We Three Kings...

[Pete in Lincs]

Just done a catch up. 

16 minutes ago, Head in the clouds. said:

seems so little for so much effort

Ah, but it's all in the right direction. Slowly slowly catchee Monkey. That's literature that is. It said so on the back of the matchbox.

[Head in the clouds.]

This week I have become a maker of seats, six in total for each of the builds.

ZB506; these seats are pretty good compared to the earlier Airfix seats, more of which soon, once assembled the back frame had a part I could not find on pics^.

It is highlighted by the digitally imposed arrow on the pic below 🤨;

 

If this is to represent the reel drum for the seat belt I know not but they have been removed and replaced with a drum a little lower down. I also noted that the side of the seat is not solid, it looks like a piece of fabric draped over a brace on each side of the seat, my suspicions were aroused when I looked at the seats in the HAR3 kit(XV651) which did not have this webbing or brace.

XV371,XZ651 and ZB506 seats respectively;

 

 

 

They have all had a squirt of primer now so I will inspect them later, for now I need to look at the control panel/coaming for XV371. I have the Airwaves etch cockpit set which fits the kit part like a glove but the kit part seems to be too rounded compared to pics and the other two kits on the bench;

 

What to do?

Building up the coaming is not a problem, some card and filler should sort that but then the Photo etch will look odd, being rounded in the corners. After some thought I came up with the idea to use some 1/72 cockpit instrument decals, while not 100% accurate it will look better than a blank area with nothing going on.

 

Moving on to the internal detail on ZB506 I noticed from one of the internal pics two large-ish beams with too many holes for my liking running the length of the roof of the rear cabin. After my delivery of Evergreen 1.5mm I beam I set to the task of drilling those many holes in the beam. After about a joyful hour and a half we have this;

It was nigh on impossible to get them all in line but I hope with a coat of paint and stuck in place it will not be noticeable, especially in this scale. This will hopefully be in place this weekend.

 

One other little job was on XV371, I need to blank off the sonar aperture under the fuselage, I believe all the Westland airframes kept this facility from the SH3D so I just fitted some card with a score down the middle to accommodate the angle of the hull, this will give me a solid fixing point for the blanking plate.

 

Not the best pic but you can see it in all it's 3D blurry, pokey out style just above the 3D in this sentence. I also removed the locating slot for the( now removed) front bulkhead section, I am hoping to scratch the steps to the door as this will, I think, be visible through the glazing and is a big chunk to miss out.

 

More soon, thanks for looking.

[Head in the clouds.]

A productive weekend, Liverpool won what was a poor performance but a win is a win and I moved forward a little on the build.

 

Carrying on with the control panel for XV371 the unit was fitted with the PE facia, I then spent a happy half hour 🤨 knocking out lots of little masks for the instruments.

 

Once sprayed the blank area that I created by building up the console was populated with instrument decals, whilst not accurate it removes what would otherwise be a blank and featureless area.

After adding some other detail it looked thus.

Better than the kit item me thinks.

 

Putting XV371 to one side it was the turn of ZB506. I now set to inserting the two beams I made earlier with all the holes in them to the top of the fuselage, internally, to give the cabin structure some detail as the side door will be open. Once fitted more stringers were fitted to complete the picture.

 

Typically, all that work in drilling dozens of holes cannot be seen in this shot but they are there so I gave it a quick spray with XF83 Medium Sea Grey and this showed up the detail better.

 

Bouncing back to XV371, if you are getting dizzy with all this too-in and fro-in so am I. 

The Revell PE set was opened and the access steps on the crew door were constructed and fitted to the lower section of the door and given a coat of XF83 and also a black coat for the cockpit. I did not fit all the PE as much of it will not be seen so only the main item was fitted.

More later.

Thanks.

 

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[Head in the clouds.]

