SH-60B 1/35 Seahawk by Kitty Hawk

Good work so far!

Happy Monday!

I'm at the stage where waiting for paint to dry is the number one activity. I sprayed Allclad Aqua Gloss as the gloss coat. It's water-based and has no odor. It takes a number of hours to be safe do decaling. I'm champing at the bit to start doing decals, but have to hold off until the finish is all fixed.



I finished touching up the tail rotor, fixed a blemish on the tail boom and went back and touched up damages to the body color. That touch up necessitated doing a deep clean of my airbrush in the ultrasonic.

While all this was drying I built the load outs. I'm adding one towed sonar and two torpedoes. The torpedoes had ridiculous propellers; a series of tiny, bent PE that had to be glued on is a radial array. It was a bit of struggle and, while necessary, i'm not a big PE fan for PE's sake.



Here are both of them complete ready for paint.



The torpedoes have a three-color paint scheme: props and tail = red, back = silver, middle = O.D, and nose Yellow-orange. I shot the tail with Tamiya rattle can silver.



I also shot the main rotor blades with Tamiya White Primer to maine the Misison Paint adhesion problem. I then sprayed more clear on the areas when I re-shot the body color to fix some discolored areas.



When this is fully cured tomorrow, I believe that I can actually start decaling next session. I have to add the mirrors in the rear-view mirrors, paint the outer ends of the sonobuoys in the array. I did remove the masking in the exhaust duct and it came out okay. I can't remove any masking on the glazing until all the decals and any panel accent work is done, and the flat coat is applied. The end is near. I also have to mount the blades and those fold clamps... can't forget that. The last thing to do is add the marker lights.

It makes me very happy when folks are following closely. Posting this stuff takes some effort and it's good that it doesn't go to waste.

Short session made even shorter, which I'll explain later.

Painted the fold joint details and masked and painted the two torpedoes.



The torps came out nicely and still need the prop areas to be painted red and a decal to be put on. The plans call for the warhead to be yellow-orange.



I was all set to start adding decals to the tail boom now that the fold area was finished and then I noticed that I had OVERSPRAYED YELLOW-ORANGE ALL OVER THE GLOSS BLACK. it seems that I was holding the torpedoes in proximity to the work area and made a slight mess. I then had to go back and re-shoot the black and that killed the decal session.

I did get the first coat of body color on the tops of the main rotors. Tomorrow I'll do the bottom and that will get them ready for assembly.



Tomorrow, decaling will officially commence. I glued back on that fussy antenna that kept getting knocked off. This time with very stout piece guitar B string.

Looking very good. Lesson learned on the overspray.

Good judgement is the result of experience which is the result of bad judgment.

Almost everything that can be painted is. The decaling began in earnest and is basically finished. The aircraft didn't have as many stencils as other models I've built. I use MicroSet first, put down the decal and the MicroSol. I may add more MircroSol if more shriveling is needed.

I started on the starboard side, did the same side of the tail boom, did the port side and then port side boom. I've complained about the instructions, but the decals are excellent. They're thin, have nice narrow margins, didn't tear, laid down well with solvent, have good color registration and opacity.



Because of the folded tail, I had to slide the HSL decal under the folded wing and get it into position. It goes down parallel to the little vertical stab that sticks out the back and that's completely behind the folded horizontal stab.



I did the same routine on the ports side, then I decaled the torpedo and towed sonar. There's only enough decals for one torpedo which makes no sense to me.



And the I added the missing radome under the nose. I thought the FLIR was an option for this part misreading the instructions. It was pointed out to me that it is essential. I traced the part and scraped off the many layers of paint so the solvent cement could do its job. I now have to go back and airbrush the blend of body and bottom color. There's one decal that goes on the front of the dome. And then all the painting will be done! Well actually, I still have to prepare the blade stowage racks and paint them, and put on all the marker lights and missile warning sensors. Can't forget those. The tail sensors are buried deep in the space protected by the folded wings.



