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hsr

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Everything posted by hsr

  1. This is my 4th completion for the month of March. The OH-58D was around for a long time and since the Italeri kit was originally tooled it received many upgrades and additions. I wanted to build one of these later versions and luckily Procal Decals out of Greece produces an upgrade kit. So this is the Italeri 1/72 OH-58D Kiowa with the Procal upgrades. I have posted an OOB build of the Italeri OH-58D before so I will not rehash its faults again. The Procal casting were not high end in quality but were usable. This is what you get in the set; Included is a disco ball, new rear doors, enlarged engine cowlings, new stabilizers, what I think are chaff dispensers and various sensors and antennas. You also get some confusing instructions and a set of decals consisting of numbers and some stencils. For decals I used the Printscale 72-070 OH-58 sheet. Finally I found @FloydWerner's OH-58D Walk Around book very helpful. Paints were AK Real Color US Army Helo Drab. Total build time was 8 days. This is the last Italeri kit currently in my pile, and if I never see another one it will be too soon. Next up is the Special Hobby Hughes TH-55A Osage. Enjoy
  2. I'll be starting on that in a couple of weeks. I hope it goes together well. I go one with a vac bubble that hasn't yellowed.
  3. I think the only difference will be the shape of the bubble canopy. I have one of those boxings and will be using it to make a OH-23B trainer
  4. I coated them with future both inside and out. They actually look clearer in person then in the photograph. Thanks
  5. Another early Viet Nam era Aeroscout helicopter. This is the LF Models 1/72 Hiller OH-23G Raven. The raven was primarily a training and observation helicopter but in Viet Nam it served, along with the OH-13, with the Aeroscouts before they were both replaced by the OH-6A Cayuse. This is a typical limited run product with all the foibles of the breed. Having said that it was a mostly pleasant 8 day build. 2 areas gave me the most trouble. First was joining the tail boom to the fuselage. Both pieces are hollow tubes that are butt joined. I first used liquid cement but they broke apart during handling. Then I tried Pacer Zap but they broke again. Next I tried 5 minute epoxy with the same results. Finally I inserted a .062" (1.6mm) evergreen rod into a .093 (2.4mm) tube and stuck the rod into the tail boom and the tube into the fuselage and that held. The other problem area was getting the engine, which was a separate assembly, and the engine mounts to all fit together when there was no indication of exactly where the engine should be placed. The bubble transparency came as 2 parts joined horizontally at a frame line. The 2 pieces and then the whole bubble fit surprising well together and then to the cabin. The kit decals were printed with an Alps type printer onto a continuous decal film so they required careful trimming. Because of that I used the stars & bars from a Fantasy Printshop sheet. Other then that they worked with with no silvering. All paints were AK Real color. I also have their OH-23B that I will be building later in the years as a trainer. Next up will be a Bell OH-58D with the latest upgrades. I was originally going to build this using the Matchbox/Revell OH-58D as the base kit and the Procal Decal update but that didn't get very far and this time I will be using the Italeri kit as the starting point. Enjoy
  6. Thanks. Very thorough and helpful.
  7. This is the Tamiya boxing of the Italeri 1/72 Bell OH-58A Kiowa. This is a typical Italeri kit and I will not beat a dead horse by enumerating its faults. The only thing that was Tamiya was the box and the instructions. Even the decals were the Italeri ones debranded by removing the Italeri logo. The Aeroscouts that flew these in Viet Nam did so with the doors off. The front doors of the kit were separate pieces so that was not an issue. The rear doors were molded as part of the cabin sides but with a deep recessed outline so removing them was fairly easy. I mostly uses decals from the Print Scale 72-070 OH-58 sheet augmented by the kit decals when the Print Scale ones proved impossible to use. The sheet came with a full set of stencils, most of which were not usable but I did manage to use several. Paint was AK Real Colors. Total build time as 12 days. Next up in the LF- OH-23G Ravel Enjoy
  8. Nice job. Did you find the same left/right asymmetries that the I did? Howard
  9. Yes I saw that as part of my research for my first OH-58D: My experience did not match yours . I'll try the Revell if for nothing else the variety, and I can't bring myself to build another Italeri kit right now Thanks
  10. This is the Italeri 1/72 Hughes OH-6A Cayuse also known as Loach. The OH-6A was used extensively and loved by the Aeroscouts in Viet Nam until replaced by the Bell OH-58A. This is another awful limited run style Italeri kit with poor fit, and vague instruction. Just to enumerate some of the issues. The cockpit floor is much narrower then the cabin, so if you glue it to one side of the cabin there is a huge gap between it and the other side. The instructions are no help as far as locating it correctly in the cabin. The Cayuse was usually flown without the door. Italeri helps you with this by making the doors on the left side separate pieces but on the right side they are molded as part of the cabin side and defined by a raised panel line. Luckily because of the Italeri soft and thin plastic they are fairly easy to cut out. Location and placement of the of the tail surfaces are vague and there are no locator pins (this is probably because their AH-6 Night Fox has a different tail so they could not share locators There is a drawing on the front of the box and another on the back, plus a drawing in the instructions for decal placement. None of these agree on decal placement nor on antennas and such. In addition to being vague the instructions are just wrong; Note that at A they have you place the tail rotor head facing the right side when it goes on the left. At B I am pretty sure that the light on the horizontal stabilize goes on the bottom rear, not the upper front. At C & D it shows the curved piece of control arm at C to the left and the tongue of material projecting onto the blade on the top of the blade, but in the actual plastic if you have the curved control arm to the left the tongue of material is on the bottom so I have no idea how it should go. I built the AH-6A boxing several years ago and found it to be a tail sitter so, this time I added some #10 shot under the cabin floor and it sits properly. The Decals were a little on the thick side but worked well. But they seemed a bit large compared to pictures. Next up will be a Bell OH-58D with the late upgrades. I will be using the Revell kit (because I am sick of using Italeri kits) and the ProCal Decal upgrade set.