3 hours ago, andyf117 said:

If you haven't fully assembled it yet,

Thanks Andy, I did read about this light but could find no other reference or pictures to go further with it so that pic you have would be a great help. I have built the sponsons but not attached to anything so I may be able to dream up a way to do it.

XV 651 has not had any work on it's sponsons so I can incorporate the light with no real hardship.

[Dads203]

You could cut the square out of the sponson and build a box to drop in place,

A few tabs on the inside to stop it from falling though and should have it 

 

This is what I did for my build , gives you an idea, excuse the rough flot bag painting, it did get tidied up later.

 

 

 

 

The interior is starting to look great BTW 🙂 

 

HTH 

 

Dan 

 

 

 

 

[Head in the clouds.]

13 minutes ago, Dads203 said:

This is what I did for my build

Ah...now all is clear. Good idea Dan to build a little box and drop it in, I shall explore that idea and see what I can come up with.

 

16 minutes ago, Dads203 said:

The interior is starting to look great BTW 🙂 

 

Thanks, it is however sucking up a lot of build time but ZB506  will be the only one with open doors, the others can be a bit more basic.

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[Head in the clouds.]

Following on from the advice of andyf117 and Dads203 I set about the problem of the missing lamp and housing in the starboard sponson. After looking at the way I had built up the wheel bay from scratch within the sponson it was apparent that I could not do the suggested and easier way of making a small box and dropping it in without loosening the rear of said wheel bay.

So I came up with another cunning plan. First the obligatory opening and then make up from square rod the base of the lamp bay shaped to fit within and to the inside cavity, then drill a small hole in the top of insert and place metal rod in small hole. Lower into place, glue and once set remove rod. Fill hole and I think I just about pulled it off.

 

 

 

Could any of you guys help me on this; the kit has many raised rivets and I don't think they work on a 1/72 scale kit so my thought was to sand them off, ya or nay because I am undecided.

 

Over to you.

[Dads203]

7 minutes ago, Head in the clouds. said:

Following on from the advice of andyf117 and Dads203 I set about the problem of the missing lamp and housing in the starboard sponson. After looking at the way I had built up the wheel bay from scratch within the sponson it was apparent that I could not do the suggested and easier way of making a small box and dropping it in without loosening the rear of said wheel bay.

So I came up with another cunning plan. First the obligatory opening and then make up from square rod the base of the lamp bay shaped to fit within and to the inside cavity, then drill a small hole in the top of insert and place metal rod in small hole. Lower into place, glue and once set remove rod. Fill hole and I think I just about pulled it off.

 

 

 

Could any of you guys help me on this; the kit has many raised rivets and I don't think they work on a 1/72 scale kit so my thought was to sand them off, ya or nay because I am undecided.

 

Over to you.

 

Get rid of them, on the old kit they are way to over done and your going to loose a whole heap of them joining up the fuselage, re instating them would be a mare.

 

 The recess for the light has turned out well, just need a little lens now to finish off 🙂 

[Head in the clouds.]

11 minutes ago, Dads203 said:

Get rid of them

Consider it done.

 

I have some 1mm and 1.5mm Little Lens so one of those should do the trick 👍

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[Head in the clouds.]

18 hours ago, andyf117 said:

but then again, you did keep the rivets on your Blue Kestrel testbed! 

I did indeed Andy and to be fair with the dark colour of the paint scheme it does lower the obvious nature of them a little. I have already started to remove them but I may use a rivet wheel to add some detail back but in scale....we shall see.

[heloman1]

Interesting choice of build subject here. I'm liking what you have done so far, I'll be following with interest. I see EXFAAWAFU has posted soem info already, he's the go to Sea King man around here. If you look around there is an 849 cab build of mine where I did an easy little build of the rear cabin seats.

 

Colin

[Head in the clouds.]

7 hours ago, heloman1 said:

If you look around there is an 849 cab build of mine where I did an easy little build of the rear cabin seats.

Thanks Collin, I shall try to root it out and see if I can glean any more info, I do however  have some good pics of the seats used in XV371 and presumably ZB506.

