A Sea King with a difference

[kwaterous]

While in search for a helicopter that could multitask, carry large numbers on the ground, and provide fire support for this troops, the Canadian government was given a proposition to use modernized and modified versions of the Sikorsky Sea King. These aircraft were modified to carry troops, given a large forward firing gun and several flex-mounted guns, and re-engined to give more power. They also had many parts of the aircraft simplified in order to save weight. The CF started out with 10 such helicopters, they were used with great success in covert operations. A standard strike package included a troop-carrying Sea King and a supporting gunship.

The helicopters were exposed to the rest of the world when one was force-landed at an American rein base in Afghanistan after suffering heavy battle damage. The Americans liked the idea, and made their own variant, along the same lines and the Canadian one. They operated the chopper by the 100's, for both covert and non-covert operations.

The model will depict a Sea King in use with the American special forces.

The baseline kit is the airfix, will use lots of spares and modify the kit quite a bit.

Cheers,

K

Edited August 17, 2015 by kwaterous

[Col.]

Sounds as if we are about to see the Seaking undergo a metamorphosis into something more like the Mil Mi-24 series. Great idea

[kwaterous]

I suppose it will be a bit like an American Mi-24 equivalent, hadn't really thought about it that way though.

Anyway, update 1 has arrived

My first move was to smear filler into all of the engraved detail on this kit. I wanted to start with a clean slate.

Next up, sand the bejeezus out of it to get rid of all the rivets supplied by Mr. Airfix

Next up was dry-fitting the new from end of this beastie.

The front end will look decidedly un-Sea King like by the time I'm done with it.

The next step was to make up the front end fuselage extensions. This was harder because I wanted to preserve the boat-hull shape.

Side pannels

And poorly photographed bottom pannels.

Another thing that I decided to add was a gun on the lefts side of the helicopter. This meant that a hole had to be cut in the side.

The size of the hole was traced...

Then chain-drilled (no picture of this)

And finally neatened up:

I also plugged the big circular hole in the cabin floor.

My last task for the day was to get rid of the old framing in my glassware. All the framing was sanded off with relatively coarse grit.

Then I switched through to a very fine grit.

And lastly, polished the bejeezus out of it.

(Extra points to whoever can identify where the clear part came from)

One thing, how big is a .50 machine gun in 1:72, and does anyone have tips for making/sourcing a couple?

And that's it for my first update. There should be another one tomorrow as I've got lots of time on my hands right now.

If you have any comments or questions, feel free to post them. Same goes for back-story additions, it needs more detail IMHO.

Cheers,

K

Edited August 18, 2015 by kwaterous

[heloman1]

Lookin' good, I'll be following with interest.

Colin

[Max Headroom]

Looking forward to this beastie!

For .50 cal guns Quickboost do some. Here is a link to Hannants.

http://www.hannants.co.uk/search/index.php?&product_type_id=2567

As to the provenance of the canopy part - no idea!

Trevor

[kwaterous]

Thanks for the interest guys.

As for the .50s... That don't coat enough to meet the minimum from hannants... Guess I'll just have to order something else too...

K

[Col.]

This is going to be considerably more radical a conversion than I first thought. Great start K

[smyfe]

Looking great so far, canopy from a B-25?

[kwaterous]

Looking great so far, canopy from a B-25?

You got it! Revell 1:48 B-25J

K

[Max Headroom]

K!

If you look on the Big H they only have one set left. You may need to seek a different MU store to source.

Trevor

[kwaterous]

Hmm... That could be an issue. I'll have to figure something out.

Anyway.

My first moves this morning were in exterior work (again).

I got the cheek pannels (is that what they are? Seems like it) faired in.

I also managed to take a chunk of plastic out with a badly planned scalpel swipe.

Next up, dry-fitting showed that I had to lift the canopy up a bit. So l did.

And now I need to fill more gaps. Yippee.

And here's all the spots that I could find still needing filler with lots of it curing.

The other bit of exterior that was done was the newly re-modelled intakes.

Original intakes were drilled out, then bis of straw were stuck in. It looks fairly similar, but whatever.

I also built the troop-transporting capability.

