Raven's Work In Progress Huey thread

Modeling Subjects Helicopters
1

Hello guys

I’ve been promising for a few times now that I’d post some pics of the Hueys I’m building, so here are some of the UH-1D that Ray (rotorwash) kindly sold me.

We finally got some decent weather in the UK this week, although it looks like it’s turning cold again next week, but the last couple of days have been 20 degree C scorchio’s. Personally I don’t like the hot weather but it’s been good for painting and gluing at least.

Anyway here’s the pics -

Apologies for the quality, and the flash on a few, I couldn’t get my hands on a decent proper digital camera so I had to resort to using my BlackBerry 8900.

Side view

Close up of right side

Front view

Underside

Interior

Engine

M21 weapons system

Main Rotor

Tail rotor

Inside of tail boom

Inside of fuselage (rear)

Inside of fuselage (front)

M21 weapons system detached

Some notes on the pictures -

  1. I sprayed the fuselage with Humbrol #155 spray. Unfortunately it seems the spray paint is a slightly lighter shade to what the Humbrol #155 pot contains, and where I’ve had to touch it up shows a little. Not sure if it’s noticeable in the pics though. I also have some touching up to do on the rotor head and blades as I got a bit of red in places I didn’t want it last night.

  2. As you can see I’ve not joined the fuselage with poly cement, I’ve instead attached magnets to the inside (and I’ve also had to put a couple of screws in the bottom). There are corresponding magnets on the inside of the other half of the fuselage which isn’t shown in the pics. I’ve done this for a specific reason - the method to my madness will become apparent in a month or two when I have bought some “special” parts…

Unfortunately this has meant here is a gap when the model is assembled. Oddly the gap is less when I don’t have the interior in, I’ve tried grinding down the side edges of the interior but it hasn’t made a difference.

I plan on trying to fill this gap using some green stuff (kneadatite) - hopefully that will at least less the gap…

  1. Some of you may notice that there’s a bit of what looks like glue just behind the engine on the outside of the tail boom on the right hand side. That’s because it is glue. I had an accident with the superglue whilst putting in the magnets on that half of the fuselage. I’ve tried to grind off the resulting mess using a dremel but it hasn’t quite gone.

  2. I tried to be clever with the main rotor and make it so that I can take the blades off. Unfortunately drilling of the blade holders didn’t go well and the plastic broke (as you can see in the pic). I plan on putting green stuff in this area to re-sculpt the broken bits, hopefully I can do a good enough job.

  3. I’ve pushed out the holes in the floor of the interior for the UH-1D UN model, not realising that they weren’t applicable to the UH-1D US Army bird. I’ll fill those in using squadron. As for the paintjob on the interior, I’m not too pleased with it, I should have bought a spray can for the light grey.

  4. I plan on repainting the engine, I’ll probably get some bronze or copper paint or something as my attempt at “weathering” is rather poor. I tried to make it look like steel with some dirt all over it, I think just a plain copper/bronze colour would look better.

Looking around the web I’m not confident of making the model look much better than it does at the moment. I’m very much a novice when it comes to painting these sort of models and even though I started painting models some 20+ years ago and though I’ve spent the last 18 years on and off painting Games Workshop models I have to say I’m nowhere near as good as I’d like to think I am at even painting GW models.

However so far apart from a few issues I’m satisfied with how this heli is turning out, considering it’s my first aircraft build in 20 years and I’m more used to working in a larger scale (GW models are 25mm scale I think).

I’ve obviously got to put the windows in (and I’ll dip those in Future (Klear for us in the UK) and I now plan on doing some shading using an ink wash from Games Workshop (there current Agraz Earthshade) as I’ve been reading up on doing that and I think I can get my head around it.

Not sure what decals to put on it but I’m very strongly leading to making this bird a “We Were Soldiers” slick (I’m getting the M60’s from Italeri hopefully, as they’ve quoted me 8 Euros for the parts), so it’ll have a number on the nose as well as a 1st Air Cav decal and 1st Air Cav decals on the tail. The M60’s will be detachable in the same way as the M21 weapon system is.