[Head in the clouds.]

It has been a pleasant week at the bench mainly working on XV371.

First up was to push along with the cockpit area, it was time to get the office done so I can look to building up the fuselage. The seats needed the seat belts fitting, the Airwaves set being used for the purpose but something did not look right.

 

Looking at the set on the block I noticed that the strap at the bottom that sits across the back of the seat was wrong, pictures I have show the belt as a single item going down the the belt barrel further down the back of the seat so to this end I separated the belts and fitted them seperatly, making up the extra needed to represent the single belt atached to the back from lead foil. The belts on the left have been separated accordingly.

 

Fitted to the seats, primed and painted we have this;

 

With the collective and ,joystick the seats are fitted;

 

 

Just the pedals and com leads to fit now, the latter made up ready for fitting;

 

Although it may not be seen the hole in the cabin floor that would normally have the sonar system attached needed to be capped so a disc was cut, a support plate underneath fitted and duly fixed in place, after a coat of paint it will be adequate to do the job;

 

Nearly forgotten was the instrument panel above the pilots in the centre of the cockpit roof. Again using the Airwaves PE, which being flat needed some side panels making for it to be fixed in place, this was duly done;

 

Swimming along I was, all was well so I decided to fit the first of the grills that are fitted to the tail unit, this is where I met a large wave that up-skittled me. I do not know what I was thinking but I chiselled out a recess for the PE but once fitted it was obviously way to far up the tail unit so I had to remove it and after more hacking fit it further down.

This is where it was;

 

 

And where it is now;

 

Not much difference eh! Once filled it should be OK. Note to self..WAKE UP!

 

Jumping over to ZB506, I started to look at the internal detail for the cabin. I am using internal pics of XV371 and having no internal pics for ZB506 I shall use XV371 as a pattern, it was the same kit being tested so I am making the assumption that the test kit was same or similar.. There is a rectangular black panel mounted on blue brackets opposite the side door so, made from plastic card it presented no problems. The white panel front is just dry fitted foe illustration purposes;

 

 

It was after I did this that  big flat wet fish slapped me across the face, it dawned on me that I was using pics of XV371 as a pattern but ZB506 was a HC4 airframe, the rear bulk head had been moved back to left of the rear window so I needed to add more airframe detail. This I did but with no reference pics I went with a best guess. I do not even know if ZB506 had the fabric material which I guess may have been soundproofing that other HAR3's and HC4's had fitted. Do I leave the airframe bare  or add soundproofing ? 🙄

Pics later folks.

[Pete in Lincs]

Another day, another catch up. Loads of detail, that's what they want. Looking good.

Pete

[Head in the clouds.]

This weekend was a push to get the internals sorted for XV371 and some for ZB506.

Starting with ZB506 from the last post I rectified the missing detail best as I could. While doing this I noticed that there would be a gap in the top of the cabin in the center as seen running to the rear;

 

Using the offcut from the remedial work from adding the missing frame detail it was fixed into place and we ended up with this;

 

Now we are back on track.

 

Moving on to XV371 I filled the tail assembly,cleaned and ended up with this;

 

And while tidying up loose ends I noticed from looking at my reference pic that I got the colour of the instrument console the wrong colour so a quick flick of paint and;

 

Now, with all that out of the way I noticed something that stuck out like the proverbial 'sore thumb', the shape of the outlet/inlet on top of the cab, on the kit it is almost square but the real deal is more oval;

 

Will not do, so I needed to spring a plan and after some thought I choose my sacrificial lamb, an F4 wing tank;

 

A section was cut out, the correct outlet shape was whittled down and the walls thinned to end up with this;

 

The nasty old item was cut from the fuselage half's and the side walls shaved to accommodate the new item;

 

After a few dry runs I think I can convince it to fit which shall be done this week when I nail the two half's together.

