War weary legend from 'Nam...Italeri UH-1D "Huey"

[eng]

Finished re-reading "ChickenHawk" by Robert Mason a while back and just had to have another go at a Huey!

Picked up Italeri's UH-1D in Jamiesons in Glasgow a couple of months ago and it's been plodding along a bit at a time but I'm nearly there with it so thought I'd drop in a few "in-progress" pic's. Kit went together quickly and I had the interior build, painted and weathered in 2 evenings, and most of the construction done in another evening. The US version I was building from the kit is shown as a gunship with side mounted pylons for guns/rockets but I've omitted these as I just wanted a "plain jane trash 'n' bottom hauler".

With all the doors slaved in and windows taped over a couple of coats of Halfords aluminium got me to this stage -

As I happpened to have a bit of time at this point I decided to have a bash with my airbrush and some Vallejo acrylics, so thought I'd go the whole road and have a go at preshading too -

Unfortunately by the time I'd gotten my mix ratio right and spraying in a satisfactory manner I'd lost the pre-shade but nothing ventured.............

I did take the opportunity to start the weathering by using a cocktail stick to "chip" away some of the OD acrylic to reveal the "aluminium skin" beneath, its maybe a bit overdone but I wanted a really battered and well used ship, these machines were in constant use day in, day out -

Tonight I applied the 12-15 decals from the box. I put them down between layers of Klear and they seem to have nestled down nicely although there's one tiny wee wrinkle in the wasp decal on the nose, this may disappear when they've full dried though -

It now needs a coat of matt or satin varnish before I can add all the glazing and fit the final antenna and pitot probe, and of course the main and tail rotor. I managed to snap off the delicate hub for the tail rotor from one of the fuselage halves and will need to re-attach it with a small piece of wire for extra strength. The tail bumper also came off at the spraying stage due to my clumsiness, I'll replace that with a suitable piece of wire as well.

All comments welcome, and once this is done I need to get back to painting the PR.9!

Rgds,

Eng

Edited October 19, 2009 by eng

[Dave Shaw]

Nice looking "slick". I love that book, read it about 22 years ago. Strange...I was just talking about it the other day.

This makes me wish I had one in my stash. Good work.

Dave Shaw

[Alan P]

Good start mate!

Great book, I read it at work once:

[eng]

Thank's for kind comments guy's.

Al, when you posted that pic, did you know it was Piddling it down and blowing a gale here in GLA? May all your books and bottom crack be full of sand! And I see it's true what they say about ladies hanging around pilots..............just look at them all!!

Kind Rgds,

Eng

[Alan P]

sorry for threadjack, on with the Huey show!

Edited September 27, 2009 by PHaTNesS

[eng]

They're just dipping your pockets mate! How much did the photo cost? I thought I had the dirty job, as well........

Will hopefully get my Huey finished Monday or Tuesday, got a satin finish on it today but wondering now if it should be matt, as I figure they helo's would have been dusty and worn. Any opinions on this?

I don't want to take all the masking out from inside the glazed area's only to have to do it all again when someone points out a matt finish would look better.

Might knock up a wee diorama base to display it on as I've left both side doors loose to display open and also one of the crew doors, the right hand, which would be the pilots.

More pic's soon

Eng

[T-Tango]

Nice looking Huey, coming on well.

[eng]

Finally decided after, much indecision, that matt finish was the way to go, popped out to LHS this afternoon for fresh can of Humbrol Acrylic spray can.

Figured that if I did the varnish this afternoon all would be well for progressing this evening, spraying went well and she was left in the hut for an hour to dry and let the smell dissipate before I brought it back into the house.

Went back to collect it from the hut and....................... was horrified to find a dusty white looking Huey shaped object under the box I'd put over it to protect it whilst it dried!! I thought it had had it, I think I put the mat coat on a bit to heavy rather than thin misted coats and it had taken the sheen right off it altogether. After a few minutes of extreme disappointment and dispair, I figured it might be worthwhile trying to restore the situation by reversing the dulling process by going over it again with a light coat of satin varnish, nothing ventured n all that....

Fortunately my plan paid off and I was left with a suitably matt finished Huey, although the tail rotor end of the boom could do with another light dusting of satin varnish.

I started a small diorama base for this but have already trashed it as I wasn't happy with how it looked, but have an alternate plan, I just need to get a hold of the laminator at work 1st!!!

Progressed to fitting the glazing tonight and half expected more misfortune and hassle with windows too big for the apertures but it was the opposite! All the windows except the 2 tinted eye-brow windows and the front windshield were all a gnat's chuff undersize but went in beautifully and the small gaps left around any edges carefully filled with Micro Kristal Klear on a pin. The chin windows I left til last expecting problems here but they have to have been the 2 easiest and best fitting pieces of clear plastic I've ever fitted - absolutely ZERO gap anywhere, and NO overlap at the edges!

Fitted the side doors and decided to call it quits whilst I was still winning with this one. Here's latest progress pic's -

Hopefully get the final details on tomorrow, and complete the main and tail rotor painting and marking.

All comments welcome, cheers,

Eng

[eng]

All done!!!

Pic's on Military Aircraft - ready for inspection.

Eng