SH-60B 1/35 Seahawk by Kitty Hawk
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Crimea_River
Marshal
Doing great.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
It looks amazing so far. Looking forward to its completion.
BertUS
Senior Airman
I see you printed with resin, I just start with the resinprinter and has some issues, but I will find out that is mostly my lack of experiance 
but what kinda printer and resin you use?
Drawing are excelent, I'm really jealous
but what kinda printer and resin you use?
Drawing are excelent, I'm really jealous
- Thread starter
- #145
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
My Seahawk pilot has given me more suggestions including how each blade (main and tail) are color coded and used in managing the main rotor folding process. The blade clamps are also color coded to their respective blades. The colors are also on the main rotor hub. I'm going to color some tiny strips of Tamiya tap and add this micro-details. The scheme is Forward starboard blade is **Blue** , Aft Starboard blade is **Red** , Forward Port Blade is **Yellow** and Aft Port Blade is **black** .
I finished all the weathering I'm going to do. I dirtied the bottom up and added dirt on the walking arees on the roof. I got the engine door installed, broke it off in handling the model improperly and glued it back on again. I got the front door mounted with wire. And I spent WAYYYYY to much time screwing around with the tiny marker lights on the wheel sponsons and the windshield wipers. Didn't finish them, but will do so today.
Here's the bottom: Notice the wheels are now on.
And here's the model showing its newly attached doors. I'm very happy I was able to fix that door window. Dodged a bullet on that one.
Lastly, the wipers. I find that some of the smallest details drive me the most crazy. It's the Pareto principle at work, except it's 3% of the parts take 90% of the work (and aggravation). It's a small gluing area and they weren't drying correctly. I ended up using gel CA. I'm wiring them on since the mount points weren't holes, just tiny flat spots. I want the model to be able to put for the long haul.
When laying the model on its side while putting on the cockpit door I broke off the port side mirror. Glued it on with gel CA and then broke it off again. This time I'm going to J-B Weld it and then not touch it again.
I finished all the weathering I'm going to do. I dirtied the bottom up and added dirt on the walking arees on the roof. I got the engine door installed, broke it off in handling the model improperly and glued it back on again. I got the front door mounted with wire. And I spent WAYYYYY to much time screwing around with the tiny marker lights on the wheel sponsons and the windshield wipers. Didn't finish them, but will do so today.
Here's the bottom: Notice the wheels are now on.
And here's the model showing its newly attached doors. I'm very happy I was able to fix that door window. Dodged a bullet on that one.
Lastly, the wipers. I find that some of the smallest details drive me the most crazy. It's the Pareto principle at work, except it's 3% of the parts take 90% of the work (and aggravation). It's a small gluing area and they weren't drying correctly. I ended up using gel CA. I'm wiring them on since the mount points weren't holes, just tiny flat spots. I want the model to be able to put for the long haul.
When laying the model on its side while putting on the cockpit door I broke off the port side mirror. Glued it on with gel CA and then broke it off again. This time I'm going to J-B Weld it and then not touch it again.
BertUS
Senior Airman
It looks really great, it's a shame that I can't see it life
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
"Impressive build" is understatement for this model. The research and work you have done is amazing. Next I imagine you'll be asking Seahawk crews what brands of candy wrappers and cigarette butts should you throw about the cabin. I'm looking forward to its completion.
Good work so far!
- Thread starter
- #150
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
I really appreciate the kind words. Candy wrappers? That would mean that I was a crazy model builder, not just a dedicated one. Have to draw the line somewhere...
Regarding resin printing. Hmmm…. that's a major topic all by itself. I've offered Fine Scale Modeling Magazine to write a theme book on the subject of using the 3D resin printer in model building (as opposed to making figurines and such). They didn't respond. Regardless, I've written primers for the neophyte. I'll include links to these files. My printer is a first generation Elegoo Mars, which frankly is being outclassed by what's on the market today. I'd been watching additive manufacturing for years hoping that someday somebody would invent a cheaper one. That happened in June of 2019, when you could get one for $350 USD. I'm using Elegoo's ABS-like resin, but add 20% of Siriya's Tenacious which is a flexible resin that adds a lot of impact strength. I had to increase my layer exposure times by 2 seconds from 8 to 10 sec/layer. 100% Tenacious will make a flexible print that bounces. I didn't need that, I just wanted the parts to not be so brittle. The new Elegoo Mars 3 can do a layer in 2.5 seconds (or 3.0 with my mix) and that would improve my throughput by 300%. I'm itching to get one. They're selling for the same price mine did three years ago. I wrote these articles a little over a year ago and I'm continuing to learn new stuff all the time. For instance, I now have a Fulament, Magnetic Stainless Steel build plate that attaches to my Elegoo plate with a 3M adhesive magnetic pad. It speeds up removing parts from the machine since I don't have to remove the build plate from the Z-column. You just snap the stainless steel plate off, bend it to break the attachment of the parts and remove them. I've redesigned the kind of raft I'm using removing the sloped sides and making bigger contact foot. This has really eliminated adhesion failures that occur time to time. That's just a few things. it's a steep learning curve. You just have to start climbing...
