1/72 Heller Gazelle

[Gremlin56]

Nigel my eyes are burning ..

Rick

French onion soup ? :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo:

[infofrog]

Gremlin that is correct

Nigels french Onion Soup

Nigel after 1 hour cooking the onions down to Carmel state . I add little flour , then added beef stock ( Homemade )

Tonight we will serve in little bowls with french bread topped with Swiss Cheese

So good Thanks Again Nigel

Rick

[Nigel Heath]

French onion soup ?

Its got to be, I hope its my recipe.

Ah, beat me to it, so it is. Good.

Helicopters look like a great way to get into doing interiors and finer detail. I really must dig one off the stash and have ago one day. Inspiring work

I think helicopters make good modelling subjects because they don't need to be that aerodynamically tidy so tend to have lots of twiddly bits (as I call them) that can be added and the generally large glazing shows off the interiors well.

I have been doing quite a bit of research on the sand filter and now have lots of photos. I even found a manufacturers promotional literature with a good photo of it.

Here are some more:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/French_SA341F2_Gazelle_helicopter_in_Saudi_Arabia_during_Operation_Desert_Shield.jpg (click on to expand)

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Morocco---Air/Aerospatiale-SA-342L-Gazelle/1678445/M/

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ry9U46-fZO4/U535oVyElHI/AAAAAAAAMPU/VFMYbBjZoGQ/s1600/image27.jpg

I also found this artwork of an Iraqi machine of the right vintage:

I hope you can see it. If not here is a link. I don't like relying on artwork but it checks out against every reference - it does made me doubt the validity of the green camo colour though...

I opened up one of the holes for the missile rails and did a bit of clean up on one and then spotted this nasty sink mark:

I'm now thinking they would be better scratch built.

Getting back to the sand filter I mocked up the engine:

The fit and quality of the thing is not that great and it will need a lot of cleaning up:

I made a to scale drawing of what I thought the filter should look like:

It will replace that conical inlet part.

I then went looking in the spares box for suitable materials:

I thought the ancient blue Airfix Spitfire wheel could be a good starting point.

But checking things again I realized that was too small so did another drawing and found this wheel instead:

I think I can still use this length of tube for the bottom part and the axle of the wheel will make a good representation of the parallel sided connection to the rotor head:

I used a 12mm punch to create a partial disc:

With that glued on the wheel I could use it as a guide to cut the wheel at an angle:

Tidied up on some wet and dry I glued a second smaller disc to the back face:

It now looks about the right thickness. My plan is to back fill it with Milliput and then sand to the correct profile.

Sorry its not much progress but I have been busy on my new house, hopefully there will be more tomorrow.

Bye for now,

Nigel

[perdu]

Looks pretty much of a decent progress to me

Oh me, how great it was to have a spares box

Slowly getting there but it doesnt make up for twentyfive years of discards that I chucked away

I dont expect you to have much if any of real problems with this, as long as you get the fenestron body right it will look great

These ones in the links mostly seem to have the open centred (must be a name for these?) fan

(All going into my memory boxes for next time round)

[Martian]

The way you are approaching that inlet is quite inventive!

Martin

[Spookytooth]

Ah the spares box, saviour to many a build.

Looks good to me Nigel.

Simon.

[Max Headroom]

Blimey there are some sink holes there!

Love the work you've done so far. This is turning out to be a vintage 'Nigel Build' and I can't wait to see how much you manage to pack in (I'm guessing lots!).

A couple of words of caution though. Firstly the transfers. I think you said they were Model Art? If so, I believe they were also responsible for the Colorado ones for my French Mosquito. They looked nice but were a right old pain to stick down, even with lashings of Decalfix. I had to remove some in the end and find substitutes.

Secondly, you may want to remove that picture of the Moroccan (?) machine as I see it's got Airliners.net written at the bottom. They don't like their pictures reproduced elsewhere. A link to the picture is ok though.

Trevor

[Nigel Heath]

Thanks Trevor, it is a Moroccan machine. I have replaced the photo with a link now.

The decals were printed by Colorado and I have used some of theirs before and know what you mean. I think they were quite brittle as well.

Last night before mixing up some Milliput I took this shot to show the big gap at the base of this inlet:

There should be a slight gap between the fairings but nothing like that big:

My plan was to build up the two halves with some of the Milliput.

