Please except my apologies in regards to not venturing out of the aircraft thread. After viewing the many builds on this thread, I am inspired to continue visiting not only this thread but the many others that abound on FSM Forum. My passion is US WWII aircraft and bombers. This is the first time in 40 years that I’ll be building a helicopter.
A little background on myself. I am a TBI “Traumatic Brain Injury” survivor. I started to build model kits approximately 8 months ago. This helped my fine motor skills. You can view my previous builds on the aircraft threads. Please don’t expect too much from me, my builds are nowhere near the artistic renditions of forum members builds.
I will do my best in offering a step by step build on the Apache. Any comments good and or bad is most welcomed. I can only learn from my mistakes and correct them on my next build. Thank you for the opportunity to be allowed to post the AH-64 kit, I’m very excited as Mrs. Toshi surprised me with this model.
One day, I received a Huey Chopper model kit. I ended up glueing the landing skids backwards and I broke off the tail rotor at some point during the build.
Since I only built WWII airplanes all my paints were flat enamel from Testers. I purchased a Navy Blue one because it looked nice. I decided to paint the chopper with my new paint purchase. I waited and waited for the paint to dry, I couldn’t understand why it looked so wet. I thought to myself that; “Something must be wrong with this bottle of Navy Blue”?
I decided to touch the paint to test this very awkward situation. Lo’ and 'Behold. It was dry! I ran to my mom and dad and proudly announced how cool this chopper looked with this gloss Navy Blue enamel.
I was 9 years old. That was 40 years ago! To date, I am now working on a AH-64 Apache. My second build helicopter, this will be my 13th model after a 40 year hiatus. It’s nowhere near the model helicopters on this thread, but that’s ok. It’s been helping me with my fine motor skills, and let me tell you that it surprised my family as well as myself. Below, I have the next stage of the Apache. Now to putty and sand the seams down.
Looks like you are off to a good start. One note though, the whole cockpit should be varying shades of flat and satin black. There is no green in it al all. It is this way to be compatible with NVGs.
next time, I’ll be sure to look at real world photos as oppose to other modelers builds. Thank you HeavyArty, I really appreciate your knowledge. It inspires me to do better on my next build.
If you have the time, in a few days after this build, I will start a Tamiya 1:32 Supermarine Spitfire. It will be in the airplane thread, I can use some great tips from you.
HeavyArty, thanks for the info. I had planned to build an AH-64D sometime last May but put it off for the B737 instead. Ill keep your pointer in mind when I finally start that Apache.
Nice work, Toshi! That kit is quite a chore to assemble. Mine had a lot of fit issues. It seemed I spent more time sanding off putty than building. Here’s the results, though:
You’re making great progress, though. I look forward to seeing the finished kit.
Oh my, what a very nice build, I hope my Apache turns out half as good as yours did! I have a few items to paint OD and I’m also waiting on a couple of Model Master OD, it should be here in a couple of days.
After I AB and clean up the A-64, I can move on to my next build, Tamiya’s 1:32 Supermarine Spitfire. I’ll be on the airplane thread for that build.
Thank you for the read and reply as well as sharing your A-64 Apache build, I will now use it as a reference.