Now onto the building...
Had an ice/sleet/rain/snow storm today and into tomorrow. Good day to spend some time in the basement building cool things.
It was pointed out to me that I mounted the engine hatch at the wrong angle, but couldn't get the work platfom part flat. Well... after carefully looking at a guy kneeling on the hatch and working on the engine, I realized that I put the wear strips on the wrong wing of the hatch. The strips go to the hinge side, not the outside. With that understanding, I removed the strips, fixed the paint, made new strips, applied them and redid the weathering. I also had to repair where I had glued the door in the wrong position to the helicopeter's body. All's well that ends well.
I then got the wipers on using the wire. Touchy, but not too difficult.
Lastly, based on Svt40's additional info, I'm adding the color-coding strips to the various places identifying all the blades, their holders and other parts. I painted some Tamiya tape and attempting to use that. It's not sticking as I wish it should. I think I'll give it a little patch of clear gloss since things stick to gloss better than flat.
Onward and upward!
It looks like they had to destroy one of these Seahawks in that successful ISIS raid last night. Mechanical troubles. In look how complex these beasts are it's amazing they work at all.
Regarding resin printing. Hmmm…. that's a major topic all by itself. I've offered Fine Scale Modeling Magazine to write a theme book on the subject of using the 3D resin printer in model building (as opposed to making figurines and such). They didn't respond. Regardless, I've written primers for the neophyte. I'll include links to these files. My printer is a first generation Elegoo Mars, which frankly is being outclassed by what's on the market today. I'd been watching additive manufacturing for years hoping that someday somebody would invent a cheaper one. That happened in June of 2019, when you could get one for $350 USD. I'm using Elegoo's ABS-like resin, but add 20% of Siriya's Tenacious which is a flexible resin that adds a lot of impact strength. I had to increase my layer exposure times by 2 seconds from 8 to 10 sec/layer. 100% Tenacious will make a flexible print that bounces. I didn't need that, I just wanted the parts to not be so brittle. The new Elegoo Mars 3 can do a layer in 2.5 seconds (or 3.0 with my mix) and that would improve my throughput by 300%. I'm itching to get one. They're selling for the same price mine did three years ago. I wrote these articles a little over a year ago and I'm continuing to learn new stuff all the time. For instance, I now have a Fulament, Magnetic Stainless Steel build plate that attaches to my Elegoo plate with a 3M adhesive magnetic pad. It speeds up removing parts from the machine since I don't have to remove the build plate from the Z-column. You just snap the stainless steel plate off, bend it to break the attachment of the parts and remove them. I've redesigned the kind of raft I'm using removing the sloped sides and making bigger contact foot. This has really eliminated adhesion failures that occur time to time. That's just a few things. it's a steep learning curve. You just have to start climbing...
Now onto the building...
Had an ice/sleet/rain/snow storm today and into tomorrow. Good day to spend some time in the basement building cool things.
It was pointed out to me that I mounted the engine hatch at the wrong angle, but couldn't get the work platfom part flat. Well... after carefully looking at a guy kneeling on the hatch and working on the engine, I realized that I put the wear strips on the wrong wing of the hatch. The strips go to the hinge side, not the outside. With that understanding, I removed the strips, fixed the paint, made new strips, applied them and redid the weathering. I also had to repair where I had glued the door in the wrong position to the helicopeter's body. All's well that ends well.
I then got the wipers on using the wire. Touchy, but not too difficult.
Lastly, based on Svt40's additional info, I'm adding the color-coding strips to the various places identifying all the blades, their holders and other parts. I painted some Tamiya tape and attempting to use that. It's not sticking as I wish it should. I think I'll give it a little patch of clear gloss since things stick to gloss better than flat.
Onward and upward!
It looks like they had to destroy one of these Seahawks in that successful ISIS raid last night. Mechanical troubles. In look how complex these beasts are it's amazing they work at all.
