Bell 412 EP in civilian form

[Flying Badger]

I need a Bell 412 EP in civilian VIP transport form for my work desk so after a bit of a struggle I got my hands on one of these kits:

I believe its the same tooling as the revell kit with the exception that the revell one has the option for another rescue setup as well (which I don't want anyway)

I've also got the Eduard PE set for this kit and after many months slowly building the cabin and getting it just right I've finally got the two fuselage halfs together and the cabin all integrated.

As the aircraft I am building was a passenger transport aircraft I needed another set of rear seats and also needed to scratch build some seat back and squab cushions.

The spare seats I got from a bell UH-1 kit I picked up cheaply (the same seat arrangement is used in all the huey derived designs) and the seat squabs were carved from a block of balsa, sanded smooth then hit with some Mr surfacer 500. More sanding with increaing grit wet and dry culminating in some 1200grit and then sprayed with a my own cream leather colour mix of acrylics (revells brown leather plus a lot of white and ivory mixed til it looked right).

I then added the PE seatbelts. I'm reasonably happy with it so far.

The model itself is OK ish - the piece I'm working on at the moment is the engine cover and rotor head covers - these don't fit well and there are large gaps if you glue it in one go however, by only doing one side at a time you can pack the back out with some filler to strengthen the area - I've only done the left side so far so you can see above the gaps on the right side and on the top (which I'll glue when both the sides at the back are dry adn I can clamp it together without risk of it parting at the back).

TFB

Edited July 23, 2012 by Flying Badger

[perdu]

I agree not enough helis on here

but you have made a darned good attempt to redress the balance

This looks lovely, I love your seats, mine never get that good

Please keep up with your progress

Promise to keep an eye out for the updates

[Flying Badger]

The heli I am building has the higher version of the skids rather than the low level skid that comes with the Italeri kit so I'm scratch building some high versions by cutting off the kit part skid supports and replacing the supports with wire versions:

Difference in height:

[Metallicus]

YAY a rotor wip!!

Great work so far!!

Cheers

Brenden

[HOUSTON]

Yayyyy !!!!

I was just thinking the same as perdu, you do not see many Helos so this is just an awesone treat.

I LOVE the color scheme as shown on the box; and I actually also think the bo x art is VERY NICE....

FB I look forward to your scratchbuilt parts..WAY TO GO !!!

[Yankymodeler]

Very cool! I'll be watching this build with great interest! As you said, there are not enough helos here, or civilian builds!

[jimbuna]

Looks great.

[shark 64]

Alright another Huey..Looks very clean so far. I love it.

Oliver

[Flying Badger]

So after completely assembling her, and masking etc. everything was going smoothly til I picked up an airbrush!

Argh.

A week of stripping paint with a variety of houshold cleaners etc and I am now back where this post started, One cockpit and cabin complete (well less one half of a seatbelt but thats and easy fix) and the rest of the fuselage in bits...... so a long rebuild ahead and hopefully a less cak-handed paint job!

Got some pics when I can upload them...

TFB

[Decoman]

How is the Eduard photo etched set for this kit? Can you say anything about it?

[Flying Badger]

Decoman

Not a bad set. there is a lot of it that is related to the military version of this aircraft so I've not really had a look at that as I'm doing a civilian version. There are some really nice bits that help with the authenticity e.g. the steps (which I'm amazed the original kit forgot!) as well as bits like tie downs etc. which are a sod to do as they are so tiny - but once on they look good.

The internal stuff is OK - some of it is really useful (e.g. the replacement panel and the pilot / co-pilot doors) and some of it isn't so great (like the doorposts between the pilot and the passenger cabin - not enough room in the kit to fit them properly)

All in all its a good kit - although I bought two copies so I'd have enough to replace the inevitable ping'd off tiny parts (like door handles).

TFB

[Flying Badger]

Pics of attempt 1 of the paint job

So after spraying her white all over I masked up where I wanted the white lines:

After that I then masked off the areas I wanted to remain white and sprayed the light green over all the exposed areas:

Then I masked off the light green stripes and sprayed the dark green:

The paint went on badly - wouldn't go on evenly in the gaps between the masking tape, and in some corners it wasn't adhering evenly. I figured I could use the hairy stick to touch up thin areas and I left it to dry - paint sometimes is less opaque when dry right?

So when it was dry I peeled off the masking tape and masking fluid areas.... or at least I tried to. The model had lots of very small sticky out bits of PE on it (tie downs etc) and the masking fluid stuck to these like a disgraced banker to his massive pension! Often the bit of PE came off (I could have dealt with that with a bit of CA glue) but soemtimes it took the paint off in small areas - the paint had not bonded well to the plastic. In some areas the paint came off with the masking in larger pieces (and I knew I couldn't fix those bits) and then the stripes were nasty and thick with lots of bleed-under the masking tape. I was a very very unhappy camper!

In short I realised that:

1. I had crap primer

2. this was the first model I bought when getting back into modeling and that it had sat unloved and unfinnished for ages, meaning that I had forgotten in the interim that I had started this one before I had relearned to wash all new models with soapy water to remove the mold lubricant - so it hadn't been washed!

3. my masking tape is crap

4. in future I need to spray masking tape edges with the background colour that they have been laid onto before applying the new colour so as to seal the edge and prevent bleed-under (thanks britmodeller forum for the very useful tip - I'll give it a try)

5. that fairy power spray really is good at stripping paint.

So this is what I have started again with:

I've now refitted all the windows and masked them off, glued several parts back together and put a few very very light coats of pale cream on the internal cabin walls, doors etc. I'll give them another coat or so tommorrow and then begin re-assembling the fuselage.

TFB

[Flying Badger]

Sigh.... another of the zombie builds from my shelf of doom.

Got it rebuilt once and the paint went rather nasty so back on the shelf of doom for a very long time.

But since xmas I managed to find a bit of enthusiasm for sorting the shelf of doom so after a lot of stripping, rebuilding, filling, adding of scratch built antennae etc. I'm back at the point of putting a primer coat on it:

Still need to add some tie downs and PE step on the skid.

FB