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Revell 1/72 EC135 Air Ambulance - WiP


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Dear HP

The same thing happened to me with the windows. The trick is to find a way of pushing the window back in place. What I did was drill a small 0.5mm hole through the fuselage on the opposite side and pushed a bit of stiff wire though the hole to pish the window into place. The window surround decal will hide any glue marks and the hole can be easily filled after the window is in place.

 

Regards Toby

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That seems like a really good plan actually.  Unfortunately in my annoyance I already pulled the windscreen back out to do it.  I fixed the broken side and strengthened the other side, and now I will mask them before re-fitting the windscreen.  The only up side is I can clean up around the windscreen frame and try and get it seated a little better.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi H-P. I'm just checking if you have ventured back towards this project or are you still keeping it on the back burner?

Kind regards,

Stix

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  • 3 weeks later...

My apologies @PlaStix all 3 of my current group builds got put on hold, I had a lot on in real life and didn't get much time for modelling.  But I return from a family break in a lodge in the woods in North Wales all refreshed, so decided this would be best tackled first.  I had already decided it would be best to mask the side windows before replacing the windscreen in case they came out again.  Ready for windscreen refitting now, will fill the centres with liquid mask just before painting as it can be easy to scrape off accidentally...

 

TVeNi0g.jpg

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Sorry guys, I think I'm done with this one for the GB at least, I just don't have the mental capacity to keep battling it right now.  The windscreen is going OK, but the exhausts have got me beat right now.  Such poor design.  I have to make them fit in this hole before the lid goes on, but the shape of them does not match the contours of the fuselage.

 

Kpsim68.jpg

 

As you can see I tried to make a bracket to hold one in place but it will not sit correctly when the lid is on, so I need an alternate plan

 

ZeYEQQ3.jpg

 

😔

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3 hours ago, HoolioPaulio said:

Sorry guys, I think I'm done with this one for the GB at least, I just don't have the mental capacity to keep battling it right now.  

This is supposed to be a fun, relaxing, hobby.

When a kit is no longer fun to build, box it up and put it somewhere out of the way and never feel guilty

I have dozens of part finished kits. Some days I go back to one and do a bit more on it. Some times I get that 'eureka' moment with an idea to solve a problem

One or two kits still have me beat though

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/28/2021 at 8:01 PM, HoolioPaulio said:

the exhausts have got me beat right now.  Such poor design.  I have to make them fit in this hole before the lid goes on, but the shape of them does not match the contours of the fuselage.

They're backward. The instructions must be wrong - no wonder you're frustrated! They slope rearward and should fit better (hopefully) for you that way. Keep up the good work - with over ten years experience working on BK117/EC145 helicopters, I'm enjoying your project so far!

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11 hours ago, Bell209 said:

They're backward

 

Ha, sorry, lazy photo cause I was done with it at the time.  Thats just how they were blu-tack'd to the stick.  The instructions do have them sloping rearward, but the only way to hold them in place before the lid goes on would be tacked in place with glue, but then you have to hope you have them lined up correctly for the lid.  If you push the flush to the bodywork which you would think was correct, then the top it too upright for the lid to go on.  Its really hard to describe.  It would be nice to be able to push them through the holes from the back once the lid is on.

 

So I was thinking about gently tacking some stiff-ish wire to the back of them that comes out through tail boom hole, glue the lid on, then try to manoeuvre them into place from the outside.  I'll test that at some point, I do want to finish this.

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  • 4 months later...

Well well well, look what got resurrected from the shelf of doom.  After pretending it didn't exist for 4 months, I had a brain wave last night and got the exhausts in place.  This involved drilling two tiny holes through them, and threading through some fuse wire

 

SAx3ZR1.jpg

 

Putting some superglue round the bottom half of the opening, then holding the 'lid' in place and pulling into position so they got tacked into place

 

gXU0PvE.jpg

 

Then a big dollop of UV curing resin to secure them, and the last thing I need is these getting pushed back in further down the line

 

o7dXiQO.jpg

 

And after the heartache this kit gave me during the GB it was intended for I'm more than happy with the result.

 

KQXeX1H.jpg

 

Knowing what I do now, if I did another one I'd probably cut the top bit in half, glue it to the fuselage halves, put the exhausts in place from behind, then close the fuselage up and tidy the join on the top, but hey-ho.

 

Some tidy up still required but hopefully I can get this back on track.  I really wanted to finish it as my little to nod to my wife, and all NHS staff and emergency services people in general.

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  • 5 months later...