The main rotor blades are fully painted also.

I'm going to do some very conservative weathering including some panel accenting. Then I'll give it an overall flat finish (except the glossy tail, which remains so.) And do final assembly. I still have to order the figures from Reedoak and do the base work. We're almost done.

Nice - really coming to life now.

It definitely is!

I started today with the best of intentions to finish up more of the model and get the blades mounted on the hub. I decided to reinforce the flimsy pins that hold the plastic blade knuckle to the hub swivel by drilling and pinning with 0.032" phos-bronze. After drilling I attempted to hold the two parts of the blade knuckle with a clamping tweezers. Before I could get the glue near the joint the small mating part snapped out the tweezers with the wire attached. The wire hit the floor and the part.... well... the part went into the atlernate universe. I swept the entire freaking shop and examined every flat surface, but it was gone, gone, gone. (BTW: Great old Everyly Brothers song from the mid 60s).

So there's three parts when I need four. And I really need that part!



So I photographed the part from four directions, measured the critical dimensions with the digital calipers and drew a diagram, and then drew it in SketchUp. I put it into the slicer and will print it tomorrow. It will print in a little over an hour. (dimensions are in inches).



Here's the drawing.



Here's the array of many parts on the slicer.



Why make one when I can make a bunch. Since they're all the same height, the print time does not change and the total resin use is $0.29. It's really great to know that in some cases, even in desparation, I can still create parts when I need them. This really is only reasonable with small, east-to-visualize parts. If I screwed up one half of the fuselage, that would be a different matter.

I did get one other thing done and that was painting the ends of the sonobuoy dispenser. This view is after painting the NATO black, but BEFORE, back painting to fix all the parts that shouldn't be black. A little touch up with body color and it will be perfect! Really happy how nice the thin decals pulled down to the surface. You can see all the details underneath. When flat-coated they'll look like they were painted on.

Useful things those printers.

Good work so far!

Today was a milestone day with the panel accenting, flat coat and unveiling of the glazing. I got a got set of prints, but they're too thin. I got the profile dead on, but the depth needed some shimming.

Here's the comparison to the original

After fitting it on the hub and blade I found that it was about 0.040" too thin and used some styrene CA'd in place to do the job. It all fit nicely. I could have edited the drawing and reprinted the part, but I was able to make the shim work. If it didn't I would have reprinted it.

It all fit nicely until, both eyes fractured when I put a little bit too much downward pressure when fitting the hub on the craft and trying to determine how much droop the back two blades will have to have. I will epoxy the blade without the full eyes and then use some Bondic to reconfigure the contours.

I used the Tamiya Black Panel Accent to highlight all the doors, seams and compartments this machine has. It looks pretty awful when you first put this stuff on. You have to let it dry before removing the excess.

The bottom had a lot of places.

I use the traditional Q-tip lightly dampened with low odor mineral spirits. I was annoyed that the mission paint dissolved in the mineral spirits. That's not supposed to happen. Tamiya paint DOES NOT. Also on the bottom, some of gloss coat was not sturdy enough and the accent leaked into the flat paint underneath making clean removal of the excess difficult.

But, with all of that, the final results after shooting with Tamiya clear flat boosted with a bit more flat base, came out pretty nicel

There will be more dirtying the bottom with pastels since even on clean Seahawks there enough stuff being discharged from various vents to make things interesting.

I actually almost blew by getting all set up to spray the flat only to realize I didn't do any of the panel acccenting. You can't do that on a flat finish. It makes a mess.
After the flat dried it was time for the "great unveiling". I took the tape off all the glazing. I was worried that the canopy cement might not have enough grip to resist the pull of the masking tape and I hate when my worries come true. The first window I de-masked popped out. it was the window in the sliding cabin door so I was able to put it back carefully using solvent cement. All the other windows de-masked without problem except for the co-pilots door. The tape was too tight, especially where I sealed the edges with clear gloss.

