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SA. 365C-1 DAUPHIN from Heller


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Nice work on the intake mesh framewrk Hendie. Maybe for the mesh, make up a former and work a piece PE brass mess into shape. It should be self supporting.

Colin

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Your perseverance is really bearing fruit - the rotor head realignment is excellent. I built the Heller 1/48 (-ish) Gazelle last year, and some of the issue you are encountering are strangely familiar - notably the fit of the canopy. I have to say your fix looks a good deal better than mine.

The "some sort of gauge" in the nose is almost certainly an outside air temperature gauge, I'd say.

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Thanks guys, all the comments are much appreciated.

Ex-FAAWAFU, an air temperature gauge makes sense, though being in HK it was probably binary and just read either "damn hot" and "freaking hot"

I am taking bits of advice for everyone's comments and have a plan regarding the mesh....

I found some Xmas wrapping ribbon which is essentially a very fine mesh. I'm not sure of the material but it's probably nylon or some other type of polymer. My plan is to make a male mold, then heat the ribbon up with a hot air gun and try and form the mesh over/around the mold.

I even found white mesh and red mesh which are the two colors I need and will save me having to try and spray the mesh.

The red has a slightly metallic sheen to it but I am hoping that on such a small component it won't really be visible, especially against a red background.

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Excellent update and thanks for the link. trouble is, having seen that cool French Navy scheme, I need one of these kits as well!

Martin

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A small but important update this evening.

As you can see here I managed to finish off the support bars for the engine intakes. In retrospect, the framework is a bit, erhmnnn.... agricultural, shall we say. However, once the mesh in in place, these should look respectable.

S5001737.JPG

The Tamiya tape lining the sides of the cowling is to prevent glue seeping everywhere (I can be very messy at times).

So, yes you guessed it - I finally glued the cowling in place - another milestone completed !!!

The Dauphin is now starting to feel a lot more solid and not as flimsy and plasticky feeling as I have become accustomed to over the last few months.

I'm still going to leave the masking on the canopy until I have finished the major gluing tasks as if I remove the masking now, I am guaranteed to leave grubby paw prints over the clear parts before I am finished.

The view from the front.

S5001736.JPG

There will be a little amount of filling required but not too much at all. I am starting to feel quite pleased with the project now - things seem to be going well - oops, there I have gone and angered the plastic gods again!

With the cowling in place, I have set the kit aside for the evening as I don't want to chance knocking it out of position while the glue cures.

Next phase is to fit the fairing that goes between the engine cowling and the spine.

It's all starting to take shape now!

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... and we follow last night's small update with.... tonight's small update!

The first items on tonight's agenda were these ehrmmmnnn.... round things. I sliced off a couple of pieces of styrene tubing and glued them to a piece of styrene sheet. Once the glue had set, I trimmed around the tubes with snips then filed around the perimeter to try and get them reasonably circular and smooth.

I then filed a flat on one side of the disc thingy and then punched out two small discs from the remainder of the styrene sheet. - What is all this for ? I hear you ask ....

S5001739.JPG

Well, to be honest I am not really sure.

When I left the thread last night I mentioned that the next phase was to glue the fairing to the rear of the engine cowling. - and as I am prone to do.... just before I slapped the glue on the fairing, I remembered that there were a couple of "things" visible from the rear of the a/c just below the exhausts. Engine parts of some description but other than that who knows? - I'm not a sumpy - I were a rigger (once... a long, long time ago!).

So I thought I had better fit them now or I would never get them in once the fairing was in place. They sit just about here......

S5001740.JPG

And this is as much as you see once the fairing is in place...

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And then those extra little discs go on top of the canister thingy. Like so...

S5001743.JPG

Once the exhausts are in place, it's highly unlikely you'll ever be able to see anything, but I'll use the old "but I'll know it's there" excuse. - and it is better than just the flat empty space which would be there otherwise.

The rear fairing is now glued on... no going back now!

S5001744.JPG

and another close up (out of focus) of those enginey tubey parts...

S5001745.JPG

The view from behind - everything just about lines up too !!! Bonus!

S5001747.JPG

Then slapped some filler on the join along the spine, which was in poor condition after all my messing about.

S5001748.JPG

And for the observant or eagle eyed among you - there are two small white triangles on the tail fin - I spotted some strengthening plates in my reference photo's so thought I may as well add them.

So, that's where we are tonight.

Now it's all filling, shaping and sanding for a while. There's also a few panels I need to scribe in, and some other fittings and widgets here and there.

Most of it will be straight forward, albeit time consuming. The hardest part will be trying to make a couple of marker/ID lights which sit on the side above the fuel filler. I have a number of photo's of them - all out of focus and very fuzzy, and I am having a hard time figuring out what shape it actually is.

From looking at all my photo's I think the front part has the port/stbd ID lights but there appears to be another clear light (strobe?) sticking out perpendicular from the side.

This is about the best photo I have of it. It's quite prominent on the a/c side so somehow I have to replicate it, although in this scale it's going to be tiny.

light.JPG

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up till now I have just been using Krylon primer straight from the rattle can. I have used it on a couple of builds and like it. Easy to use and no airbrush clean up afterwards.

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It's touch dry within 10 minutes, but I always leave it a lot longer as I find if you handle it too soon, it can feel just very slightly tacky so I always try to find something else to work on for a while

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things seem to be going well - oops, there I have gone and angered the plastic gods again!

The plastic gods are fickle creatures, you never know how they are going to react. I think they are smiling down on your build right now. Long may it continue.

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The last couple of days were great - I seemed to make great moves forward. Unfortunately now it's going to slow down a bit.

I have some re-scribing to do so so I need to dig out my reference photo's and start trying to determine the panel positions etc.

I'm also having trouble making those marker lights I mentioned in an earlier post - they are so prominent on the a/c that I feel I have to include them, but at that scale they are so small they are almost impossible to work with.

Tonight's sanding session went well, but there's no point in posting any photo's of that. I'll just keep plugging away until I have something to show for my efforts.

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Hendie,

On the strobe light or whatever it is, could the end of clear sprue be sanded or carved to shape for this, then cut off of the sprue and glued on?

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that's my plan George. The hardest part is that the entire light is probably half the size of a grain of rice - and my fingers are twice the size of a good bratwurst

Thats so funny

Same problem here with my Huey Build , The door handles so small . I lost two handles in the carpet .. Lucky me Revell sent me two new handles ..

Rick

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