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Airfix 1/72 gazelle *FINISHED!*


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  • 2 months later...

Howdy howdy howdy,

Had a slight pause on the modelling front. I've since secured a man cave and the modelling has re-commenced.

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As for the gazelle. The skids have been fitted; fingers kept crossed during the process as I was never certain if I had fitted enough weight to the front.

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The moment of truth and hurray!!! She's not a tail sitter.

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I've also started on the engine and gearbox. Initially a daunting thought. Below is the work completed so far: everything scratch built, no inbetweeny photos I'm afraid.

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The above has been primed, ready for a first coat of paint. Once the paint has been completed I can continue adding further bits and bobs.

And here's a side on view of the gazelle.

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And here she is next to a pot of paint

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Thanks for looking folks and any comments, critiques and tips are welcome.

Cheers

Aaron

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She's still looking brilliant Aaron, very neat work on the engine & box! I admire your nerve working on it when the rest of the paint is finished, I'd be bound to get a big blob of glue somewhere it shouldn't be if I tried to put the engine on after everything else is done!

Nice work space too, very tidy!

keef

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Hi Aaron,

That was a long gap there, you have been off-shore I assume.

Excellent looking man cave, curious as to how all those shoes fit in with modelling.

The gazelle looks stunning, a true joy. The work you have done on the engine is quite incredible.

Edited by Nigel Heath
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That was looking impressive until you put it beside the paint jar. Now it's gone beyond impressive to I don't know where! A great inspiration for the helicopter I've got in the stash too. Your scratch building at this size is truly remarkable.

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I used to think I was a decent model maker

This place has revised my thinking big time

And big time is the Gazelle you are building, that gearbox machinery is amazing :thumbsup:

I'm glad the weights were right for the skids, marvellous stuff

b

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The gearbox was attached to the airframe by two V-frames, one front and one rear. Are you going to model these too?

The V-frames attached to the airframe by one 6-8mm bolt (can't remember the exact diameter) at each mounting point, four in all. That was all that actually held the rotor to the aircraft itself. For some reason I was never able to get that thought out of my mind while pulling 60o banks during air tests......

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The V-frames attached to the airframe by one 6-8mm bolt (can't remember the exact diameter) at each mounting point, four in all. That was all that actually held the rotor to the aircraft itself.

There! I knew it all the time - you'd have to be mad to fly one of those...

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When you look at some reference photographs, you can hardly notice the mesh guard around this area. I was thinking about vacuum forming the kit part in clear styrene, possibly score it slightly (neede file of sand paper) so it looks like there is some sort of mesh, if you know what I mean? Then add some fine strips of aluminium tape.

Pick up some Lipton tea in the pyramid bags. These teabags are made of a very fine mesh of some sort (nylon?) which is extremely useful for screens in 1/72 scale. Plus, you get some good tea!

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Thank you very much for the comments guys :)

I admire your nerve working on it when the rest of the paint is finished, I'd be bound to get a big blob of glue somewhere it shouldn't be if I tried to put the engine on after everything else is done!Nice work space too, very tidy!

Thanks Keef; I'm in constant worry now that any mishandling of glue and paint will ruin my work. I admit that it is a little premature to have painted and decal'd the fuselage prior to completion. The engine / gearbox will be built separately, then fitted onto the rest of the model... This should hopefully minimise the risk of rogue glue and paint. Oh and yes the work area is tidy; for now.........Mwhaaa ha ha ha

Hi Aaron,

That was a long gap there, you have been off-shore

hey Nigel, a combination of things, work and household chores / tasks. One of which was the 'man cave'. With this pretty much complete, I should get more modelling time. Should hopefully catch you at the next AMS meeting :)

I take it you like helicopters and mainly Pumas, eh? ;)

Thanks paramedic. Is it that obvious? Ha ha yep I do like a rotor or two

How many pairs of deck shoes does one man need? :).

cheers Steve. one can never have enough trainers; below is the rest of the man cave. Some may say I have a problem...

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The gearbox was attached to the airframe by two V-frames, one front and one rear. Are you going to model these too?

The V-frames attached to the airframe by one 6-8mm bolt (can't remember the exact diameter) at each mounting point, four in all. That was all that actually held the rotor to the aircraft itself. For some reason I was never able to get that thought out of my mind while pulling 60o banks during air tests......

cheers Natter. I will be modelling the V-frames.infact struggling with them at the moment. I intend to paint the engine/ gearbox as it is beige. Then I'll begin to add additional items and paint as required - my thoughts where that if I scratched and glued everything in place it would be too awkward to paint. Only four 8mm bolts!?!? Oh god!