So after another long period of no motivation to do any modelling I cleared out all the crap that had built up in my spray booth and got moving on this one again.  I got the windscreen in place for hopefully the final time, and got the the tail assembled and installed, and the skids built up (but not attached its just sat on top of them for now), and the rotors assembled.  Next job is filling and smoothing the join between the tail and body before masking the windows and finally getting some primer down on this.

 

znO6AHl.jpg

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I wonder if there is a law saying that the clear parts can't fit on 1/72 scale helicopter models. I have had that problem with a couple of different kits.

I have built the EC135 kit and built it as a Swedish police craft. One thing that Revell messed up with is the main rotor. It turns the wrong way so Revell want us to cut the blades loose and turn them around. I did a quick dirty fix instead. I turned the rotor assembly upside down and bent the rotor blades down as they would point upward. Perhaps wrong but less problematic than cut and reattach them. https://baecklund.eu/scalemodels/72/civ-choppers.html

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4 hours ago, Orso said:

I wonder if there is a law saying that the clear parts can't fit on 1/72 scale helicopter models. I have had that problem with a couple of different kits.

I have built the EC135 kit and built it as a Swedish police craft. One thing that Revell messed up with is the main rotor. It turns the wrong way so Revell want us to cut the blades loose and turn them around. I did a quick dirty fix instead. I turned the rotor assembly upside down and bent the rotor blades down as they would point upward. Perhaps wrong but less problematic than cut and reattach them. https://baecklund.eu/scalemodels/72/civ-choppers.html

 

Yes the windscreen has been the second most annoying bit so far, those damn exhausts being the most frustrating.  I never even checked the rotors, and luckily they are the right way.

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11 hours ago, Orso said:

I think that the rotors turn the wrong way on the kit. The rotor tips show this clearly.

 

 

2 hours ago, desert falcon said:

@Orso is right, on both the 135 and 145 family of helicopters the main rotor blades are rotating counter clockwise when looking from above. 

 

Bah, I went off the fact that my instructions don't mention flipping them :( After all the previous issues I don't know if I can be bothered to flip them, but its going to bug me if I don't... 

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I did a quick dirty fix on the rotor issue. I turned the whole assembly upside down and using hot water I bent the blades in the opposite direction, so they slope downwards. There is probably something that is wrong with this setup, but I think that it would be a minor fault.

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Some proof that I continue to work on this, all remaining parts not yet attached have been primed.  I'm afraid I took the executive decision to leave the rotors pointing the wrong way.  After all the previous complications I just feel like I need to finish this with out more issues to overcome.

 

FHQRSzv.jpg

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So I got the rotors painted my shade of 'medium grey', just need yellow tips and steel hub.  Also had to make some way of holding it for painting.  As the mounting holes for the skids are tiny locating holes, and it has about 13g of lead under the floor I needed something more substantial.  So spare sprue and creativity to the rescue, I made a frame that I can hold while spraying, and stand it on when drying, lightly tacked on to where the skids will go later.  Just need to finish liquid masking the main windscreen, which I'm having to do in stages so it doesn't all pool at the bottom, and its ready for light grey primer to see what sanding and filling is required.

 

muogSFo.jpg

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On 7/11/2022 at 1:16 AM, HoolioPaulio said:

I'm afraid I took the executive decision to leave the rotors pointing the wrong way. 

 

Just don't tell anyone and they won't notice ;)

 

You're making good progress, the main rotor is looking good too. For future reference (though I doubt you will be doing more of these :)), the official colour code of the main rotor blades is RAL 7012 basalt grey.

 

Cheers

Johnny b 

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5 hours ago, desert falcon said:

For future reference (though I doubt you will be doing more of these :)), the official colour code of the main rotor blades is RAL 7012 basalt grey.

 

Thanks for the info.  I have the Revell EC145 Demonstrator in the stash, so I've ordered a bottle (Vallejo, my preferred paint do one 70.869), which will become my default "medium grey" as I'm almost out of my self mixed one and I didn't write down the ratios originally 😐

 

With all the other niggles with this build I don't think I'll bother repainting it.  I'm interested to see how close my version was to the actual colour though...

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I think your rotor blade colour looks just right, no reason to repaint that at all 👍 

 

And I agree, Vallejo paint is good. No smell and easy to clean. Out of interest and partly necessity, I’ve been using Revell Aqua Color lately. They do need a bit of getting used to (as in being very thick) but the end result is just as good as Vallejo I think. 
 

Keep us posted on the progress … 

 

 

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