Hasegawa

1/200 Boeing 767-300ER Air Do

Kit Number: 10712

Reviewed by  Mark Andrews, IPMS# 33206

MSRP: $31.95 Kit supplied by Dragon Models USA: Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com The 767-300 has been around for years and quite a bit has been written about it and several kits. I will dive right into the build! As with all of the Hasegawa 1/200 airliner kits, the parts breakdown is basic and well detailed with a combination of raised and engraved panel lines. All of the parts are well molded with just bare minimum flash. The decals are quite colorful with blue and yellow stripes. There are three versions available covering all 3 aircraft Air Do operates. The decals are on register but just a bit translucent. But being applied over white, that should not be an issue. On to the build! Versions of the 767-300 started to show up on store shelves back in the mid 90's. And the molds are starting to show their age. The fuselage and nacelles just didn't go together as clean as they used to. I had to use quite a bit of filler on both. Then I had to do some rescribing to restore the panel lines. The wings and nacelles are molded in gray and the fuselage in white which does ease the painting quite a bit. The main part of the wings and engines were painted Aircraft Gray with the center wing spars Neutral Gray. The fuselage was shot with a Gloss White lacquer spray can. I used metalizers on the internal engine parts. I applied the decals before I added the wings and stabilizers to the fuselage. Since this plane has cheat lines, this made decaling much easier. The decals went down very well with just a bit of Micro Sol and Set. The colors on the decals were a bit translucent, but the white paint did minimize the problem. The instructions do give the mix ratios for Gunze paints to make the yellow and blue. I don't have access to these paints so I couldn't check the mixtures. I added aluminum foil to the leading edges of the wings and horizontal stabs for that bare metal look. After all this the wings, stabs and landing gear were all installed. I had to do some filing to get the wing tabs to go into the rectangular holes in the fuselage. I wonder if the wear on the molds is causing the fit issues here too? Overall it is a decent 767-300ER model. Hasegawa has always had a handle on the commercial aircraft. The fit issues are most likely attributed to the aging molds but they are not disastrous. Hard core modelers will want to mix the yellow and blue and paint their own makings. I like the simplicity of the scheme while still being colorful! My thanks to Dragon Models USA for the review sample.