1/32 Revell Eurocopter SA330J PUMA and 1/35 Dragon UH-1N Gunship Rambo 2 Screen Capture Diorama

[Lee Chambers]

Hi guys, well I fancied building the Russian helicopter gunship that was flown in the Rambo 2 movie, it was supposed to look like the Hind, the Puma was modified for the task. I picked up this 1/32 Revell kit as the basis for the build, lucky for me I got it off eBay for only £15 including delivery. It's a pretty rough kit, very basic and crude in some areas but not too bad in others, but it's more than adequate for this project. I will have to scratch build the wings and pylons but thankfully the weapons are available from Trumpeter.

 

 

Hi guys, just a quick update on the Puma conversion project. I wanted to tackle the wings and weapon pylons first to get an idea of the scale of the wings. I placed the nose canopy over the laptop screen where it looked correct in size, then I measured the wing length from that, it seemed to work out ok. I used a pizza foam tray to cut the wing shapes out and covered them with 0.25mm styrene sheet. I was real lucky in that my unbuilt Trumpeter Hind 1/35 scale kit had options for different weapons and decals, so I was able to use the weapons from the Hind kit, although the Hind is 1/35 the weapons looked just fine on the 1/32 Puma. Finally for this week, here are a few pics showing a quick lick of primer and the weapons tacked on to the wings of the Puma.

 

Edited July 13, 2017 by Lee Chambers

[Lee Chambers]

Hi all, I have made some progress this week and finished the cockpit and pilots. I needed to lower the pilot seats by about an inch to get their heads to be in the correct position to look through the windows of the canopy, I still have the air intake baffle to scratch build over the top of the canopy, also to make the air scoops. I picked up a few resin machine guns that look similar to the ones on the gunship and I also have painted the gun crew to go with them. I have ordered some MRP paint that should arrive soon to allow me to start painting the fuselage. Because the main engines will be covered up, I have not bothered to detail them.

 

[Lee Chambers]

Hi guys, finished installing the motors, the main rotor gearbox was an ideal size to fit the servo motor that was stripped out of an old rc servo. I simply drilled and glued the pinion gear into the shaft (66), this is a cone shaped shaft that fits into the main rotor hub. The on/off push button is under the rear of the fuselage, nice and easy to get at. The rear cowl that covers the battery is simply held on by a magnet that fix's to the battery casing. I also scratch built the intake baffle plate above the cockpit and cut in the vents, this looks more like it now. I've also base coated the fuselage with Vallejo light grey, this is now ready to add the Russian camo scheme next week when the paint turns up.

 

 

Well the MRP paints arrived yesterday and I first sprayed the Russian AFV Tan 276, then this morning I started masking up the basic shapes and then sprayed Olive Brown 282, once all of that colour is applied I will have the Russian AFV Brown 275 to add which should complete the paint scheme. Wish me luck!

 

Edited July 13, 2017 by Lee Chambers

[Lee Chambers]

Hi guys, my Rambo 2 heli build is turning into a diorama. I picked up a Dragon UH-1N kit about 12 years ago, I never got round to building it, superb details in this kit and it's the actual heli that Rambo flew in the movie, so this is the plan to paint it up in the Russian paint scheme and have it ditched in the river bed with the big Puma hovering in front of it, I'm going to have fun recreating the water ripples from the down draught. 

 

I was attempting to add the electric motors as per the Puma and to my surprise I found that the main rotor was easy to work on with plenty of space to attach a motor. The tail rotor gave me a lot more problems as I had to contend with the fact that the kit scale is really too small to fit a motor, however as this is supposed to be a Russian helicopter I used a bit of artistic licence and made a conversion to the tail gearbox which allowed me to fit the same motor that I used in the Puma. I am happy to report that both main and tail rotors work perfectly and the main rotor is at a nice slow steady speed as if the heli was at idle which is as per the movie screen captures.

 

[Lee Chambers]

Hi guys, thanks to the MRP Paints I was able to crack on with the Puma's paint scheme. I masked up and sprayed three segments of the colour at a time, but because the paint drys so fast it was a fairly quick process to get the paint design on. I really only had reference pics of the left side and front of the heli, so I had to make up the design for the right side. Just starting on the last colour to complete the scheme.

 

 

Also I've done some progress on the Huey, working with the photo etch. I used the Deluxe materials, glue and glaze pva which is ideal for mounting the photo etch and is also great for adding the glass dials on the instruments.

 

[Lee Chambers]

Hi guys, I have been busy over the weekend finishing the camo scheme on the Puma and adding details to the crew guns. I've also got the weapons fully loaded, just the rotor blades to finish and this build will be completed.

 

[hovis]

Terrific work mate!

[Lee Chambers]

Hi guys, got a bit more work done on the Rambo captured Russian Huey. I bought a resin Vietnam soldier figure and converted him into Rambo, scratch built the RPG tube and got him sighting up the Hind to blow it out the sky. I used MRP-10 brown-green mixed with a little grey-green 165 for the base colour, then I masked and sprayed the dark camo pattern with Russian AFV brown 275 mixed 50% with Russian AFV green 26. So now I have the decals and weathering to add, then I can get the rotors painted and add the rocket pods.

 

[kpnuts]

Superb work

[Lee Chambers]

Hi all, I've been cracking on with the Rambo Huey. The rocket pods on the movie Huey had seven rockets, the kit came with seven rockets but I felt the pod length was a bit short, so I used some brass tube, cut to a slightly longer length and added some Tamiya 2mm tape which was superglued in place to add detail. I then used the kit rocket pod end caps to finish off the modifications, I think it looks more realistic and more accurate to the Huey in the movie. I used Flory dark dirt clay wash to weather in the paintwork and I've added the Tail Rotor which spins up nicely, I have the main rotor to paint, got to add the nav lights and a few more small details to finish. Finally, to complete this build I'm going to add a few POW figures that were rescued by Rambo in the movie.