Dukie99

The Whiskey is finished. Super happy how the transparencies turned out, more pictures along the Zulu when it is done. Cheers, David

Whiskey on the home stretch...

For those of you who have the kit, this looks like a nice addition: http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=32036

Carl, thank you for leaving a post. It is indeed nice to see the differences between the two airframes. What I found interesting is that the two crew positions are completely interchangeable: you can fly from the front seat and use the weapon systems from the back or fly from the back and fight from the front, something that could not be done in the Whiskey. If the pilot spots a target from the back it will show on the displays of its co-pilot seamlessly, where in the Whiskey, the pilot would have to give his copilot visual directions for him to spot, acquire and engage. I am sure the crew love these features. OK, time for an update. If you have followed this build from the start, you will recall I was not super happy with the 20mm gatling gun provided in the kit The gatling gun in the Whiskey kit was completely useless, so I had replaced it with the Masters offering and I was very happy with the result. So I bought another one to replace the Zulu gun. I thought that it would be useful to show how the Masters gun build and how you adapt it to the kit parts, fortunately that was very easy, so here we go: Masters parts and instructions You start by using kit part C18 (the part looks a bit messy because I salvaged it after building the gun from the kit parts) Then you glue with CA the brass base of the gun on the kit part. The brass is almost a perfect fit to the kit part, you just need to slightly scrape the inner lip of the part and it will fit snugly. In the brass base there are three holes to accept the barrels. I used a drill bit to drill the three holes in the kit parts and then glued the three barrels with CA Then you glue the middle brace: and you finish the gun with the muzzle brace (using thin CA): Then I glued kit part C18 to part C35, primed the gun with Aclad gloss black and then Alclad steel Then I glued the base together. I painted it before assembly Yellow primer. Not sure this is accurate however. The manual calls you to glue part C38 (the part of the gun shield that moves with the gun). Before doing that you need to add the corresponding shark mouth decal (if you are building one of the three shark mouth versions in the kit). If you glue the shield without the decal, good luck putting the decal afterwards. gun shield glued to the gun assembly. The hole is just big enough to accomodate the Masters barrels, just go slowly: Then I glued the two sides of the turret around the gun. The fit is perfect and the gun moves up and down. You need to paint the turret gloss white before assembling it because the shark mouth decals only has white printed on the top part of the decal. I think they left the white out on the bottom part to allow for the curvature of the turret (there is no transparent film between the bottow teeth). I have not applied that decal yet. This leaves a seam on the turret but the front seam will not be seen once the turret is in its housing and the back seam can be eliminated without fouling the front of the turret (at least that is the plan). I think the Masters barrels are a nice addition to the kit and they fit very easily to the kit parts. More progress soon. Cheers, David

A bit more progress: finished the main painting of the two Cobras. Sprayed future and the Whiskey and decaled it with decals from Caracal. I thought that this red on grey scheme was looking good. I need to paint the tail of the Zulu Nato black and then future and decals. The Zulu has been a joy to build, great engineering and details. Some pics: More progress soon. Cheers, David

I have used the Northstar Mavericks on a number of build and the quality is top notch and they come with the launch rail. If you prep the part correctly you can actually slide the missile on the launch rail. cheers, David

Time for an update on the Zulu. After giving a coat of primer, it was time to add the photoetch. I am not a big fan of phototech because I am usually bad at it, but here the pe is a pleasure to work with, it is very thin and conforms well and all the places where the pe goes is recessed so you get a very nice flush finish without much effort. I like it a lot. See for yourself. Cheers, David

I built this kit (in its Revell reboxing) for the "Mostly Civil GB". It is a nice kit that shows its age (lots of flash and prepping necessary) but the good surprise was that the transparency was a good fit. Sadly I lost this kit while cleaning up the display cabinet, maybe I will do another one in the future but after the building the KH Blackhawks in all its iterations...

I finally painted the MFDs with transparent blue, I think it looks OK. I have now masked and glued the canopy of the Viper. The fit of the fixed parts is absolutely stupendous. The central portion was glued with 2 minutes epoxy for stength and the side walls with bondic. I glued the doors which you can pose open in the closed position and the fit is great with minimal sanding. I also glued the vac form canopy on the Whiskey with epoxy and bondic. The fit is a lot more approximative than for the Viper but that was to be expected. The clarity of the vac is great and I am pretty happy with the result. Now I need to mask it. Cheers, David

You're welcome. This is a shot you may find useful (back seat position). I was hoping that the cockpit decals would show the MFDs on but unfortunately it is not the case. Cheers, David

Thanks. This is the best walk around I found, but no real cockpit shots in there: http://svsm.org/gallery/ah1z/P1430384 Cheers, David

here is a picture of the controller

My understanding is that the large plate is armor plate and the horn shaped contraption is actually the weapon control joypad in stowage position. IRL it looks remarkably similar to a PlayStation controller, just deadlier...