  11. The lattice is a little on the thick side. I read somewhere that the 1/48 is even more out of scale. Thanks
  12. The lattice is just 3 pieces. You glue the 2 sides together and then add the top. It takes a little patience but not much Thanks
  13. This is my build of the Italeri 1/72 OH-13S Sioux. The Sioux was used as an early Aeroscout in Viet Nam until replaced by the Hughes OH-6A Cayuse. For an Italeri kit this one was a fairly pleasant and quick build*. It easily breaks up into cabin, fuselage and engine subsections. For once the transparency fit almost perfectly, although the doors to bubble fit was bad, But since they were flown without the door that was not a real issue. I did use the door as a sort of mask to protect the interior of the cabin when spraying and just used Microscale Krystal Klear to fill the gaps. As a helper I also used the CMK upgrade kit for various and sundry interior and engine parts. All together it was ~10 day build. Next up is the Italeri OH-6A Enjoy. * As noted elsewhere the Italeri cabin is way oversized for the OH-13S, but I chose to ignore this since it would have been very difficult if not impossible to correct.
  14. I have done a couple of these. What I have found is that it is useless to try and sand the plastic material. No matter how much you sand it it will still be the same rough surface. This is also true of the prime and sand method. The only thing I found that worded was to put a couple of drops of thin CAA glue on the surface, smooth it with my finger and then sand that surface. After a few applications I was able to get a smooth layer of CAA over the plastic. Seer my MQ-1C
  15. I ordered the Procal Decals PDR00172 set in 1/72. Thanks Howard
  16. Yes, very much. Would you know the dates when the mid production housing was introduces? I have a conversion kit on order for it.
  17. Thanks for your reply. What I am wondering about is the difference in the doghouse between this D Which I take to be an early version and the additional structure in the front of the doghouse on this one Which I guess is later. Thanks
  18. My humblest apologies no offense was intended. I realize that that is the format imposed by Squadron and I made the comment before I even had a copy of your book based on that format, not your writing. What I would have loved is if you had written an In Action book, which would have discussed the development and improvements as incremental steps. For example in the book, which I now have, the (R) upgrade is mentioned, but there is no explanation, that I could find, of what the (R) upgrade is, or when it was implemented. There appears to be additional structure around the doghouse but, I can't tell if that was part of the (R) upgrade or independent of it, or what it actually is. Again it was not a knock against you, but the Squadron format. I am just surprised that there is no book about the Kiowa like Waune Mutza's Loach book. Howard
  19. I ordered the Clear Prop and got it the other day. It looks really good in the box but, the proof will be in the building. Thanks all.
  20. I have Mutza's U.S. Army Aviation in Vietnam book and he has a whole section devoted to Aeroscouts in which there is 1 paragraph that mentions the OH-58 and 1 grainy picture. The rest is devoted to the exploits of the OH-6A
  21. This is the Italeri 1/72 Bell OH-58D Kiowa. I have never been a fan of Italeri kits, but this one is truly awful. The fit was especially bad around the 3 pieces that make up the nose, 2 of which are transparencies. This lead to the rookie mistake of allowing the glue to craze the the front wind screen. There are 3 drawings of the finished product; the box top, the back of the box and the decal layout in the instructions. None of these agree with the other or with the plastic in the box. The decal layout was the closest but the placement of the decals was especially vague. The decals themselves were fairly thick yet tended to break up once placed. The paint is the AK Real Color US Army Helo Drab. I also used Gunze GX112 for the first time for the gloss coat before the decals and all I can say is; where have you been all of my life. I used to use Future but I found it would sometimes bead up when sprayed. Then I switched to Humbrol Gloss Cote, but it would require multiple coats and it would never stop being sticky. The Gunze gave me a nice gloss with just one coat and dried hard within minutes. Here it is, be kind. Next up is the Italeri OH-58A which being a later boxing will hopefully be a better kit.
  22. Can anyone recommend a good reference for the Bell OH-58 Kiowa? I have searched the web and surprisingly the only thing I can find is the old Squadron Walk Around book. Not even an In Action book. While the Walk Around books are great for pictures they are very light on text and I would like something with more information. Thanks Howard
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