1/48 Skunkmodels HH-60H

[Switching2guns]

I've always been a fan of the Blackhawk family. In particular variants like the USAF Pavehawks & the US Navy’s Rescue Hawk. They tend to be covered in all sorts of antennae, weapons, wire cutters, lumps & bumps which to my eye have them take on a tank like appearance. The interiors are normally stuffed with extras making them a little more interesting than your standard airframe.Looking for my next long term project after the completion of my CH-53E, inspiration grew when I came upon a beautiful 1/72 HH-60H by Martin Vochoc. Browsing Prime Portal I also spied a sensational walkaround & interior pics of a Rescue Hawk where no camera angle was spared. Armed with these I had found my new ‘white whale’.

Skunkmodels is the most up to date offering. SM have added the FLIR & mount, the extended pylon, curiously in clear styrene, Eduard Zoom self adhesive cockpit PE and some missile warning sensors but the rest of the kit is the ageing Italeri offering. Further exterior details would be required to bring it up to current specs as shown in the box image.

Rivet detail is almost nonexistent & where included is raised. The panel lines are not much better (there are none on the roof). I decided to embark on my first airframe rivet job. Looking to the interior…………wait, well there really isn’t one. You get a mildly detailed rear cargo bulk head, ceiling & floor with centre console & pilot seat bases molded to it & a set of basic cargo seats. What’s lacking is cargo port & starboard internal wall structure, padding or anything particular to the -60H. ). I purchased the Eduard interior & exterior PE sets but with no helpful interior resin set on the market I decided to embark on my first scratch built interior.

Next the task of gathering that all important pic from a particular angle commenced & images of an interesting camouflage dark grey on light grey scheme kept coming up. Since most of the builds I had seen online were the standard three tone grey I wanted to stand out from the bunch. As luck would have it Authentic decals produced the ‘Pacific Seahawks’ sheet for the scheme in 1/72 & 1/48 featuring HS-6 ‘Screaming Indians’.

I’m not usually one for having weapons hanging from my aircraft but the offensive weapons carried on the -60H hint at its special combat, search & rescue (CSAR) & Special Forces role. My intention was to have hellfires fitted to the extended portside pylon & also arm this war horse with mini guns. Research indicated when carrying the hellfires the port mini gun was not used, so I ditched the hellfires. Unfortunately no one was doing a mini gun set at the time. I had seen them on Martin’s 1/72 build but I couldn’t find anything in 1/48 & had started to look around for other examples of kits that contain them. Then suddenly Army Cast, the Czeq manufacturer of the 1/72 set, announced their intention to release a them in 1/48……….IT WAS A SIGN!!

I’d enjoyed following a lot of online builds so my intention was to take pics along the way to share on my first WIP. Unfortunately when I sat back at the end & gathered all the pics I hadn’t taken as many as I would have liked. Well it is my first I hope you enjoy.

Interior parts, including poor I.P

No upper panel lines. I'll add them with my trusty scribing tool.

Riveting begins with my 'Rosie the rivetor' tool. I'm not really happy with my initial efforts as seen here. As a guide I started with dymo tape & then tamiya tape without success. I found that if I marked the plastic with a fine pencil where I wanted the line of rivets to appear I could correct mistakes with an eraser, get it looking good & then just line the rivet wheel up with my mark & slowly apply the rivets. A bit like following a cut line in wood with a circular saw.

Whilst taking a breather from the riveting task of riveting (see what I did there?) I started with some interior detail. This is a cargo area radio rack which I scratched out of styrene & left over resin boxes from the spares box which I added punched discs & some spare PE to jazz it up a bit. I think some of them are Me-109 radios?

I also built new pilot seats. Apart from the Eduard PE frame, ballistics protection & belts the rest is all scratched with brass rod & scrap styrene. The sheep skins are miliput which I rolled out, layed it over the base/back & then while still wet I pushed a very corse sand paper into it. This left a pattern which I then painted & dry brushed. I added a scratched fire extinguisher, complete with a Mike Grant placard. I was pretty happy with how it looks

I added adjustment tension springs to the rear & seat retracting mechanism & latter a first aid pack to the seat on the left. The one on the right's rear would not be visible so cheated & left the detail off.

Till next time

Jason.

[Mozzy19]

Nice start. I'll follow with interest.

Sean

[Switching2guns]

Hi to all, another small update.

One of the positive about the Skunkmodel reboxing is they offer x2 pilots doors in clear styrene allowing you to have both doors open to display the 'front office' & inner door detail.

As most Helo modellers will know kit flight controls (cyclic & collective) are disapointingly basic and Italeri have perfected the 'blob' on a stick. These items will be very visible so I decided to make my own. A modelling buddy of mine was perfecting casting in resin so I inlisted him to assist me in casting a set from my masters. Thanks Sam yo da man!

Kit parts. *sigh* If these turned up in your modern fighter kit there would be an outcry!! lol;)

Masters made from round styrene stock, small lengths of wire, scrap PE, sprue & milliput for the dust boots mounted on scrap resin & sprue.