 

The only other job this weekend was to add some detail to the Port sponson, including some scribing of panel detail, access panel hinges and flotation bag detail which was done with 0.2mm wire and little dollops of CA which I think turned out pretty OK. if you overlook my botched first attempt at scribing 🤨;

 

TTFN and thanks for looking.

[Dads203]

That flot bag looks really good matey, turned out really well 👍

 

keep it up fella 

 

Dan 

[Head in the clouds.]

A quick update. After spending two hours trying to get the two half's of XV371 together I decided, after trimming the inside of the nose above the instrument console I concluded that the only thing stopping it joining was the console itself, which was glued in. Well, it had to come out and so it did, I had made it about 1mm too wide and too square so I set to rounding off the edges hoping that once installed it would not detract too much;

 

After a repaint it was re fixed and after a dry run seemed to be on the money. So the fuselage was nailed together with very little ado, the broken front starboard  section seen in one of the first pics in the thread giving no trouble and I have to say for a half century old kit the two half's went together  beautifully with no lips on the join;

 

That is about 3 hours work but we got there in the end. More later and thanks for looking.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

On 6/14/2019 at 5:03 PM, Head in the clouds. said:

 

Nice work on the belts, but if it’s not too late you could still improve them.  The QRB (quick release box - that round thing into which all the other belts fit) isn’t on a lap strap as you / Airwaves have depicted it [this is something UK helicopter models often get wrong].  It’s actually on a 5th strap which come up between the pilot’s legs - so on the right in this excellent photo above, fitting into that notch visible in the leading edge of the seat pack.

 

If it’s too late and you’ve already closed up, it’s no biggie - yours already look excellent.  But I thought I’d just say!

Edited June 20, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Terry1954]

Another interesting Sea King build which I have to follow. Apologies for all the catch up "likes"! Impressive detail work so far.

 

Terry

[Head in the clouds.]

8 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

But I thought I’d just say!

No problem at all, it is all part of the learning process for me, it all helps me understand what I am modelling.  The fuselage has been closed up but I think I may be able to get a slither of lead strip in there where you suggest and a dollop of paint. Thanks for pointing it out.

 

7 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Apologies for all the catch up "likes"! Impressive detail work so far.

No problem Terry...'like away' it puts a smile on my face and I hope you enjoy my build.

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[Head in the clouds.]

Update time.

Not a great deal of work done as we had guests over this weekend so I thought it prudent (and courteous) to stay out the cave. First job however once I had waved goodbye was to act upon the gentle nudge i had off ex-FAAWAFU regarding the QRB on the seats, luckily I had not yet fixed the glazing so still had some access to fit them, not a big job but it does make a difference and more importantly it just looks...well...right.

 

Now I thought I would pick up on the Oil Cooler Air Outlet ( if I get any of these descriptions wrong during the build please pull me up on it as I am flying blind here)

It was now time to see if I could get it into the opening I had cut and the answer was 'yes'. I did put a little brace under it for good measure so once the glue had set I filled in the gaps. One thing I did notice was that the kit airframe is a bit flat in this area on the side, after looking at photographs I decided to build it out with some Mr White Putty with a little thinner added to make it semi liquid which I hoped would make a smooth surface with little to sand;

All I need to do is blend the edges and I think I have it.

 

A little over scale but much better in shape than the original so I am happy with it, all that is need now is to extend the tail rotor drive shaft cover and fit a grille.

 

Turning back to the undercarriage I copped of the blocks pretending to be suspension links and set to work improving this area. There is a triangular shaped bracket half way up the leg which may be a tow point( or not!) so with some thin Evergreen I made the two of them as seen here;

 

And fitted them thus;

 

Whilst on this area I noticed this blob of plastic that I could not correlate on any picture;

 

So off it came( notice the non digital method of ringing to highlight the area concerned)

 

The only other job was to chisel out the recess for the tail grilles to be added later;

 

 

That's it for now so thanks for dropping by.