Pick up some Lipton tea in the pyramid bags. These teabags are made of a very fine mesh of some sort (nylon?) which is extremely useful for screens in 1/72 scale. Plus, you get some good tea!

thanks a lot for the tip Space Ranger. I had given up on the mesh idea and was going to chicken out and use tissue paper to fabricate a protective cover - therefore hiding this area. I'll definitely pick some up and see what I can do... And I do like tea, so yep another bonus :D

Cheers

Aaron

Edited by milktrip
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cheers Steve. one can never have enough trainers; below is the rest of the man cave. Some may say I have a problem...

I think you can and I think you have.

I hope they all have good odour eaters installed so close to the workbench.

And my theory on the pixies?

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You could also use the method I used to replicate mesh

I drew and printed mesh in various colours to use on my Wessexes

The yellow SAR one had reverse mesh printed that looked like the holes in the mesh by reversing a black and white criss cross mesh drawing. I thought that looked reasonable when printed on clear decal sheet. The yellow paintwork shone through the decal and left the holes looking like holes in mesh

Even MS paint is capable of drawing a suitable mesh to print, and I also found several examples of modelling mesh on the net you could resize and recolour

I used yellow mesh decals over the transparent mesh areas on the SAR one too, there are lots of ways to deal with the topic

Mind you, nowt wrong with supping a drop of tea either...

b

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Aaron, the decking and bulkhead forward of the MRGB (main rotor gearbox) was beige - actually 'light stone'. The MRGB and V-frames were dark grey, as was the forward part of the engine. The hydraulic jack bodies were a light blue. The V-frames actually attached to the bottom of the MRH (main rotor head) and the gearbox actually hung under this - it wasn't actually fixed to the decking.

Although the model is French the colours of the MRGB, MRH, engine and jacks in the photos at THIS WALKROUND are as the UK models.

The mesh cover for the rear bay is different though. The UK models had a circular mesh, not the 'oblong' style of the French model.

By the way, your model is brilliant!

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I think you can and I think you have.

I hope they all have good odour eaters installed so close to the workbench.

And my theory on the pixies?

. Ahhh you got me. My recent absence was nothing to do with work et al; the pixies had infact threatened me with industrial action. Hence the new improved working area which was part of the agreement :P

@Perdu - thanks ever so much for the decal tips. What I'm pleased about is that I don't necisarily need a fancy program to do this and just use standard windows software like paint and word. I've been experimenting with possible Oman Royal flight (older emblem) decals on my next project. Couldn't find a usable example on the net but cut and pasted what I needed into paint, scaled down and printed off on normal paper. I was pleasantly suprised by the outcome. I've not yet printed these onto decal paper.

@natter- thanks for the info on the hydraulic jacks. I thought they looked light grey? That's actually the walkaround I've been using - it really is good! I did try to cross refrence between british gazelles to compare what is / was similar. Glad you clarified that the french and british decking / MRGB are the same for me. Infact, thanks for all your gazelle related info - it's a big help. You wouldn't happen to know your way around a 330 puma? :D That's my next project I'm debating whether or not to open up the engine area but I've not found enough resources on the Internet to help me out.

Cheers

Aaron

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi y'all

Not much of a progress update.

I attended my first Aberdeen Modelling Society club night; wish I knew and attended sooner. Had a great time and will definitely be along again. I'm afraid I've had to steal Nigel's photos for my update as I have no pictures and his photography skills and camera are far better than mine. I hope he doesn't mind :) pictures stolen from Nigel Heath's Darlek Diaries: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234945781-15th-scale-sevans-models-dalek/page-43

Front doors: I had been pondering what to use for the white framing around the gazelle doors. I didn't want to mask and paint so was going down the path of plastistrust with some adhesive trials on clear styrene (think i mentioned this in a previous post). I just happened to be in a local DIY store and spotted some electrical insulation tape and thought "perfect!" Can't believe I didn't think of this earlier as I use it all the time at work...

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Once I tone these down during the weathering I think it will look nice.

Gearbox / MRH: slowly struggling on with this. Sort of wish I never cut off the cowlings in the first place... However, I must admit that overall it is an enjoyable challenge. Despite endless searches on the floor for bits that have sprung from my tweezers and holding my breath during the gluing stages as to stop any uncontrolled movement. I've 'completed' the support struts but have yet to fit them.

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Gearbox in place

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The remainder of photos are a general walkaround (better quality photographs than my previous posts).

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Prior to attending the club meet I did have an "oops" moment (if I'm honest the actual words used where a little stronger than that). I dropped the gazelle ###$%@@&£ the skids snapped off but i have managed to glue them back together. The sticky out bits at the front also fell off; managed to find all but one item... To be honest it could have been a lot worse!!!

Thanks for looking :D

Edited by milktrip
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I am glad my photos have gone some way towards illustrating your incredible build.

I am also very happy that you liked attending the AMS club night, its good fun and I came away with some bargain, classic kits last night - result!

Edited by Nigel Heath
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