The theory behind the wires is that if it's doing a covert operation, there could very well be paratroopers involved.

On a similar note, the paratroop jumping off point is ready, it's pinned to the floor with brass wire.

And last but not least is the start of work on the pilots station.

More will be added to the seat and the open side of the console will be covered. The front gunner's station will come next.

And that's it for now. I may have another update tonight, I may not.

Cheers,

K

[Dermo245]

Great idea, look forward to seeing more!

Quick thought - given the size of a Sea King, wouldn't they be able to carry a couple of 20mm (or bigger) on the side? (like some version of the Hind?)

Cool build all the same!

Dermot

[kwaterous]

Tonight's update is a bit puny, but hey, not every update can be a big one.

First up is a look at how this thing is going to look when I get it finished.

Pretty darn cool I'd say

Next is a quick look at the work that's one into the front end.

The pilot's station is pretty much done. There's also a gun and a folding table for the navigator/front gunner and a pitot tube and mount to fill a hole that came in my replacement glazing.

Anyhow, that's it for tonight, hopefully I'll have more done by tomorrow.

Cheers,

K

Edited August 19, 2015 by kwaterous

[kwaterous]

Well, there's another update tonight, and there's paint!

Interior walls given a green coat.

Bit splotchy, but once it's closed up, nobody's going to notice.

There's also stuff in it's paint-less form.

Exhibit A: the cockpit.

All here except the gun.

And now with paint.

few spots where the paint is a tad thin, but washes/weathering will cover that up.

And here the start of that gun I mentioned

Not done yet, but getting there.

Barrel is hypodermic needle btw.

I also got a little bit of exterior detailing and mg mount making done.

Left side:

And right side:

I also upped the gun count by 2 by putting a couple in the sponsons.

That filler is just from where I broke through when cutting out the trough.

At the moment, this is a rather heavily armed beastie. Here's how it sits right now.

1x30mm (trainable)

2x20mm (trainable)

2x30mm (fixed)

Rather formidable I'd say.

One question, how do you cut the hypodermic needles without wrecking the knife to score a line in it?

Cheers,

K

[Ragtag]

Interesting backstory and some lovely detailing so far.

The nose is reminiscent of a B-25 at the mo

[Rob G]

Steel tube is best cut with a cutting wheel in a Dremel (wear your safety glasses!). Failing that, a fine toothed hacksaw, and be prepared to do some cleanup of the cut end with a fine file. Or a slip stone, as available tools and personal preference dictate.

You can also use the scalpel blade method, and resharpen a dedicated tubing cutting blade on that slip stone. Saves money, and teaches you patience.

[raptormodeller]

I've got an idea for a more in depth back story but I won't be able to publish it for another week or so (I'm using 3G, which is... slow and a bit expensive over long periods) anyway, it will be published don't worry!

Chomp chomp

-raptor

[MarkdipXV711]

Enjoying this ... love adapted kits 👍

Great work so far 👏👏👏

[kwaterous]

Thanks for the input guys.

-The front end looks like a B-25 because that's where I got the clear parts (in 1:48 though).

-I'll have to try one of this for when I'm making the other 2 guns. Thanks.

-I look forward to hearing what you've come up with.

-Adapting kits is fun, OOTB can get a bit boring sometimes.

Today, I learned 2 things.

1. I absolutely hate humbrol metallics (metalizer a are nice though)

2. A broken cocktail stick makes a great detailing paintbrush.

Learned fact #1

The metallics cover terribly, anrent all that metallic, and leave weird whirls.

Learned fact #2

This took maybe 10 minutes, it's well done (for me) and was super easy, even the congested parts.

Anyway, that's it for tonight.

Cheers,

K

[Ragtag]

Looking good - will have to give the cocktail stick a try.

[kwaterous]

Hey guys, got another update today.

Not as much progress as I'd like, mostly because I'm busy this week with a life-saving course.

Anyway. I started painting the interior seats. These have had 1 coat in the picture, and they got another one after it was taken.

After the second coat of paint, you can't see the writing underneath.

I've also been doing some surface prep.

My technique is this:

Step 1: fill any visible holes.

