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Posted

I've had this kit for a while now, and this GB is the perfect reason to start it.  

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In addition to the US Army machine pictured, the kit includes decals to allow you to build one of the slick camo-painted machines that were license-built by Fuji Heavy Industries for the Japanese military.

 

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Curiously, and in what's probably a harbinger of armies to come, the Japanese have decided to retire these badass birds in favor of a much cheaper fleet of UAVs for the VTOL attack role.  But I definitely need one on my shelf. 

 

This project will be a first for me as I've never built a model helicopter before.  I can tell already that getting all of that shiny fastener detail on the rotor head right will be a challenge...

Posted

Wonderful choice Alex! I’m about 90% done with assembly and it’s been a joy to build. Two items to look out for however:

 

Note: in Step 7, assembling the main rotor base and associated details, the unit that includes parts F14, F46, and F 47 is shown being attached pointing forward on the base instead of a correct 45 degree angle to starboard. It’s an easy fix if you know ahead of time. 

Similarly in Step 8, make sure to rotate the collar F4 45 degrees to starboard.

 

ntFn4U1.jpeg
 

 

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The Takom kit, though a lesser kit (in my opinion) at least got this right:

 

oKzGrE2.jpeg

 

 

Cheers,  Tom

 

 

 

Posted
On 6/29/2024 at 8:32 PM, Uncarina said:

Wonderful choice Alex! I’m about 90% done with assembly and it’s been a joy to build. Two items to look out for however:

 

Note: in Step 7, assembling the main rotor base and associated details, the unit that includes parts F14, F46, and F 47 is shown being attached pointing forward on the base instead of a correct 45 degree angle to starboard. It’s an easy fix if you know ahead of time. 

Similarly in Step 8, make sure to rotate the collar F4 45 degrees to starboard.

 

ntFn4U1.jpeg
 

 

hZnK3Jb.jpeg


The Takom kit, though a lesser kit (in my opinion) at least got this right:

 

oKzGrE2.jpeg

 

 

Cheers,  Tom

 

 

 

Tom,

 

Thanks so much for the heads-up on that.  With my relative lack of experience with helos, I'm sure I would have totally missed it.  I'm looking forward to seeing your model when it's completed!

Posted (edited)

My pleasure! One other challenge I faced is that my canopy was too long to fit the matching surface on the fuselage; I had to sand back the forward canopy edge significantly to get it to fit. I test fitted this once I already had the cockpit in position, but you might have better success if you test fit the canopy at your earliest opportunity in the build.

 

One more item: I found the cockpit panels were all identical in dimensions between the Meng and Takom kits, so if you want to use aftermarket such as Kelik you should be okay if you can only find a set for Takom.

 

Looking forward to your build!

 

Cheers,  Tom

Edited by Uncarina
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Started cutting plastic on this.  The kit of course starts with building the cockpit.

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  As with many kits I've done lately, Meng does not supply decals for the IPs.  This is annoying, as if they did I'd be happy to use those, but I don't trust at all my ability to hand paint all those teeny knobs and dials.  Actually they do provide some decals - but they are images/text/etc for the glass panel displays - which would only be on if there was a pilot on board and the engines running.  So not relevant for a parked bird where they should be black.  Long story short, I bought a Quinta Studios cockpit set, and have been carefully scraping surface detail off of all those panel prior to paint.

 

Here's a bunch of parts ready for the paint shop.

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Posted

The cockpit on this thing is detailed (and complex).  Even having done a fair amount of pre-assembly, there are a lot of parts:

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I started by hitting them all with a coat of Black Mr Surfacer 1500.  The cockpit is a pretty unrelenting dark gray with dark gray accents color scheme, so it's going to take some effort to make it look good.  I plan to use a number of different shades of dark grey (in photos there's a decent amount of variation between seats-structure-instruments-controls, which go from lightest to darkest in that order) and to give my dodgy dry-brushing "skills" an airing-out as well.  But that's for tomorrow.

Posted

Painted and applied the Quinta decals.  The seat cushions and belts work nicely. 

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One challenge, as shown below, is that the 3D printed decals all have white edges - I assume this is because they are built up out of white material and the gray/black is only applied as the final color on top.  

 

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So I'm going to need to break out a very small brush and try to hit those edges with some dark gray paint, without making a worse-looking mess in the process.  Wish me luck.  I'll definitely use acrylic in case I need to quickly remove any unwanted globs...

Posted

I masked the glass screens before shooting clear flat on all the cockpit components.

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Some shots of the basically completed cockpit.  I will probably do some additional pastel weathering on it, but there's time for that.

 

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Confirming that it fits cleanly into the fuselage.

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The tape isn't holding very well in that photo, but with almost zero pressure the fuselage halves close completely around the cockpit.  For once ;-)

 

With this part of the build completed, I think it's time to switch back over to interwar aviation and my Silver Jubilee GB project for a while.

Posted
12 hours ago, scvrobeson said:

Great progress Alex! Good to finally have two solid kits of the Apache in 1/35 after all these years

 

 

 

Matt 

 

7 hours ago, Dpgsbody55 said:

The cockpit looks brilliant.  Nice work.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

Thanks guys!  I'm happy with how it is going so far.

Posted

Coming back to this kit for a while, my goal was to get to the point that the basic fuselage is closed up.  To start I had to build up the main rotor shaft assembly, being mindful of Tom's tip that this linkage thingy needs to point 45 degrees starboard, not straight ahead.

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The whole thing, before painting.

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Like the cockpit, this piece dropped into the fuselage with no interference.  So far, I have to say that this is a really well-engineered kit.  First Meng kit I've done.

 

The kit provides a bunch of opportunities to display opened avionics service hatches, with the detailed bays behind them to challenge your paintbrush fine motor skills.  Because I want to show this bird bombed up and ready to fly, I'm (somewhat reluctantly) closing all of those hatches off.

 

Here you see two of them.  Like the fuselage parts generally, they are highly detailed and precisely molded.

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The kit also provides a nicely detailed engine (engines, really), and I think that I will paint that up and leave the engine bay covers loose, as they will sit in place closed on the finished model, unlike these hatch covers. 

 

Here's the basic fuselage assembly closed up:  

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It went together with minimal gap filling required.  Which is good, because the few small ones I did have to address were tricky even using fluid acrylic putty - all those rivets!

 

Meng has done a great job of breaking down the kit structure along actual panel lines, so very little in the way of actual seam eradication had to happen.

 

I'm going to go back over to my Silver Jubilee project for a while now.  Next time I pick up here it's going to be time to assemble and detail the engines.

 

Posted

It's a cliche, but I'll say it anyway - the engines are little model kits unto themselves.  Including exhausts and housings/heat shields, each of the two engines consists of more than 50 parts.  The pieces below are ready for paint, and include a bunch of pieces that are already sub-assemblies of 3-4 parts.  I have not touched the exhausts and housings yet, as just the turbine cores have run me right out of part holders.

 

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All of this (except one little widget that needs to be yellow) will get painted gloss black and then aluminun.  That will serve as a base for a bunch of variations of heat-distressed metal, which is about all of the color that the engines feature.  Even on top of all the detail the kit supplies, there's a bunch of room to add more plumbing detail, as with any jet engine.  I'm going to resist going down that rathole.  

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