The M21 weapon system will now be going on my Revell UH-1B kit instead (I’m also going to make the quad M16’s system that comes with the Revell UH-1B kit detachable in the same way as the M21 system is).

2

Oh I also forgot to mention a couple of other things…

The pitot head on the cabin roof snapped and I can’t repair it, so this bird will be forever missing that part. I don’t seem to have much luck with tiny parts like that, never have done, I had a B17 some 20 yrs ago in a small scale (think it was 1/72) and I accidentally snapped most of the guns on it during assembly…

I’ve also noticed from looking at the photo of the tail rotor posted above that my stripes are not even, one end has larger stripes than the other, I will have to fix that, I masked them off by eye and obviously didn’t notice one was bigger than the other.

The model actually looks worse in the pictures I’ve posted above than it does sitting in my house unfortunately.

3

Oh and I haven’t added the ammo chutes to the M134 Miniguns on the M21 weapons system, I can’t quite work out how they go on.

4

OK I’ve decided on what decals to put on the UH-1D, I can take most of them from Fireball models Slicks in Vietnam sheet, it even looks as though it’s got one of the more specific decals on it.

In keeping with the “We Were Soldiers” kind of theme, seeing as I’m going to replicate the gunship from that film using the Revell UH-1B kit, but trying to be a bit more “historically accurate” I’m going to put decals on the UH-1D so it looks like one of these two birds (I’m sure everyone here knows who the pilots were/are) -

Side

Nose art

Side

Nose Art

Door Art

I’m thinking the top one would be the easiest to replicate as the 2nd one has a custom door logo. The nose art decal looks like it is on the Fireball Slicks in Vietnam sheet (although perhaps not a perfect replica), although I’ve dropped Joseph at Fireball modelworks an email enquiring about getting the door art (and also the nose art) done as custom decals.

Pics courtesy of Vietnam-Hueys website btw - http://vietnam-hueys.tripod.com/Medal%20of%20Honor%20page.htm

5

So, decals from Fireball are on their way, many thanks to Jospeh.

But I’m running into problems with this build…

The main rotor broke off the centre pole of the rotor head, so I’ve had to drill and pin it. I’ve left it unassembled for the moment as I needed to resculpt the ends of the blade holders with Green Stuff and I need to paint the rotor head a bit more. The resculpted ends of the blade holders have turned out reasonable, I’ll post a pic in a day or so (possibly even today).

Along with the main rotor breaking off the centre pole of the rotor head the tail rotor has now decided to come loose at the round bit that is attached to the tail fin, but not quite break off. I’ve added some green stuff around it to provide a bit of stability hopefully it will say on, I’ll see about putting some poly cement on it also.

And last but not least the fin on top of the cabin broke off, so I’ve had to re-attach that also, again I’ve used some green stuff to see if it strengthens it a bit, and I’ll apply poly cement to that area also.

I hate fragile kits!

[:(][:(]

6

Sorry to hear you are having problems with the kit. That is an issue with helos, however. If the rotor is anywhere near scale thickness it is fragile but if you make the rotor strong it looks out of scale. I usually never put the rotor in place till the end of the build. I also never add the little caps to hold the rotor in place inside the fuselage. That way I can remove them for transport so the don’t get broken.

It looks like your build is going well otherwise though. Good luck and keep posting photos.

Ray

7

Thanks Ray.

It’s not so much I’m having problems with the kit, well it’s not the kits fault lets put it that way. I’m just not used to handling such small parts seeing as this is my first model in about 5 years and my first of this scale (or smaller) in 15 or more years.

I also appear to be a bit clumsy recently as today I managed to knock the helicopter over whilst the rotor assembly was attached to the helicopter (I generally put it on there to keep it out of the way) and I broke one of the flybars, fortunately it appears to have been hollow on one side of the break and on the other side of the break it had what was inside the hollow part of the other part, so it was easier to fix, and it seems to have re-glued OK. Although I’m sure the main rotors are now a bit oddly aligned…

Anyway I got down to some more painting and building/fixing today. Here’s some pics of today’s progress -

Again, apologies for the quality, I still can’t lay my hands on a proper digital camera (and I don’t really have anywhere proper to take pics anyway).

