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Posted

Here it is with the main canopy piece built out, painted (inside), and installed.

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Getting the canopy correctly in place is the first significant fit issue I've had with this kit, and it was a bear.  The problem lies entirely with the center clear partition (part N19) between the two airmen's positions, as shown in the instructions below.

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This piece is WAY too tall, and as a consequence I had to carefully trim it from the bottom, after it was painted and attached to the main canopy.  I had to do this, of course, because while I had dry-fitted the canopy itself before painting, I did not do so with the center partition already in place.  Big mistake.  Anyhoo, it's together and sits flush now, so on to the next thing.

Posted

The view under the canopy is dim owing to the tape masks, but you can see some of the hardware that installs inside it.

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The other part that I built out is the nose-mounted sensor suite.

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All the parts are posable as it goes together with Polycaps.  I particularly like how you can see the lenses inside the lower right hand (in the view; portside) turret.  On the finished model this needs to be dark gray, not camo, so I will leave it off for now and attach it after painting.

 

Also to be attached at the end are the windshield wipers, which are nicely molded and were a bit tricky to assemble.  In this view they are just sitting in the ~final positions.  Hopefully I can avoid losing or breaking them until it's time to install them.

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I think that's all for VTOL for now.  I'm going to go back and try to finish up my other GB project.  When I come back here it will be time to build the landing gear and install all of the other fiddly bits that adorn the fuselage.

  • 2 weeks later...
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  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

Assembling the landing gear, it became obvious that the ResKit wheels (which are more detailed than the kit pieces, including the disc rotors and calipers) were not going to fit onto the fat mounting stubs on the kit LG:

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So I replaced them with 0.8 mm brass rod.

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You can't see all of it in this shot, but I've gone through and finished adding all of the little boxes, antennae, grab handles, and other errata that go onto the outside of the helo.

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After mostly building very streamlined jet fighters for the last year, the helicopter is amusingly industrial by comparison.  I'm going to go ahead and paint the fuselage now, before starting on the rotors. 

Posted
On 10/5/2024 at 3:48 PM, Alex said:

Assembling the landing gear, it became obvious that the ResKit wheels (which are more detailed than the kit pieces, including the disc rotors and calipers) were not going to fit onto the fat mounting stubs on the kit LG:

pnJsm6K6j

 

So I replaced them with 0.8 mm brass rod.

pn8eqMolj

 

You can't see all of it in this shot, but I've gone through and finished adding all of the little boxes, antennae, grab handles, and other errata that go onto the outside of the helo.

pn1wEfuJj

 

After mostly building very streamlined jet fighters for the last year, the helicopter is amusingly industrial by comparison.  I'm going to go ahead and paint the fuselage now, before starting on the rotors. 

That’s what I love about floppy wings, they’re not worried about all the parasitic drag … 😃

Posted

In preparing to prime the model, I found that the forward canopy door actually would not quite fit in place - just a little too wide.  That's not a problem long-term, as I plan to have them propped open in the end, but it meant that I could not use it to mask the cockpit and had to use tape instead.

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Here it is with a coat of primer.

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For the green and brown camo colors, the instructions only give AK part numbers, with descriptions of "Light Olive Green" and "Khaki".  For the green, I've taken NATO Green (MRP 078) and added a touch of US Modern Olive Drab (MRP 138) to dull it down.  The brown color in actual photos of these helos is no where near Khaki (at least not the Mr Color Khaki that I have, which is way too green).  So what I've done is taken Mr Color FS30219 (C310) and added a fair bit of white and just a bit of Middle Stone (C21).  It seems about right in the jar, but I'll spray some out on a test panel and let it dry before starting on the fuselage.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Started painting with the lightest camo color, naturally.

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In general I have not been a big fan of AK products, but I have to say that this black masking putty they make is worlds better than the old blu-tac I was using.

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I'm going to have to do this in sections - it's way too much fiddling airbrushing to do in one go, not to mention the logistical challenge you'd face trying to mask the whole airframe at once.

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Not too bad...there will be a little bit of freehand touching-up at the end, but overall I'm happy with how it is going so far.

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Posted

And there's the green about done.

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Next I need to do some minor touch-ups to the tan (green overspray), and a couple rectangular panels of green that need to be masked with tape rather than putty.  Then it's on to the black part of the camo.  In hindsight, it would have been a decent idea to leave both the engine nacelles and the stub wings off of the model until this painting was complete.  Even just leaving the wings off would have helped.

Posted
11 hours ago, themongoose said:

That black/darkgrey you added around the camo stripes looks nicely done! 

Thanks!  It needed a few touchups but overall was pretty easy to do.  The one thing that I should have done differently is taken the time to put some masking tape next to the putty snakes I used to mask.  I got some black overspray on the green and brwon sections in places and it was surprisingly difficult to paint out completely. 

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