CH-113A Labrador delivery scheme 1/72

[Whirly]

 

As a relaxing build to balance my first entry I took from the stash a Hobbycraft CH-113 Labrador I'm going to finish with the delivery scheme as depicted below:

 

(courtesy of this excellent blog full of interesting images and infos)

 

Here below the box and contents, will update soon with more images of the current progress.

Thanks for viewing!

 

 

 

[modelling minion]

Having a soft spot for the CH-46/KV-107 family I am very interested to see how this goes together, especially as I haven't built the Hobbycraft kit.

That blog is fantastic isn't it, everything that you always wanted to know about the Labrador/Voyageur but were afraid to ask.

Excellent choice sir,the scheme is a cracker too.

[Jabba]

Certainly a bright colour scheme, good luck with the build.

[Whirly]

On 8/3/2020 at 11:09 PM, modelling minion said:

Having a soft spot for the CH-46/KV-107 family I am very interested to see how this goes together, especially as I haven't built the Hobbycraft kit.

That blog is fantastic isn't it, everything that you always wanted to know about the Labrador/Voyageur but were afraid to ask.

Excellent choice sir,the scheme is a cracker too.

I knew this would catch your attention!  

I intended to build this subject during the Group Build hosted by you but, as is often the case, I just about completed one model and this went again to the back row.

The Hobbycraft kit has strange origins, seems a simplified copy of the Fujimi kit but some items are completely different. One interesting note is that someone later got inspiration from the Hobbycraft kit itself...

 

 

You will recognize here those crazy Christmas stars we saw in the Hobbyboss kit!

Edited August 5, 2020 by Whirly

[Whirly]

For the decals section I will use the Belcher sheet BD11.

I'm a bit in doubt regarding the red 509-102 specified instead of fluorescent red-orange though: admittedly I could found only ONE image were the paint is clearly fluorescent and it is of the first airframe delivered which has other unique features, like the all-red fuselage flash.

This image is taken before service acceptance and it seems a bit brighter than plain red. And also this gives the same impression. This hue is very elusive and even color images can be treacherous.

Written references though all state fluorescent paint, even the quite authoritative Patrick Martin's book cited by the decals instructions.

I fear I've already fallen into another of those color conundrums...

 

 

 

[Patrick Martin]

The delivery scheme was with Fluorescent Red-Orange and was later changed.  It was changed with the issue of drawing 51844B on February 26, 1965.   There was also an underside patch of the Fluorescent Red-Orange initially that was dropped.  There were other differences on delivery as well including an outline to the Rescue titles,  the flash did not have the standard whitr within.  All of this and drawings can be found in "RCAF Aircraft Finish and Markings 1947 - 1968" and in the follow on Vol.2.

 

PM

[modelling minion]

5 hours ago, Whirly said:

You will recognize here those crazy Christmas stars we saw in the Hobbyboss kit!

Of all the things to get copied! Whoever first put those starts in, whether it be Hobbycraft or HobbyBoss wants flogging.

 

Nice decal sheet isn't it, I picked one up last time Mike was at Telford.

[AMB]

26 minutes ago, modelling minion said:

 

 

Nice decal sheet isn't it, I picked one up last time Mike was at Telford.

I have one of these in my stash too. 

Edited August 5, 2020 by AMB

[Hockeyboy76]

That scheme looks great. Can’t wait to see this come along. 

[Whirly]

Hello, showing a bit of progress.... 

Those who have seen the Fujimi kit will notice a "family resemblance", the only glaring difference is the absence of the separate rear opening doors. The alternative panels for the engines and the rear rotor pylon are insead substantially identical.

Here I installed the windows and applied Maskol in preparation for the cabin painting.

I installed the cabin floor just for structural integrity, I'm not planning any extra work on the interior. Please note an easy mistake I did: the rear bulkhead should be positioned BEHIND the ledge you can see in the following image, otherwise all the cockpit will be completely off (don't ask how I discovered it later...)

Speaking of the cockpit, this is the front bulkhead with those fancy stars deleted.

And finally a bit later with more assembly done.

Thanks for looking!

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Whirly

[Patrick Martin]

Remember on delivery - they had the small tanks..... the ex Army birds received the larger Kawasaki tanks during conversion.....

[Whirly]

On 8/5/2020 at 4:24 PM, Patrick Martin said:

The delivery scheme was with Fluorescent Red-Orange and was later changed.  It was changed with the issue of drawing 51844B on February 26, 1965.   There was also an underside patch of the Fluorescent Red-Orange initially that was dropped.  There were other differences on delivery as well including an outline to the Rescue titles,  the flash did not have the standard whitr within.  All of this and drawings can be found in "RCAF Aircraft Finish and Markings 1947 - 1968" and in the follow on Vol.2.

 

PM

Hello Patrick,

thank you for reminding me all these details: I did my homework and retrieved a copy of your book to go in deeper detail.

