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Posted

Here are the turbine cores.  Like I said, lots of room for further scratch detailing if one wanted to.  There are a couple of large diameter lines (probably coolant, I think) that I may go ahead and add if they will end up being visible once the engines are in place.

pmr9S7hpj

 

Onward to the exhausts and heat shields and etc next.  To Meng's credit, I did very little trimming or fiddling with these.  Despite the small size, everything pretty much fit together just clipped off the sprues and cleaned up.  Quality kit engineering.  I have a Meng E/A-18 kit in the stash, and this experience is making me want to build it.

Posted

Nice !!

 

Just go the Takom kit (is that a 'lesser kit' ? Looks great in the box) to do a Japanese as well. Unfortunately I didn't think and did not get the JGSDF version so now I'm looking for the decals (if anyone have some I'll be happy to buy them). The Japanese camo is aaaaaawesome, not the usual boring green thing

Posted
15 hours ago, Thomas Lund said:

Nice !!

 

Just go the Takom kit (is that a 'lesser kit' ? Looks great in the box) to do a Japanese as well. Unfortunately I didn't think and did not get the JGSDF version so now I'm looking for the decals (if anyone have some I'll be happy to buy them). The Japanese camo is aaaaaawesome, not the usual boring green thing

Thomas,

 

I don't know about the Takom kit - I don't have one to look at.  I have not looked at the decal options available since the Japanese option came with the Meng kit.  You might look around for anyone who has built the Meng kit as one of the US Army versions - they should have the Japanese decals as leftovers.

Posted
17 hours ago, Thomas Lund said:

Nice !!

 

Just go the Takom kit (is that a 'lesser kit' ? Looks great in the box) to do a Japanese as well. Unfortunately I didn't think and did not get the JGSDF version so now I'm looking for the decals (if anyone have some I'll be happy to buy them). The Japanese camo is aaaaaawesome, not the usual boring green thing

I don’t think the Takom is a “lesser kit”.  It’s more detailed and has more parts, but the instructions suck, as do the decals (which doesn’t matter if you use aftermarket decals).  It’s a more involved build, but accuracy wise both kits have their pros and cons.  The Meng kit has better decals and is an easier build.

Posted
4 hours ago, Dave Williams said:

  The Meng kit has better decals and is an easier build.

 

I can certainly confirm that the Meng kit is a well-engineered, straightforward build, and the instructions are at least pretty good, if not stellar.  I'm hoping that the decals work well too when I get there.

Posted
6 hours ago, Alex said:

 

I can certainly confirm that the Meng kit is a well-engineered, straightforward build, and the instructions are at least pretty good, if not stellar.  I'm hoping that the decals work well too when I get there.


The Meng kit has Cartograf decals IIRC.

Posted
11 hours ago, Dave Williams said:


The Meng kit has Cartograf decals IIRC.

Just looked at that's correct.  It really is a well-thought-out package.

Posted

Engines in their nacelles mounted to the airframe.  I decided that the brackets on top and on the underside of those big exhaust diffusers needed to be removed to make masking them off easier.  They will be reinstalled at the end of the build.  This is a definite advantage of my usual approach to assembling fully painted parts like this with Krystal Klear (essentially white PVA glue).  It does not make a super-strong bond, so you have to handle things carefully, but it's easy to take things back apart, without any damage to painted surfaces.

pn1LwaQcj

 

And all buttoned up, with the gearboxes installed (yes, those globe-shaped things in front of the intakes are the housings for the gear that turns the rotational power of the turbine driveshaft 90 degrees and sends it into the main rotor shaft; and no, I did not know that until I just looked it up).

poEXUSevj

 

The engine covers are not glued, just set in place, as they will remain so that the engines can be viewed on the finished model.

 

I'll head back to the Silver Jubilee GB for a while now.  When I come back to this project it will be time to install the canopy.  One of the many nice features of this kit is that Meng supplies a full set of inside and outside adhesive masks for the canopy.  You have the option to build it closed, or with the starboard side canopy panes opened up to allow pilot ingress.  I will build it open.  

Posted
32 minutes ago, LSP_Kevin said:

Fantastic build so far, Alex!

 

Kev

Thanks Kev.  I’m definitely enjoying this one - it’s a great kit. 

Posted
22 hours ago, Neo said:

Wow stunning paint job on those engines. Did you airbrush on had paint?

Thanks Neo.  I did a few small things by hand but they are 95% airbrush painted.  As a general rule I will only hand paint things that are too small to mask off for airbrushing.  I have no real ability with a paintbrush, so try to minimize its use!

Posted

The clear parts for the canopy are very nicely detailed and perfectly clear.  My major concern has been keeping them clean while trimming off sprue gate stubs.

porAWBg1j

 

There's a bunch of hardware that installs inside the canopy - grab handles and the like.  It looks like assembly and painting will need to happen in two phases, as some of these pieces actually insert into the clear part of the center partition.  So I will mask off, assemble some of the inside parts, then paint.  The other inside parts will have to be painted separately and then installed after I remove the interior masks.  After I install the main canopy piece permanently, I'll temporarily tack the openable doors in the closed position using Krystal Klear, so that the protect the interior of the cockpit when I paint the exterior camo.

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