Main rotor top view

Main rotor side view 1

Main rotor side view 2

Right side tail boom

Right side main body

Left side tail boom

Left side main body

Right side with the door on

M21 weapons system, now with the ammo feeds on

As you can see in the pics above I’ve resculpted with green stuff the blade holders, I’m fairly pleased with how that has turned out, although it’s not perfect but it’s probably as near as I’ll get. And compared to how they were (as seen in the pics I posted before) they are much better. They should look OK when painted. I had to take the flybar assembly off because as mentioned the main rotor had broke off and I needed to pin it back on, hence the reason I’ve got green stuff on the underside holding the flybar part onto the two outside poles (whatever they’re called in real life). I had to cut those two poles off the flybar part, and when reassembled they didn’t quite reach…

The shading has turned out better than expected. I used Games Workship Agraz Earthshade ink to do it, and just brushed it on in a line over the panel line, the ink done most of the work for and dried in most places rather clear on the panel and dark in the panel line. However in some places I put too much ink on (or it had slightly dried on my brush), so I had to go over it with some OD.

The only problem, one which has plagued me since day one anyway is that the pot of Humbrol #155 I’ve got does not match the Humbrol #155 spray paint I’ve got. So I tried mixing up a lighter shade of the Humbrol #155 from the pot. It went OK but you can still see the differences in shades.

The M21 weapons system now has the ammo feeds on. They were a pain in the ass for me to fit, took me ages to work out how to fit them, and I ended up bending them and cutting off and then re-attaching the rocket pods. They are a little short on the side where they’re supposed to meet the body of the Huey though, this is due to the 2mm worth of magnets I’ve got between the weapon mount and the body. I’ll probably remedy this with some green stuff to make a scratch built part when I come to attach them to the Revell Huey Hog.

Oh and you might also notice the engine has had a repaint, you can see the end of the exhaust in the pics above. I re-painted it with Humbrol #171 “Antique Bronze”. Looking at the pics it doesn’t look too bad, although I’m still not satisfied with how it looks in real life, but I shall probably leave it as is because you don’t see most of the engine anyway.

8

Still need to fix the tail rotor stripes, but I need to work out a way to accurately mask them (my masking tape is something like 0.5mm wide (made by Tamiya) so it’s too wide, and I’m loathe to cut it in half as I can’t guarantee I’ll get it done properly…

I’m also still working on the interior, I’ve filled the holes I pushed out for the UN Rescue interior parts with green stuff (I wasn’t confident of doing it properly with Squadron filler) and I plan on squeezing together the front bench with the seat backs so it’s one part, along with filling in the gap on each end of that bench (again with green stuff).

Now I’ve shaded the panel lines on the fuselage the doors look a bit out of place, but I’m not entirely sure how to shade those, I’ll have to look at a few reference pics.

I’m also leaning towards removing those hand grabs (or whatever they are) on the front of the fuselage behind the cockpit doors - I’m not too keen on them and I don’t recall seeing them on most Hueys.

9

Disaster strikes!!!

I was outdoors “airbrushing” Future on to this today to give me a gloss coat to apply decals to and it’s been a bit windy in my corner of the UK. I left the model to dry for a while thinking I’d secured it properly and I hadn’t…

I came back to find the two fuselage parts on the ground…

…doesn’t appear to be any damage to the main fuselage but the tail rotor has broken off at the tail fin where the round part (which presumably represents some kind of housing for the rotor gears or whatever in real life) is moulded (it was loose anyway as previously mentioned but I thought I had fixed it).

As I need the two fuselage halves to be able to be separated (helps storage for one thing) I’m not sure how to best approach getting the tail rotor fixed back on, probably have to pin it and fill the gap with some green stuff and at worst cut the other half of the tail fin off of the other half of the fuselage and join the two halves of the tail fin together.