Molds made & ready to cast two for this project & for any future projects

A bit hard to see in this pic but I ran my rosie the rivetor tool over the still damp milliput to replicate the collective dust boot zipper, details pick out with Valejo paint & we're done.

Cargo area inner wall detail pics to follow soon.

Thanks for checking this out.

J.

[Switching2guns]

More progress.

Port side cargo inner fuselage nearing completion. Evergreen sheet & milliput for the overhead padding on the ventilation plumbing. There are little air nozzles like on a passenger jet. I recreated them by pushing the trimmed end of the spout supplied with my cyno glue into the damp milliput, worked a treat.

The blue wire is the fibre optics I was toying with installing as tests proved light would be minimal & the detail would be hard to see in the gloom. I ultimately abandoned that idea.

For illustrative purposes a shot of the real thing.

Starboard side.

Test fitting, test fitting & more test fitting. Everything is lining up nicely;)

For illutrative purposes a shot of the real thing. The joystick set into the wall allows the crew to take 5% control of the aircraft in the hover while performing winching ops. The crew can make the fine adjustments leaving the pilot to concentrate on other important things.

Once the ceiling is done I'll be close to zipping up the fuselage. Stay tune

J.

[Switching2guns]

I'm calling the interior done & this is the last time it'll see the light of day. I'm disappointed I couldn't get Armycast's mini gun ammo feed belts to confirm to my will. I tried & tried but they just didn't work so I'll need to live with the concept that they've not been fitted at this stage of pre-flight, I will be posing the aircraft with engine FOD covers & RBF tags so it's possible.

I'm not sure what the grey box is, I'm guessing it's the brains of the mini gun system. I used Archer dry decals to add the 'NOT A SEAT'. They were transfered to decal paper & I applied each individual letter.

You can see my completed LH pilot seat in position. Milliput first aid pouch is the finishing touch.

The real lower cargo seat webbing has 'forward' sprayed on it. Even with the smallest lettering I could only get 'FWD' to fit.It's a bad photo but you can just make it out.

Ceiling detail. Coms cables made from fine copper wire from speaker cable wrapped around a pin then glued into a small control box I made punched disc knobs. Ceiling detailed with bits of scrap. I gained a couple of tips from the figure guys at my club & tried high lighting my orange equipment bags, another first for me of which I was really happy with hoe it turned out. Of course you won't see any of that

Port & starboard ready to be intombed in the fuselage where only I will know what's inside....& the good folk of Britmodeller

Thanks for looking. It's all down hill from here......?

J.

[Val]

Epic cabin! great work!

[Dave A]

Crikey that's damn good!

[infofrog]

I really like this build . great job

[infofrog]

My next build is the MH-60G 1/35 SCALE . I love these builds .

Edited December 6, 2013 by infofrog

[Switching2guns]

Hi All,

Fuselage halves together, filled, sanded, rivoted, extra panel lines scribed and a base coat. The poor front windscreen fit is well documented and they weren't joking, what a mission??!! You can make out some re-work in the area. The joint keeps opening up seemingly on it's own ahhaahhhh!!

Testing revealed the model would sit way to high. I've read suggestions the U/C may have been molded as if inflight? I shortened the U/C by approx 2.5mm & inserted brass axles for the wheels to improve strength. This gave her a more realistic stance.

Sorry bad pic, you can just make out the rivot work. The ALQ-144 is from Fireball & masks by Eduard.

The intention is to experiment with pre-shading on this project, a departure from my usual post shading/filters. I want to get some black into those rivots so as not to lose them under subsequent paint layers.

Scribed roof panel detail.

More experimentation this time FLIR lenses made from Christmas decorations.

Post shade done & Gunze acrylic base colour ghost grey down. I'm happy with it so far. Rivot detail more visible here.

Some post shading employed here. I lightened base colour with some white & sprayed inbetween the panel & rivot lines. Finish is very grainy I'll probably rub it back with some micro mesh.

Next step is to mask the camo pattern, rolled blu-tac is my preferred method.

I was happy to use the kit main rotor head which is not the correct Navalised folding system. But the more reference pics I collected the more I felt it wouldn't do the project justice. I gave in after trying to carve my own & have ordered the Cobra Co HH-60H conversion kit. This comes with the correct rotor head cast in metal & some other bits not supplied by skunkmodels I'll use. When that arrives I can take a break from the airframe & concentrate on that as it will be a real focal point.

Until then thanks for looking folks

J.

[Antony Robertson]

Wow, some very impressive work going on here. I love the cabin.

Antony

[coneheadff]

That is really an impressive work! Wow!!!

[snapper_city]

Only just seen this. Wow, that interior is great. Really fancy doing one of these now.... Thanks for sharing...

[adrianm2]

Nice one!

You make it look so easy...

Adrian

[phildagreek]

Nice work, your riveting & scribing work are top notch, the interior is spotty dog too.

[exdraken]

very nice interior!