My build of the Viper has caught up with the Whiskey. Next step for both is now to fit the canopy and then it will be time for primer. The Viper is a great build. If you take your time, everything fits really well and as many have already remarked the surface details of the Viper are amazing. Cheers, David

Not a ton of progress on the Su-25 due to spending time on building my two Cobras, but I still managed to finish the first piece of ordnance: the two gun pods (from Aerobonus More progress soon. Cheers, David

Time for an update. Made some progress on the Viper. Overall it is a great kit and the moulding is absolutely stunning. There is a quite a number of ejection pin mark which can be seen and which therefore need to be filled: the sidewalls of the cockpit, the armor panels in the cockpit and inside the intakes which comes in two parts (with four pin marks on each side...), but nothing too annoying. I did not bother making cushion on the seat as in the pictures these seats look pretty thin, much like a sports car bucket seat. I solved the lacked of seat belts by using eduard mi-24 seatbelts left from my mi-24P build, certainly not super accurate but it looks the part. The kit comes with decals for the MFDs but I don't think they look accurate and I will not use it. I think I will paint the MFD screen gloss black and add a coat of bondic on top and hopefully it will look more like this: So far my only disappointment is with the 20mm gun. I don't think it looks very good compared to the Master metal barrels with the Verlinden resin breach I am using for the Whiskey. I have ordered a set of Masters barrels to replace the kit's gun. That's it for now. Cheers, David

When Academy announced its new AH-1Z Viper last November, I decided to start my MRC AH-1W, hoping to finish it before the arrival of the new kit. I did not quite manage that, as the Academy kit arrived last Thursday and I am mid-way through on the AH-1W. I thought it would be cool to start the Academy kit right away and cover in the same WIP thread the two builds. Box art of the Viper: tonight I built the cockpit. Seats are dry fitted. Unfortunately there are no seat belts, I will have to see what to do about that. The details are pretty good and so far the fit is excellent. The plastic is softer than the Trumpeter plastic so you need to go lightly on the sanding. And this is the cockpit of the AH-1W. I have used Verlinden detail set which was a huge improvement over the kit parts More progress soon. Cheers, David

Thanks Breaker. I noticed the gap too but only after I had glued the nacelles and saw your post. I have some thin styrene I will try to use to fill the gap as it is indeed very regular. If that does work I will use putty but that would be more messy. Cheers, David

Exceptional, I love it!

Found this at home tonight, straight from Korea: This one goes on the bench on Saturday, I will start a WIP. Cheers, David

Brian, this is really becoming a superlative build, the camo is absolutely mind boggling in its sharpness...I would have overspray everywhere... Looking forward to the unmasking of the marking. Cheers, David

I love what you are doing here, your painting is very inspirational. Once I am done with my Su-25, I will do an Intruder, I love mudmovers:) Cheers, David

Looking really sharp. Primer looks as smooth as a baby's butt. Cheers, David

Neo, Shelby, thanks for leaving a note. I finished the pit (minus the bangseat), I needed to add the throttle and the rudder pedals. I am happy with the result. The Aires cockpit set is really a great addition to this kit: awesome detail, easy to assemble, almost no pour plug to remove, and a good fit, definitely one of their better offerings. Before closing the fuselage, I wanted to ensure that I will not get a tailsitter so I poured a mix of steel grain and PVA for a bit more nose weight. i did a rough balance test she should be firmly planted on her feet. and here is the fuselage closed. The cockpit is epoxied on the left side. I plan to glue the engine nacelles before closing the fuselage to ensure a good fit between the nacelle and the fuselage but before doing that I need to clean up the nacelle seams. So far the fit of the fuselage is close to perfect. Cheers, David

Kagemusha and Alain, Thank you for your kind words. I am almost finished with the pit and I am pretty happy with the result even though the macro is unforgiving. it looks better IRL I need to finish the bangseat and add bits and bobs and I can then close up the fuselage. Cheers, David