On the up side though it is handy as I need to repaint the stripes on the tail rotor blade to make them more even, and I’ve been considering just giving the blades a coat of matt OD and then painting the tips yellow, rather than the red/white/red stripes and it being broken off means I won’t get paint on the tail fin.

10

The blade grips look good. Sorry to hear about the accident. I do that kind of thing all the time. The “handles” you were mentioning behind the pilot doors are antennas and they should not be there on a Vietnam bird. Keep on keeping on and good luck!

Ray

11

Ahh!! Disaster again!!

I was going to post some pics of the finished fuselage of the UH-1D, complete with Major Crandall’s decals, but I’ve just gone out to check on the varnish after spraying it, and it’s gone white in various areas!!

Anyone know if there’s a way to resolve that? If not I’ve ruined the entire paintjob!! [:(]

12

Think I’ve come across a fix - troubleatthemill.blogspot.co.uk/…/de-misting-figures-solution.html

Fingers crossed.

I’ll post the pics I was going to post in the first place if it does work, obviously the OD won’t be matt like it should be, or at least until I get some brush on matt varnish, rather than in a spray can, but I’m hesitant about doing even that now…

Never used to have these problems way back when whilst painting Games Workshop stuff.

13

Wow! Olive Oil for the win! Who’d have thought it!

Here’s the pics I was going to post, not sure about the finish on the model now but at least it’s had some varnish…

Not the best photos in the world, so apologies for that. I think I should have taken them in better light and use a proper digital camera (if I could lay may hands on one).

I still need to re-attach the tail rotor. I seem to have broken off the flybar again, it’s loose at least. Finish painting the interior (I foolishly tried to shade it with ink but it’s not turned out right so far, need to drybrush the raised details to see if it looks any better). I still have the windows to put in, after I’ve coated them with Future, and I have a little bit of painting left to do on the rotor mast (missed a bit of green stuff). Then I shall put a matt varnish coat by hand on and a coat of future on the lights and the rotor mast and hopefully it will look better.

In hindsight I wish I had chopped off the nose on either side of the fuselage and joined the two halves so that it was like the nose on the Revell UH-1 - one single piece, that way I wouldn’t have the gaping big gap splitting the transfers on the nose, and I could reattach it using magnets. I can’t understand why the gap is there, it’s worse when the interior is inside and I’ve tried sanding it down but to no avail, and the magnets I’ve put in to hold the two halves together aren’t causing the gap because the gap was there to start with. Anyhoo I’ll have to put up with it as I need to have the fuselage so it comes apart.

Nearly there though and I’m happy with the result so far, apart from the breakages and the disaster this afternoon with the matt varnish spray.

14

So, more work done on this today, and it went better than yesterdays semi-disaster…

Fix tail rotor back on - check. I had to get inventive to do it…

Fix flybar - check. Sort of, I poly cemented it back on and put green stuff around it but it seems to be loose again, might need a dab of CA to properly secure it.

Finish painting the interior - check. I’m not particularly happy with the interior but it is what it is.

Finish painting the rotor mast (missed some previous green stuff work) - check.

Paint lights and the rotor mast+blade grips with Future - check, although I might go over the lights again with some clear gloss or more Future as I’m not entirely happy that they’re shiny enough.

Attach windows - check. The windows along the side, including on the doors were a tight fit so I just hand pressed them in, but I think they require some glue because when I started to put the doors back on the windows on the sides and the doors came out. I’m also not happy with the windows because despite being coated several times with Future they’ve got marks all over them. And I somehow managed to get poly cement on one corner of the windscreen. Also the cabin roof window on the right has a small patch of bubbling from the Future on it as does the windscreen.

I won’t be doing a further matt varnish coat by hand as I’m satisfied with the look of the paint, despite having to use olive oil to de-mist the varnish yesterday - who’d have thought you’d use cooking ingredients when building models!!

Aside from all that I’ll stick a fork in this one because this bird is done.

