WAH-64D Apache - hopefully

[chrislowe]

After the Kittyhawk Jaguar, I wanted to do something from the rotary side of the house. 

 

I had a few options in the stash, but @perdu made a lovely job of an Apache, so I thought I'd give that a shot. I have the Revell kit, having previously read on BM that it has all the defensive suite parts to make a good job of the British version.  Despite that, there's relatively little aftermarket available so I'm using the PE & make for the Hasegawa kit, Armoury wheels, Rotor Craft crv-7 rocket pods and some Eduard Hellfires. 

 

First job, as always is the cockpit. There are decals in the kit, so I started by removing the moulded switches from the tub and applying the PE.

 

 

Followers by paint and a wash

 

 

The interiors are quite dark, but I'm going with a slightly lighter palette to try to help the wash reveal the details.

 

Next up was the seats. These come with moulded belts so they were removed in favour of PE. The pictures in the walk around section show that the seats have a very obvious weave

 

 

so I tried covering them with microfiber. 

 

 

Glued on with PVA and then trimmed when it was nice and dry 

 

 

Then paint and the PE was ready to go on.

 

 

They turned out ok, I think. Better to the naked eye than they look in that picture.

 

The "hopefully" suffix in the title is because this kit seems to have some quality issues. There's an Apache in there somewhere it's just up to the modeller to discover it.

 

This is a good example 😱

 

 

 

There's also almost enough flash to make a second Apache in 144, but more of that later.

 

The IP needed most of its detail removing anyway for the decals so I fixed the missing bezel at the same time.

 

 

 

The front IP isn't much better

 

 

 

Two sink holes to fill, but they came out ok. This is the pilots IP, not sure if I got a pic of the gunners panel before I fitted it

 

 

 

Here they are in situ with seats and sticks. In place too

 

 

 

Test fitting in the fuselage revealed that the fwd  coaming was to thick for the IP to four properly and also, checking with the wallpaper section the moulding was too long. You can see here where I think it should be trimmed

 

 

 

To bring it closer to this

 

 

And it also needs thinning. One side is done here so you can see what the issue s

 

 

 

And finally both cockpit and fuselage were ready to go

 

 

 

The tail rotor shaft needs to be fitted to the other half and then we're ready to close-up.

 

Happy new year

 

Chris

 

Edited January 4, 2021 by chrislowe

[perdu]

This is a great start Chris, I will be popping in to enjoy the journey.

 

👍

[chrislowe]

There's a number of pieces that make up the rear rotor shaft assembly. They're layed out in the instructions like this.

 

 

But as there are no linkages supplied, what it doesn't tell you is that part 76 has to have a particular orientation to part 61 so that eventually it's posts will line up with the control arms on the rotors. 

 

As I mentioned before, with some parts the correct shape is in there somewhere, it's just left to the modeller to reveal it...

 

Here's a picture showing the extra plastic that comes with piece 76 and is neither on the diagram nor the walk around, but they give it ye anyway. I've trimmed the right side so you can see what the left side should look like.

 

 

 

So definitely some things to watch out for, but I think that when I've removed the extra bits and added the bits that they left out it'll be somewhere useful.

 

This is where I've got to and now it's done, I'm ready to close up. 

 

 

Happy modelling

 

Chris

 

[perdu]

Boy oh boy, I wish Italeri had gotten even slightly that close to the rear tail rotor gear. Looks good.

 

 

[Homer]

The texture you achieved on the seats is remarkable. I know  this kit of old and it can be very taxing at times.You stick with it iam sure it will turn out to be a fine model. 

[chrislowe]

It feels like this thread is long overdue for an update. Last time I was ready to close up the two halves of the fuselage. 

 

 

Next came the engines which come in two halves with a front piece that includes the fan blades. In this picture you can see that there are some big lumps of extra plastic in the exhausts

 

They go together ok ish

 

But the shape of the exhausts is wrong compared with the PE

 

That meant a while load of reshaping and cutting was required.

 

On to the now glued fuselage and I wanted to fit some of the PE 

 

The starboard side had the correct vents marked in the plastic so just cut them out, make a small recess and fit the PE. 

 

 

The port side however had nothing so after checking with the Waldorf section I used the other side to make a template which i used to position the holes for these vents and scratch built the bulge in this panel from sprite and styrene sheet

 

Nacelles next. The fit with the fuselage is good, but the fit with the stub wings ...

 

 

😱

 

Port side is better.

 

But if you look at the reinforcing "lump" at the wing root and compare with this from the walk around...

 

The reinforcing "lump" is kinda correct for the starboard side, but on the port side it's more like three shape of a fillet weld . So the big lumps came off and was replaced with a piece I scratched from sprue

 

 

T'other side was filled too, before the primer went on

 

The final panel went on underneath. This needed a lot of filler and a lot of sanding to make it seamless

 

That picture is a WIP. Lots more to do after that before I was happy to move on to the pylons

 

Engines and canopy on 

 

Handles and defensive suite installed.

 

 

And the engine mounted sensors of apparent endless breakability. 

 

 

Finally some preshading

 

 

Bit of a test

 

 

Happy so far, so crack on with the rest

 

 

I left that to dry for a while to sort out the issues with the rotors. Particularly ill-defined and lots of flash meant a lot of clean up to start with this

 

And to end up with this

 

 

Still plenty of work to do,  but getting somewhere useful. Finally for today here it is on the shelf, in natural light, with rotors in place to see what it looks like

 

Hope you like it so far.

 

Happy modelling!

Edited March 9, 2021 by chrislowe

[SaminCam]

Really like it so far, great job!