SA330 Puma

[perdu]

I did promise I'd post this but she's not so great

Lessons learnt during this one though so may be worth a discuss

First one... filing octagonal sides on a round tube is NOT easy

Anyway, the kit was bought at the club Christmas meeting as a charity build competition

It was wrapped in Chrissy paper and you have to make a lucky dip selection. The entry fee goes to the Children's Hospice as do any fines levied if you don't bring it back in February.

B U I L T !

As my favourite flying thingies are whirlywinged this was a serendipitous pick, oiut came a box of Airfixy bits labelled SA330 Puma.

I didnt begin modelling til the friday week before the club meet, naughty and the reason for my displeasure, I should have given it the decency of a few weeks of research and build time.

Step in Keefr with some gloriously detailed photos which saved my bacon, thanks Keith, next one will do your pics fuller justice, anyway

on with the motley

I know how bad the windows look, the whole damned thing filled up with dust after it was stuck down

I was in a bit of a panic about moving the model from one side of Metropolis to t'other in a box without its blooming flimsy undercart collapsing under it

So I had a bit of a think and came up with this, fit into a box in a cardboard template with a Puma sized cut out so the legs wouldn't move. The problem came about because after Keith gave me the photos of the aerial array on the nose I made it up and it became just a tad dangerous to have it flopping about

Here's how she looks in the cut out area

And this is the cut out without a visitor

I didnt get any decent pictures of the filters, mostly because i didnt do a very good job on them IMO

I flattened a couple of drop tanks from my bombs box in an octagonal section then I used Humbrol Schwartztgrun painted Solar trim to represent the darker filtration holed areas, stuck them in place and used Squadron putty to fill around it. I also used Solartrim on the windscreen framing and the panelling around the intake filters

Home brewed transfers made with microsoft Word and reduced to fit and RAF door panel letters were lifted off a file on the net and reduced to the desired size as a picture image in Word again. Thank the lord Word allows you to set exactly the image size you need, I just get it close on screen the print a test shot so I can measure how much bigger or littler it needs to be

The starboatd decals will be removed now the meeting is over and re done with Klear and Tamiya Matt varnish rattle cans

The paint used was Tamiya XF58 Olive Green, brushed quite deliberately to give the faded look so often seen on RAF helos. I like it now, didn't before I started

I now understand that there is a RAF version which has the filters already, I will do a better version of that one later.

hack it apart please, that way I can use your ideas in future

Bill

Edited February 19, 2013 by perdu

[jimbuna]

You give of it your best and that is all that matters.

[kev67]

Very nice, now you have finished there no excuses to finish the Sherpa