And even better news is that my mother has kindly agreed to lend me her digital camera, it’s on charge at the moment, but hopefully tomorrow afternoon I can take some decent pictures of this bird, hopefully they’ll turn out better than the ones I’ve been taking with my BlackBerry 8900.

Watch this space.

15

So, I borrowed my mothers camera (a Kodak CD40), and it turns out it’s actually worse than my BlackBerry 8900 for close up photos, not surprising given that her camera only has 4MP and is about 10yrs old and wasn’t all that expensive a model in the first place. I think I’ll save up over the next couple of months and buy myself a Canon Powershot A810, that should be way better…

Anyway, I took some pics again to show the “final” build, it’s final apart from a further gloss coat or coats on the lights to make them more shiny (they’ve had a number of coats already but I can’t seem to get a shiny light look to them), a pair of XM-23 weapon systems to put an M60 on each side, and a minor bit of filling around the windscreen (read below for details on that).

All comments welcome, and I again apologise for the bad quality of the photos, I seem to be a bit hit and miss in the quality department, and I do the best I can with a BlackBerry smartphone.

As usual ignore the gap in the fuselage halves, that’s there by design because I want to be able to separate the fuselage halves, although it’s more of a gap than I’d like to see. I would try to fill it with Green Stuff by applying it to one side of the fuselage only and then hand sand/hand file/dremel it down to fit but it’s a lot of work to do that now, especially as the gap is less in some areas than in others - I probably would have filled it if I’d have noticed the gap before painting the model.

And yes the windscreen is held on by magnets also, I tried gluing it in on one side only but for some reason when I put the fuselage halves together the window was recessed on the unglued side, doh!! I shall probably fill the gap there as that’s easy to fill around the edge of the windscreen.

I also think I overdid the olive oil to fix the misty matt varnish issue I had on Saturday, some areas (on the top around those little curved shield shape vents on either side for example) seem to have a problem with a shine bleeding out from them, and the rocket pods seem a little shiny also, might have to attack those areas with some cotton buds or something.

I also wish I hadn’t removed the antennae that were just behind the cockpit doors, or more to the point never put them on in the first place. They’ve left 3 holes as you can see and I don’t think I can fix that without severely impacting on the surrounding paintwork, I’ve tried to fill the top hole on each side but even that’s not gone too well. Hey, ho, we live and learn.

As previously mentioned the tail rotor broke off, the gear housing (I presume that’s what it is), that little round piece on the top of the tail, broke off completely, here’s how I fixed that (I also repainted the tail rotor blades as you can see, the yellow stripes are more even than they were when red/white/red) -

1 magnet on top of the tail, and a hole drilled into the gear assembly (or whatever it is) and a magnet pushed into it. The magnets are neodymium 2mm diameter by 1mm thick. And as you can see from the pics of the tail above it works perfectly, only downside is that that whole part can now rotate sideways around the tail - I may get around to putting a pin or something either side to stop that, if I can find something thin enough.

Thank you for reading this, it’s a been a pleasure building the model despite the problems I’ve had with it and I’ve learnt some stuff along the way as well as getting back into the swing of painting models.

I’d especially like to thank Ray (rotorwash) for sending me the kit for basically nothing bar shipping costs and all the spare parts that came with it. Originally I was going to build the Revell Huey Hog kit and put miniguns on it, but I’m glad I didn’t because the ESCI UH-1D is far superior to that kit and despite the problems I’ve had with it I think it’s turned out great. The problems were my own fault due to clumsiness/lack of skill and due to the unique way in which I wanted to build the kit, i.e. putting magnets in to hold the fuselage together rather than gluing it and filling gaps as would any normal static model).

Again I can’t thank you enough Ray.

Oh and also thanks to Joseph at Fireball modelworks for the fantastic decals (although I didn’t use a lot of them that are on the sheet), I’m sure he’s mortified that I had to cut the nose decals in half and made a bad job of it. [:$]

Time to move on to other kits now though, I’ve got a 1/35 Bell 47 USCG to build, and other kits I’ve ordered when they arrive, a 1/35 UH-1C “Frog”, and a 1/72 HH-3E+Sea King for detailing.