That window got damaged. All the others are perfect. I put on several coats of Pledge with Future floor wax and hope it will be okay. There are two other sets of cockpit doors, but they are not for the SH-60B. The "B's" window has a curved notch taken out of it, while the others are straight. If this window is too damaged, I'll make one of those work.

Here's the glazing exposed. It's nice to see the engine again. I missed seeing it.



I did a few more punchlist items. I filled the hollow rear-view mirror housings with Bondic and then painted them with Molotow Chrome. Decanting the marker was one of the smartest things I've done in a while. It's really slick to be able to brush the paint where you want it. The felt tips work good for the first application, but make a mess if you have to go back and add more. I also used the same to paint the oleo strut on the main gear. There's still some more tiny paint jobs that need doing and that will wait until Monday.

Above the oleo strut is an elastomer bellows. That will be painted rubber black.


I also did the back painting on the sonabuoy noses and they look good now.

One of my regulars contributors on another forum suggested using the fuel tank since the kit didn't have enough decals for two torpedos. I built it and will load the torpedo on one rack and the fuel tank on the other.

The model proper will be done some time next week. The base and figures are still out there.

Looking red hot!

Lovely work so far!

Thank you!

Input from readers caused me more work. It was one of those two-steps back and one forward.

I tried to save the damaged door window, but it was a mess. The other two door windows in the kit were for other version of the Sikorsky bird inlcuding the Blackhawk and their cockpit door windows varied slightly in configuration. I woke up thinking about this and decided to go for it. The model's coming out too good to let that crappy window detract from it.

I filed and sanded the replacement and got it to fit reasonably well.



I installed it without mess up, repainted the door's interior and did some trim painting around the outside. This took quite a while.

I then repainted the landing gear shock strut to do it like it's supposed to be. Still needs just bit of tending loving care.



Here's the fixed door and the towed sonar rear portion freehand. No decals for that. I had to blend Tamiya yellow and white to get to the lighter yellow.



And I'm repainting the sonobuoy bays. The inside is tan, and the holes are completely black as I could see looking more closely to some photos. I didn't finish this job today. I got the tan done and most of the black. I will have to back paint the body color next session.



The main struts need some brake lines. I should add them since I added all those tubes on the rotor head.

Till next time...

One of my readers in one of the other forums in which I post this thread is an actual Seahawk pilot and has been feeding me real information about details on the machine that are not easy to find. And I incorporate everything he says. Yesterday he showed me the colors of the sonobuoy dispenser, the tail of the MAD and the brake lines.

I put in the brake lines. I used magnet wire and diameters of Albion tubing to make a faux fitting. I made a strap clamp out of wine bottle foil. This stuff works great, but you first must remove any printing or coating on it with acetone. The coating prevents good gluing.



I realize that is not the kind of clamp they actually use, but the kind they use is really hard to model.

i then finished all the painting on the sonobuoy rack and it looks much better. I also painted the break line leaving the brass natural metal since the actual junction is natural metal also.



Lastly, I stripped the decal off the airbrake on the MAD (magnetic anolmaly detector) which I have been erroneaously calling a towed sonar device, and painted it flat white to simulate the styrofoam that they are now made of. I will paint the aluminum pad that holds it on tomorrow.



That brings us up to date. I need details of the engine bay cover latch. I'm going to mount both the bay door and the cockpit door with bent wires. We're getting closer to the end each day. I still have the running lights to install, do the powder weathering, and then mount the blades and the tail boom. I have to paint and install the main rotor folding in clamps. And it will be done.

Meanwhile, if y'all are interested in ship stuff, I've started another thread on this site in the building of the missing interior for the new Takom 1:72 USS Missouri 16" main turret. The model's cool, but has nothing but the exterior shell. I'm drawing and will 3D print all of the interior apparatus down to the first projectile deck. I've finished the main guns yesterday, and starting working on the below turret decks.

Here's the guns...



Here's the link to the thread.


Bis Morgan... (see you tomorrow.)