BertUS
Senior Airman
A bout the hatch, it's just something only People who works on the real thing saw the problem, but it's great work you repair it. About prinnting, yes I see a lot of stuff about prinnting figure, but not about small parts, I found out it's easier to print an dwarf then a control stick.
- Thread starter
- #153
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
It's a real challenge to print small parts. I do like the resin people do and draw them already mounted on a base or stick so I don't have to depend on the slicer to lay in huge supports. I was able to print 1/72 hand wheels for a German anti-tank gun for the owner of our local hobby shop. Often, while the supports enable you to print the parts, you have to destroy the same part to remove them. The greatest thing you can learn is how to pre-analyze the part to see where the trouble spots are going to be and build in solutions in the drawing stage. That comes from good judgement which is the result of experience which is the result of bad judgement.
It was one of those days where I spent 30% of my time doing new stuff and 70% of my time fixing crap that I broke off.
For the new stuff, I built the blade support racks and their associated blade clamps. The kit parts have a very narrow, scale-ish, connection between the forward half of the two-part assemblies and the main part. There are two sets that vary in size. I was seiriously concerned that this narrow part wasn't going to make it especially after it got softened by the solvent cement in its proximity.
I fixed this by drilling and applying a piece of 0.014 guitar string and a corresponding hole at the correct angle in the main part. I put on accelerator and then pooled some thin CA in the joint. Much, much stonger.
You can't use sprue cutters to cut guitar string (or any music wire for that matter). It's so hard it will put nice half-moon dents in the cutters and ruin them. You need a good hardened cutter. I have a Xuron Hard Wire Cutter. But surprisingly, my 30 year-old Channellock long-nose pliers have a cutter near the hinge and cut hard wire with no damage. It's all abou the metallurgy. Chinese tools generally don't hold up.
The Xuron cutters can't cut a tiny piece due to the thickness of the jaws, so a bit was sticking out the bottom of the assembly. This will imapale you so it needed to be removed. I used the Dremel with a diamond-coated burr. Took my time and didn't grind away the much softer plastic surrounding the wire.
The blade clamps were another small assembly that too much too much time due to the poor engineerig. They needed to be glued together OFF the blade since I'm going to airbrush the entire blade clamp, but I needed it to be spaced as it would be on the blade. I measured the blade's thickness at the point where the clamps go and then used a piece of cardboard of that width to glue the clamps. When they were reasonably set, I placed them on the blades to finally cure.
Here is the gluing set up.
And here's all the parts waiting for paint (on Monday).
I glued the rearview mirror back on. First I tried 30 minute epoxy, but it wasn't viscous enough to stay put and there was no way to clamp it. I wiped off the epoxy and then used some epoxy putty. This worked! It help the part still and cured hard. The mirror is firmly attached. It needs a little cleanup which I'll do next week.
While fussing with the mirror, I had the model supported on a foam block. It fell off and a main wheel came off, a tailwheel came of and the scissors link broke again. That's the seond time it broke off since I replaced the original with my 3D printed one. It had become a mess. I still had some printed ones left over, so I made a new one. This one I actually got the hinge wired too. Needs painting.
I painted the main rotor color coding. The tape idea wasn't working so well. Besides the hub there's also coding on the swash plate connection links.
Lastly, I got all the loadout items installed. Had to reglue the torpedo. Very small contact area for these parts... i.e., really fragile. This is NOT A TOY! IT IS NOT FOR CHILDREN TO PLAY WITH!
So, that was a pretty big week! Got a lot done and it's almost finished. What's left is putting on the main rotor blades with their stowage clamps, and put on the tail boom in the folded position. I may use epopxy putty on this application due to the small gluing area and the weight of the part.
The blade mounts when you look at a prototype image show a connection into the fuselage to locke them into position. The model does not have this, but I'm going to add it. Otherwise, all those blades are just hanging out there.
All y'all have a nice, safe weekend.
It was one of those days where I spent 30% of my time doing new stuff and 70% of my time fixing crap that I broke off.
For the new stuff, I built the blade support racks and their associated blade clamps. The kit parts have a very narrow, scale-ish, connection between the forward half of the two-part assemblies and the main part. There are two sets that vary in size. I was seiriously concerned that this narrow part wasn't going to make it especially after it got softened by the solvent cement in its proximity.
I fixed this by drilling and applying a piece of 0.014 guitar string and a corresponding hole at the correct angle in the main part. I put on accelerator and then pooled some thin CA in the joint. Much, much stonger.