Step 2: gives all filled area a coat of random paint.

(I just use whatever I have open at any one time)

Step 3: sand it back and see if there's any trouble spots.

There's still trouble spots

Last bit of work for this week was a bit of work on the rotor head.

I started with this:

It's the standard rotor head with a whole bunch of holes drilled in it.

Sorry about the blurry photo.

I also used some of these:

Bent bits of wire

And I ended up with this:

Kinda cool looking

Next step looked like this:

The glue will shrink back. Looks kinda messy in this picture.

Last step involved a drill and a wood rod:

The rod will mount some kind of avionics (in a cut down form)

I also drilled out the rotor head cap that comes in the kit-it's going to be some armour protection for the rotor head.

Cheers,

K

Edited August 25, 2015 by kwaterous

[raptormodeller]

Im pretty sure that a longbow radar (if you have one) perched on the rotors would look...well a bit and if you get what I mean, anyway I think it would look good on the tricked out sea-king!

chomp chomp

-raptor

[kwaterous]

I thought so too. Unfortunately, I haven't got a longbow radar, but I'll try to come up with something.

This update is from the last few days of work.

A bit of weathering on the interior.

Pity almost none of it will be seen.

Next, I decided to check on what actually would be seen.

Right side door:

Left side gun window:

And through the front (minus the canopy):

Answer... Not a lot is going to be visible

After that, I did the impossible....

Tidied my workbench

That was an enormous job.

I also glued a chunk of plastic and into the radome hole on the bottom as a base for some filler.

The filling & sanding will take a while

I also made a bunch of seatbelts, and glued the floor assembly into the right side of the fuselage.

The belts aren't great, but they're not all that visible.

Then... I glued bth halves together

Lots of tape, I didn't want anyplace to pop apart (it did anyway)

While I was waiting g for my glue to set, I had at the tail wheel.

Hollowed out the oleos and got rid of moulding lines.

When I pulled the tape off, I had this:

Notice the split between the cockpit and engine area.

So I had to fix that:

I wasn't taking any chances this time around.

And then the filling began...

The parts on the bottom that are going to need a lot were given their first layer.

That nice oval hole is going to become an air intake.

That all for now, migh have another update later tonight.

Cheers,

K

[louiex2]

Just found this build and it's looking great so far. I like be backstory and your creativity in using the 1/48 canopy.

However, I do have one suggestion: next time you post a picture of a tidy workbench, please don't hide it in the middle of your build photos. A picture of something as drastic as that needs to have a separate warning post beforehand (preferably in big red letters) so we can be ready for the shock of seeing such a thing. 😃 (We don't want to have to make use of the skills you learned in your lifesaving class 🚨)

Looking forward to following your progesss.

[kwaterous]

Thanks Louie, and I'll keep the separate warning thing in mind, though I don't know how to do the big red letters.

Anyway, this is the promised second update

Things seemed to just fly together tonight, I ended up with a rather complete helicopter on my hands.

A rather complete helicopter with a lot of filling and sanding to be done that is.

Also made some additions at the front end.

That's 1 intake/exhaust thingummy, 1 gap-filling shim and 4 missile rails.

And then I started on the filling marathon.

This could take a while.

Also built the other 2 guns.

The LHS 20mm:

The sight bit was a copy of the PE ones made out of pie tin.

And the RHS 30mm:

The wood bit will be a buttstock and the blue bit will be the handgrip. This one doesn't have the sight arranged yet.

And here's where it gets really hairy.

I did some dry-fitting and found out that I had a rather serious issue. My canopy was about 3mm too narrow at the back, and 1mm narrow at the front.

So I pulled the 2 parts apart, and, well, found a solution. Pictures will explain it better than I can.

Step 1:

*Cringe*

Step 2:

*more cringing*

Step 3/4:

(I'm still cringing)

Probably the most nerve-wracking cuts I've ever had to make. I REALLY don't like working with clear parts.

Yeah, that's tonight's update. I'm now relaxing g and taking it easy after a stressful finish to the evening modelling session.

Cheers,

K

Edited August 28, 2015 by kwaterous