raven
Your Huey is coming along just fine. Great reference pictures for the guns sight and will be very useful when I get around to building mine.
I was lucky to find this very kit at a local model show and negotiated the price down to $15. I have seen the same kit on eBay for as much as $50! I also got the interior and exterior Eduard pe detail sets for enhanced detailing.
I am sticking a fork in this one and calling it done. Getting fed up with it and it’s been going downhill on me since I put some of the decals on…
The decals by Academy are rubbish, the decals I made for my 1/48 Huey gunship using the Academy ones for the artwork were far superior. The one’s I’ve put on so far have not gone down at all well (although I guess use of Microsol/Microset may have helped), they’ve wrinkled, some have silvered, some have become brittle after the Klear has dried and they’ve chipped off (you can see that on the nose decal), the nose decal in particular was very hard to put on as it just would not lie down, and some even had some remnants of white on the edges! I won’t be putting any more on.
My masking of the windows seems have been poor as at least one has some paint on it, and the overall quality is not good - might not be able to see the full extent in the pics but some how my nose windows have gone totally horrible!!!
Anyhow here’s the final pics, It looks worse in real life I can assure you, I took photos of the “good” side, forgot to put the doors on though, doh! -
Sorry guys, even after all your advice I made a bit of a mess of this one.
I’m going to chalk this one up to experience and move on.
Overall it looks good. One suggestion on the nose decal, along with the setting solutions, where it is bubbling up, you and use a sharp blade and make small incisions where it is bubbled, apply more solution until they lay down. But that doesn’t always work.
looks great
Rick
Trust me the photos actually make it look better than it is.
I tried making small incisions in the nose decals, didn’t help. Not sure it would have helped on the others either.
I even tried, for the other side of the nose decal, cutting the decal into smaller parts, it already comes in 2 or 3 parts, but cutting it down even further didn’t help.
The Academy decals are just really thick and to make matters worse went brittle after the Klear had dried.
Probably what I should have done is what I did with the 1/48 decals I made using the artwork of this kit and that is print them myself…
Raven,
If you are up to it, you might be able to fix your very minor spots:
Have you tried solvaset on the decals? It’s like Micro Set but a lot stronger and may make tough decals set down. I will generally grab it when Micro Set isn’t getting a decal to lay down for me.
With the silvering, I’ve had luck lightly brush painting along the silvered edge with future. It will usually run underneath for me and sometimes make the silvering go away. Just don’t be too thick and you’ll have to go over with some clear flat after it dries.
With the glass, try an eraser. If that doesn’t get it off, gently sand a toothpick to remove the sharper edges and gently try rubbing the paint off with that.
You mentioned some decal chipping, as I understand it, those Vietnam birds were flown pretty hard, so some wear and tear is likely!
Your issues are all minor and we are always our own worst critics. Your build looks great to me, particularly from what I understand to be a very difficult kit.
Groot