Years ago, Hasegawa molded a series of 1/200 scale airliners, including a first-generation 737 - it was awkwardly molded in halves split horizontally. However, with art mimicking real life, it was time for some new-generation 737s in 1/200 scale.
Hasegawa's "Next-Generation" 737-700 is molded with the fuselage split "normally" along the vertical axis. This kit is new in more than just subject, too, as the kit represents state-of-the-art molding and fit. Despite the small parts, some details come up big (such as beautiful wheels that would put a few larger kits to shame). While you can only build your 737-700 with the rakish winglets, you do get a gear-up option - a stand is included. Also included is a bolt for nose weight. However, only one scheme is provided, although you get a choice of two jets in the gold-and-white ANA livery.
Construction begins with the engines, which feature nice fans and exhaust detail. I left off the petite exhausts on each engine - I just didn't believe they could survive assembly and painting. Happily, test-fitting the engines to the wing showed I could leave the nacelles until after paint and decals - much easier on a kit smaller than my hand. Although the instructions are to screw the nose-weight bolt into the bulkhead, you will need to super glue it as the thread is undersized.
There really is not much to the assembly of the fuselage. I needed to add a touch of filler at the front and just a bit of sanding at the rear for the center-section joints.
I knocked off the blade antenna on the top of the fuselage twice before I gave in and let it be the last piece attached. The blade antennas and gear doors are the only part of this kit I would maybe want to swap out, as they are understandably molded rather thick.
I was impressed by the perfect fit of the wings and winglets - no filler, no fuss. The stabilizers were left off to avoid the chore of masking around them. Continuing the thoughtful assembly engineering of this kit, the flap-track fairings are keyed to avoid mix-ups. Attaching the landing gear after less than five hours of building gave me a kit ready for finishing that looked pleasantly like a newer 737.
Painting for the ANA scheme was simple - mask a straight line from one door to the next, painting Testors gloss gull grey below and classic white above. Wings, engines, and stabilizers were treated to the grey as well. I used Bare Metal foil on the natural-metal leading edges.
The tiny engines had me scratching my head, trying to come up with a natural-metal inlet lip, until I tried dipping them in Testors chrome silver. After some touch-up, they were ready for decals.
I applied the angled gold stripe to the fuselage prior to any others. At first, I was disconcerted to note the gold seemed to be translucent, but once applied to the white it looked great. The decals are thin and tough, allowing adjustments. All went well until I noticed that the windows could not be placed as shown on the instruction without misaligning a window across one of the doors. I therefore decided to place the window decals with reference to the door, not the instructions. After setting solution subdued the decals, I added the final details of lights and antennas.
Altogether, I spent only a little more than nine hours on my 737. I would recommend it to beginners and anyone who wants to try airliner modeling.
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