Hi all,
This one is a little different: it isn’t a fresh build, it’s a rescue. This old Hobbycraft 1/72 kit (HC2301, first released in 1989) reached me partly assembled and abandoned: aged glue, misaligned parts and an uneven, unfinished brush-painted coat. The panel lines, the glazing and many details were still good, though, so it deserved a second chance.
The recovery, step by step
Stripping: a bath in ethyl alcohol removed the old paint without harming the plastic.
Structure: joints reinforced with plastic strip, misalignments corrected with acrylic putty. Glazing: old paint removed from the canopy and windows, then polished back to clarity.
Extra detail: ventilation grilles and intakes added around the rear rotor area.
Configuration: rear ramp lowered and rotors folded, as for transport.
Painting
Airbrushed pre-shading over a dark base, trying to make the green “more than just green”. It’s a technique I didn’t know when I built this same kit years ago as a Canadian CH-113A Labrador, so it was nice to see the difference.
The subject
BuNo 156419 served with HMM-262 as ET-7 from 1978 until its retirement in March 2012.
And here it is next to my old Labrador, the first time I built this kit:
For me, finishing an abandoned model is a way of respecting the work someone else started, and of giving the kit the life it was meant to have.
Cheers from Córdoba, Argentina,
Ale