Good do see some Blackhawk(variations) in 1/48!

[Switching2guns]

Thanks for the comments guys, great to know others share my enthusiasm for this project.

OK, all masked up. Tamiya tape & blu-tac (that's what it's called in Oz)

Not sure why I'm working on the dinner table at this stage, I think the CO had been complaining about me disappearing to the man cave every night for months.

Colour!! Unsure of the dark grey colour used on the real thing I thought Gunze RLM grey was close, well I think it was RLM grey??

The Authentic decals diagram helped determine placement of camo pattern. From what I gather this scheme wasn't left on the air frames for long time & was applied straight over existing paint. I intend to keep the weathering on the dark grey to a minimum mostly subtle post shading. The light grey will be a bit more grubby

I loath masking, I know what your thinking, you picked the paint scheme for it!! But by far the best bit is peeling all that tape off. I couldn't help taking a peek............come on we all do it!!! Demarcation feathered just nicely, blu-tac method, GO YOU GOOD THING! I left it overnight before removing the rest of the masking.

You can make out the Wolfpack stabiliser fold centre section in this shot. Originally I was going to have the blades & tail folded like my CH-53E. In the end went with just folding the stabiliser. The idea is to have the aircraft depicted as if the ground crew are half way through preparing the aircraft for a mission.

For illustrative purposes here's the real mccoy, what a beast I love it!

My white metal rotor head has arrived, first impressions 'man that's A LOT of clean up'. Pics to follow soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

J.

Edited December 12, 2013 by Greg B
Airliners.net photo removed

[Mr B]

Really nice work and progress......the attention to detail is out of this world.....lovely work

rgds

mr b

[hovering]

Thats looking really nice.

What type of rivet tool did you use?

[IGKent]

Good!

[Switching2guns]

Thanks guys,

Thanks Hovering,

The riveting tool I use is called 'Rosie the riveter' from UMM-USA. There's a few sizes according to scale, I think mine is the 1/72-1/48 I'll double check if you like. Really well made, affordable & alot easier to use than you might think. This was my first attempt & is one occasion I'm happy to be blaming the tool

Masks are off & all looks good, a little touch up here & there maybe. I'll free hand the demarcation between the side & bottom of the fuselage as the pattern doesn't wrap around.

Folding blade holder fresh from the pack, lots of flash to clean up as I said. All the joins will need to be drilled & pinned. I'm removing the blobs that are supposed to be the blade locking actuators & will replace them. Some of the Eduard PE will also be used in this area.

Before:

Fortunately I had purchased some chisels at a hobby show. I didn't really have a pressing need for them at the time but thought they'd be useful at some stage, I wasn't wrong lol! The molded detail is very soft, the chisels were absolute god send & enabled me to enhance the metal parts to a level not possible without them.

After:

Test fitting in the hub with the lash dampener (I think that's what they call them maybe some one could confirm?), both of which I've also spent hours cleaning up. Definately not for beginners, like everything on this kit *sigh*.

The nut heads on my metal parts were a joke I'm replacing them using styrene & my hex punch

Looks pretty average as it stands, hoping an under coat will improve the look once I've completed the remaining three blade holders.

I think a main rotor head can make or break a modern Navy helo model. I've tracked down some excellent reference pics which will help me really go to town detail wise. I'm hoping this thing will really pop once I'm done with it.

More to come & thanks to all for stopping by.

J.

[youngtiger1]

Good Lord J, you're doing great work and this is awesome project. I have similar kit, granted it's not perfect but pretty decent, but I'm hopping to use it as a guide to get the basic size in changes needing to convert 2 Academy 1/35 DAP into Navy Seahawk and USCG Jay-hawk helo. I love the markings you chose. The Seahawks cool helo but the camo painted are awesome. Great work dude and worthy of following

Mike

[infofrog]

This is awesome build .

[Switching2guns]

Good Lord J, you're doing great work and this is awesome project. I have similar kit, granted it's not perfect but pretty decent, but I'm hopping to use it as a guide to get the basic size in changes needing to convert 2 Academy 1/35 DAP into Navy Seahawk and USCG Jay-hawk helo. I love the markings you chose. The Seahawks cool helo but the camo painted are awesome. Great work dude and worthy of following

Mike

Thanks Mike,

Sounds awesome I must admit the thought of doing something similar had crossed my mind for me the big hurdle is that unique main rotor, best of luck though. I think your right the Academy kit is pretty decent. The closest I'll get in 1/35 is a HH-60G with Cobra Co upgrades & Chriss' newish weapons set I have planned.

Cheers,

J.

[youngtiger1]

J, there are several guys on ARC have tried such project with great success. So, I'll give it a try my self. I already have decals for the Jayhawk in 1/35. Here are few links you might not have seen...

http://www.arcair.com/Gal6/5801-5900/gal5890_Sh-60B_Tan/00.shtm

http://www.arcair.com/Gal4/3201-3300/Gal3240_HH-60_Visser/00.shtm

http://aeroscale.kitmaker.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=2653