So I did that as well as the sand filter and some added to the tail where a little excavation has to be made to accommodate the manhandling point:

As seen here:

The exhaust internals are a bit of a mess and need considerable thinning down:

Here one has been thinned with the other still to do:

I also thinned down the fairing to just accommodate the engine connector piece:

To get the sand filter to fit, these bits had to be sawn off:

Here it is lashed up with Blu Tack and double sided tape after some clean up and another round of filler:

I decided to remove this pipe as its not terribly realistic and makes seam clean up difficult:

This is what it should look like:

Its a funny shape but a bit of stretched sprue should do the job I reckon.

Here are the engine halves after some clean up, I also removed the band from around the exhaust and intend to replace that with a strip of PE later:

I drilled a 4mm hole in the filter and could now do a full mock up:

Looks alright I think.

Now for the bottom piece, I sawed off some of the 5mm pipe:

After a bit of creative sanding and filing I got it installed like so:

I have also scribed it to represent the two distinct halves:

There are just a few more details to add like the pipes sticking out of the back.

That's it for now,bye,

Nigel

[hendie]

nice work NIgel

[Tomoshenko]

Excellent work mate. Quality scratch building and an innovative and imaginative approach.

[Martian]

That's looking the part!

Martin

[Sgt.Squarehead]

That's probably the most creative use of a truck tyre I've seen yet.....Outstanding scratch-work!

I definitely think you can scratch better HOT launchers than the kit offerings, mounting just a single tube per side as seen in the artwork might look cool.

[perdu]

I like that

looking good so far Nigel

[Nigel Heath]

mounting just a single tube per side as seen in the artwork might look cool.

I think I agree with that, with maybe an empty rail.

[Nigel Heath]

Hey, I'm still going. On the LHS of the engine fairings I deepened and sharpened up the recess for the latch mechanism with a chisel. On the RHS I made a flat bottomed hole with one of my motor tools:

The other recess does not appear on any of my references so I filled that. The flat bottomed hole is actually a meshed vent but on this scale I think we can ignore that:

This is how the cleaned up exhaust looked:

I could not see any reason why it could not be glued together (or indeed resist):

Oblique lighting is good at showing up where filling is required:

I did the filling including some on the internals of the exhaust and a little more on the sand filter:

Next the pipes on the rear of the sand filter. I started with some 0.5mm tube - I am sure there is a swaged end on the tubes so I made this with my custom pin tool:

Here are the first two installed:

I think that looks quite realistic, I hope you agree. I just have to do the pair on the other side and install a blocky thing that I can see.

Bye for now,

Nigel

[CedB]

"I think that looks quite realistic, I hope you agree." I do

Looking forward to "a blocky thing" ...

[Nigel Heath]

I can assure you it will be most exciting.

[infofrog]

What do you think Nigel? Looks YUMMY

Finished product last night Nigels French Onion Soup

Rick

[Nigel Heath]

That looks delicious. Gruyere cheese I hope.

[infofrog]

That looks delicious. Gruyere cheese I hope.

Sorry no .We don't have that cheese here ..

Swiss . Still very good

Rick

[Nigel Heath]

No Gruyere? I already knew the USA was quite a primitive backwater thanks to the intel from g-usa but this revelation has plumbed new depths. I hope that generic Swiss cheese is an acceptable substitute.

Cheers,

Nigel

[infofrog]

Im sure other parts of the us has that cheese .. My local has basic cheese here .I live in small rural area . That why it surprises me , I can talk to someone in Scotland .. I first country to see in my bucket list .

We do have a lot hot peppers here .. I think we have any hot peppers you want ..

Rick

[perdu]

Hmm

Bit disturbed at the typical French attitude to the helicopter's 'sensuality' GAY indeed

But the adaptations of Nigelliousness are beginning to be just a tad epic

in fact uberepic at the moment

[Space Ranger]

No Gruyere? I already knew the USA was quite a primitive backwater thanks to the intel from g-usa but this revelation has plumbed new depths. I hope that generic Swiss cheese is an acceptable substitute.

Cheers,

Nigel

I purchase Gruyere at the local Kroger's all the time. It makes a great grilled cheese sandwich when shredded and placed on a tortilla and heated.

Edited September 21, 2015 by Space Ranger

[infofrog]

We don't have krogers . Walmart and local mom and pop stores .

Rick