Once I had glued the fuselage together, I added the wings which fitted together nicely. Then after that went the tail section. The photos of the 747-200 G-ASDA show that the engines were removed. So I cut off the engine casing with a number 10 blade and glued what was left of the pylons onto the underside of the wings. The effect looked brill. Once everything was attached I started painting. After painting the whole model with the base colours, I fitted the undercarriage and touched up everything else. The Decal's were painted by hand (which is pretty obvious!). They were extremly difficult to paint on and required some significant tidying up afterwards.

 

The base, I made out of a piece of MDF with some sandpaper cut out and glued on to add some texture. Then this was painted concrete, and grass was added round the rim. I used chalk and pastels to add the concrete slab details on which looked sufficient. A very good model all in all, just a shame they can't make a bigger 747-200!