Italeri 1/72 Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche - Completed

[Tim Moff]

On 8/1/2020 at 6:33 PM, HoolioPaulio said:

Still not a lot of progress as I've been focusing on the Corsair, as that GB came first and I want to get it off the deck.  At which point, I aim to start a second chopper alongside this one which should be a simpler quicker build that I've really been looking forward to, as this one ambles along.

 

But I did however nip to my LHS today for some AB cleaner, and picked up a 1:72 Hunting Percival Jet Provost, which came with a pair of pilots.  They aren't perfect, but in flight its going to look better than with no pilots

Great stuff, in flight, a man after my own ilk!

[HoolioPaulio]

To prove I'm not totally ignoring this, both halves of the fuselage (correct term on a chopper?) have had a run of of filling and wet sanding, and the first half has had its second fill and sand.  Then I'll probably give them a quick coat of light grey primer to check for any bad areas before joining the two together.  I don't want to do too much wet sanding with the cockpit in, or the canopy in place.  I also tried to clean the donor pilots up ready for primer.

[HoolioPaulio]

Bit hard to tell in the photos, but its gone pretty well from the look of it.  Just some minor pinholes in the filler need filling.  Its gone better than expected, and I'm less apprehensive about filler now.

[HoolioPaulio]

Well its more of a 'proof of concept', as it got a lot of scratches (mainly because without thinking I peeled off one side of the protective film at the beginning for some reason), and it was damn hard work with hand tools.  I could really do with a table top scroll saw, something small and cheap that does plastic and thin wood, but they aren't cheap from what I've seen.

 

But it does the job nicely

[HoolioPaulio]

Work still continues, slowly but surely.  I was about to join the fuselage halves tonight when I realised there's the gun and presumably a radar on the nose that need to be in place as I do.  Also got to get the front instrument panel painted up, then get the cockpit in place and fuselage joined, then I can go about modifying the pilots.  The rear guy already had his crotch sanded wider to fit round the instrument panel, but I also need to take a couple off mm off his legs, as his feet hit the front seat.  Not sure what the front guy will need until everything is in place.  Oh, I also had to modify the gear doors, even though all artwork on the model box is shown in flight, the kit was only designed to be gear down, I've had to remove some tabs, and will need to fill and smooth them.  Canopy has had a goat of gloss to protect it from fogging when glued.  Tail rotor casing is also in place.  I painted it up and then realised that its going to be damn difficult to mask, and its the same colour as the body anyway so its getting resprayed.  Might darken the green a bit too, instructions say Dark Olive Drab, but all pictures its closer to a dark grey with a hint of green.  Bring out the spoons...

[HoolioPaulio]

Well this isn't closing up as smoothly as the BK117 did, needing to do it in stages.

[Andwil]

That’s some serious clamping going on there!

 

AW

[HoolioPaulio]

I guess this is why Italeri don't include pilots, the guy on the right needed some modification to his legs as you can see, the crotch area was widened considerably to fit around the IP, and I had to take a couple of mm off his legs as they hit the back of the front seat.  Front IP just needs glueing then I can start checking what the front pilot needs.

 

And the third and final clamping phase was completed, so the fuselage is ready for final sanding and filling.

[HoolioPaulio]

So I painted the rotors this afternoon.  Instructions call for black, but in this situation in real life the black never seems fully black, its kind of muted.  So I ran a mix of 5 parts black to 1 part anthracite grey.

 

Here it is next to something thats actually black for comparison

 

The pilots have been modified and painted, as you can see the front pilot needed severe leg surgery.  I don't think the kit is quite right with the dimension and position of the front IP, the bottom of it is almost level with the base of the seat height wise.

 

But at least it has pilots now

 

Canopy and all panels in place (apart from the fold out missile doors as I'll paint those separate), and I think its ready for a tentative coat of black primer.  I think there will still be more filling to do, especially around the newly glued in panels.  The fit isn't great, but not bad enough to rage quite over.  Its just inconvenient...

[HoolioPaulio]

Looks pretty good in black

 

Just a few touch ups with filler required.

[HoolioPaulio]

Well I've been trying to avoid the helicopters for too long.  This needed more filling and sanding, and the BK117 decals are giving me major headaches.

 

But I finally kick myself up the backside and have finally got colour on this.  The weapons and greebles are primed, and once everything is painted it will be a brief gloss coat for the decals then flat all over (well as flat as my Microscale flat goes...)

[HoolioPaulio]

I'm calling it done.  Still  few issues with silvering on the decals, but after some things I've read on the forum I'm starting to think it might be crappy decals, as all of them so far on the BK117 have gone on silver free which is promising on that one.  Anywho, happy with this one.  The stand was more of a proof of concept of a new design which worked really well, so at some point it will get a new scratch free one.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Looks very good Paul sorry that the decals gave you trouble. ....  Ive come across a few decals over the years that no matter what I did, they just silvered. 

[Andwil]

Very nice.  Attractive helicopter, much better looking than the, shall we say, “functional” Apache.  Although no doubt had it gone into production the Commanche would have grown all manner of protuberances.

 

AW