This spurred other questions. For example: the delivery scheme has fluorescent red-orange "RESCUE" titles, whereas the later scheme with "SAUVETAGE" on the right side is stated to have plain orange titles. Do this mean that the titles supplied in the decal sheet can't be correct for both schemes?

 

22 hours ago, Patrick Martin said:

Remember on delivery - they had the small tanks..... the ex Army birds received the larger Kawasaki tanks during conversion.....

Yes, you are correct again and I was forgetting this peculiarity of the original Labradors. In 1/72 the tanks should be about 3mm shorter, right?

 

More points to take care of:

1- original fuel dump pipes, simpler and very different from the later ones

2- What is it? Seems some kind of exhaust or vent but I can't find trace of it in later walkaround pictures of Labradors...

3- You mentioned an outline to the "RESCUE" titles. Here it is and clearly visible: I don't think it can be reproduced unless having proper decals produced on purpose, but just out of curiosity what hue should be the outline? Seems a pale orange and really wonder what could be its purpose in the regulator's mind.

 

 

[Patrick Martin]

I thought the tanks were not as wide as well - have a look at the Airfix kit.

never been able to trace the CF-POE as well

there was an odd black disk on the bottom that has not been solved

the lack of APU kink in the tail was always the big issue on the Fuj kits, a local guy did make a replacement.....

PM

[JOCKNEY]

This is going to be really striking when completed look forward to watching this one come together.

Cheers Pat

[Whirly]

On 8/15/2020 at 11:00 AM, JOCKNEY said:

This is going to be really striking when completed look forward to watching this one come together.

Cheers Pat

Thank you Pat, I'm going really slow for a while but I promise this will be finished by the deadline!

I gave the cabin an overall coat of dark gray to hide all the missing detail, this time I won't bother with the red canvas seats since sometimes they can't be seen in the early images, I guess they were not always installed or at least this is my excuse!

 

 

Closing the fuselages was quite difficult beacuse of some distortions in the rotor pylons: I chose to glue the main halves first and then proceed step-by-step forcing the offending parts in place.

Please note that I opened the intakes in the rear pylon with a cutter and various file shapes: all kits have them molded closed with a difficult seam to treat, so it's anyway less work to open them up!

There are also some air vents peculiar to the US CH-46 just behind the cabin glass: I puttied them over since they are not needed for any canadian or Kawasaki variant.

Finally, I determined the kind of window (flat or dome shaped) to install in each hole observing photos. I'm not completely sure of my conclusions but there are variations and they seemed to change with mre domes in later years.

 

[modelling minion]

Slow and steady is definitely the way to go with this, much better than having seams pop open again.

[Whirly]

Not too slow though!

Hope to regain the time lost in this long summer hiatus: first some images of the little work done in these few weeks.Airframe is nearly complete here. I have installed a resin tail I duplicated from my previous Kawasaki build, this is a necessary change if you want to do an early Labrador.

 

 

Unfortunately the fit is not that good. Maybe something got lost in the duplication process but I suspect the Hobbycraft kit is not exactly identical to the Fujimi kit.

 

 

Milliput was needed to fair in the resin piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 The front pilon remained quite distorted and had to correct with filler and more Milliput. At least the worst case will be hidden by the rotor plate.

 

 

Thanks for viewing!

[CliffB]

You've done a good job with the filler.  It's coming together nicely.

[Jabba]

Nice work on the Aft Pylon.

[Whirly]

Thank you @CliffB and @Jabba !   While progressing slowly with the main airframe I got briefly distracted by the rotors: I wanted drooped blades to give more realism, but the hard and brittle plastic was not particulary collaborative, so I tried with an hairdryes set to low heat. Gently, very gently... too gently: nothing happens. Just a little more heat, only a little, noooo, too much heat!

 

 

 

Well, this blade was gone, so patiently rebuilt it with Contrail airfoil strut of the biggest size and some plasticard strips to reach the correct chord.

 

 

The blade root was salvaged from the original part, at least this was not damaged.

 

 

I was not at all amused by this adventure  and I still have to recover before attempting another method.

[Col.]

Good save on the rotor blade.

[desert falcon]

Nice salvage work!

[Whirly]

Another work needed is adding the front pilon "louvres": in the Fujimi kit they are represented as panel lines without any depth, Hobbycraft didn't even attempt anything.

After much thinking adout I chose this solution which worked for me: first engrave two very deep lines with an Olfa P cutter. You have to do many light passes because the blade can skip very easily on the curved surface and you have to keep it as much perpendicular to the fuselage side as you can, the groove should be partly hidden when viewed from the front.

 

 

 

Now you have to define the correct shape, for this I used heat streched sprue glued with plenty of tamiya cement to let it merge into the trench.

 

 

[Whirly]

And here is the finished improvement: I'm quite satisfied by the result 

 

 

[Jinxman]

Nice bit of modelling that - result looks great.