Well it's been a productive day and at last the chopper is beginning to resemble something like it. This is where we are at with scratching and etched detail though this is by no means complete. The canopy is on but what a problem, I just hope that there are no hidden blotches under the masking.
This cable on the stbd side is to operate the belly sling which is yet to be built. The resin floats are sadly very pitted with what I can only assume is bubbles in the moulding. I tried two kinds of filler to get rid of them without success and then I hit on the idea to use 'Zap-a-gap', fingers crossed this has worked.
Looking at pictures of this machine I spotted this cable on the port front side. Research indicates that it's a sea anchor. Surprise, surprise.
As mentioned, I'm looking at placing an under belly sling, the brown cable at the bottom is for the operating controls while the one seen on the upper side (port) and the small bit on the belly is for the winch cable that tucks the sling under the belly. A finer wire will be inserted into this when the sling is made and fitted.
Day off tomorrow, lunch out and the birthday of a friend to celebrate. Looking forward to it.
Krikey Vic, your making some real progress on that heckalopter.
But whats the hair screen for on the hull? Isn't that for the sonar tranducer? Or is it an Aussie thing?
Looking at the photos I have it seemed that this area had some form of mesh on it but this turned out to be the pixels on the blown up photo. It as been removed but the cover plate (not provided in the kit) will remain as I'm unsure if this was in fact fitted to the Aussie version but the bumps are there.
Time was not on my side today so not much done, just a bit of filing and general cleanup with a mild wash included before giving it an test undercoat, possibly on Wednesday.
It's been almost a week since I last posted anything here, mainly on account of a rather painful left shoulder and upper chest. Something to do with nerve damage in the left side of my neck which flares up from time to time.
Anyway I've not been to idle as I managed to get an undercoat onto the chopper which showed up all the bad bits that needed attention. The biggest bugs were these little pin prick holes in the resin which I thought I had sorted, sadly not though and in the end I've simply coated the resin with a few brush strokes of a thickish enamel paint. After drying, it seems to have done the trick. So now we are ready to spray on the top coat, hopefully tomorrow.
Other things that have been tackled are the undercarriage legs, little stubby things that have been enhanced with the use of PE.
Next we have the under belly sling hook, totally scratch built and just waiting for the initial coat of paint to dry.
Have also started on the tail and main rotor blades. The kit main blades have this ribbing on both sides which is okay for the US Sikorsky with structured blades but the Aussie machine were converted to carbon fibre blades which was not ribbed.