You can't use sprue cutters to cut guitar string (or any music wire for that matter). It's so hard it will put nice half-moon dents in the cutters and ruin them. You need a good hardened cutter. I have a Xuron Hard Wire Cutter. But surprisingly, my 30 year-old Channellock long-nose pliers have a cutter near the hinge and cut hard wire with no damage. It's all abou the metallurgy. Chinese tools generally don't hold up.
The Xuron cutters can't cut a tiny piece due to the thickness of the jaws, so a bit was sticking out the bottom of the assembly. This will imapale you so it needed to be removed. I used the Dremel with a diamond-coated burr. Took my time and didn't grind away the much softer plastic surrounding the wire.
The blade clamps were another small assembly that too much too much time due to the poor engineerig. They needed to be glued together OFF the blade since I'm going to airbrush the entire blade clamp, but I needed it to be spaced as it would be on the blade. I measured the blade's thickness at the point where the clamps go and then used a piece of cardboard of that width to glue the clamps. When they were reasonably set, I placed them on the blades to finally cure.
Here is the gluing set up.
And here's all the parts waiting for paint (on Monday).
I glued the rearview mirror back on. First I tried 30 minute epoxy, but it wasn't viscous enough to stay put and there was no way to clamp it. I wiped off the epoxy and then used some epoxy putty. This worked! It help the part still and cured hard. The mirror is firmly attached. It needs a little cleanup which I'll do next week.
While fussing with the mirror, I had the model supported on a foam block. It fell off and a main wheel came off, a tailwheel came of and the scissors link broke again. That's the seond time it broke off since I replaced the original with my 3D printed one. It had become a mess. I still had some printed ones left over, so I made a new one. This one I actually got the hinge wired too. Needs painting.
I painted the main rotor color coding. The tape idea wasn't working so well. Besides the hub there's also coding on the swash plate connection links.
Lastly, I got all the loadout items installed. Had to reglue the torpedo. Very small contact area for these parts... i.e., really fragile. This is NOT A TOY! IT IS NOT FOR CHILDREN TO PLAY WITH!
So, that was a pretty big week! Got a lot done and it's almost finished. What's left is putting on the main rotor blades with their stowage clamps, and put on the tail boom in the folded position. I may use epopxy putty on this application due to the small gluing area and the weight of the part.
The blade mounts when you look at a prototype image show a connection into the fuselage to locke them into position. The model does not have this, but I'm going to add it. Otherwise, all those blades are just hanging out there.
All y'all have a nice, safe weekend.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
No, you're not a crazy modeler at all.
BertUS
Senior Airman
It's a challency to print those small parts, but also to draw, you trying to do it on scale, but after printing you might have to draw some parts a bit thicker of greater, till now, I print the parts one by one, lot of time but now I am sure, they will satisfied.
About your Day, well, common Day of a builder , but still, it willl be a damned nice model
About your Day, well, common Day of a builder
, but still, it willl be a damned nice model
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Beautiful detail work. This is going to be a stunning model when completed.
Great work so far!
- Thread starter
- #159
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
Thanks all for giving me a "hot streak". I certainly hope it will be a great model when finished. After all the screwing around today, that goal was in jeopardy.
Spent a lot of time today fussing with getting the blades mounted and didn't finish. I did get the blade racks installed. i found that there was a pin on one end of the bottom member that could go into the holes in the fuselage if there were holes there. There were keyslot-shaped engravings at the correct locations on the strbrd-side. I measured the pin and drilled out those areas. Then I realized that I had put the mounting pins on the wrong end of this member and had all the paint schemes backwards.
I had to make new pin on the rear set using Evergreen round styrene of a very similar diameter. The front one's pin was intact and I was able to use this. I repainted all their bottoms to conform to the scheme on the rotor head. I also added all the blade clamps before painting. The red was air brushed. The rest was hand painted.
Then came the real fun. Getting the kit's plastic blades into the scale-like attachment points. I was able to use metal pins on all of them without further wrecking the plastic components. Getting these things in was approaching a horror show. At one point I over-torqued one of the hubs and broke it off. I reglued it.
The remaining blade was an hour's worth of work. Besides using another 3D printed knuckle after I wrecked the first one, I also had to fix where I destroyed the connection journel for the de-icing wiring. I broke the copper wire off from manhandling the knuckles to stay glued. So I re-drilled the tiny hole to reapply the copper. Then it happened again. This time I broke off the carbide tiny drill in the hole and couldn't get it out meaning I couldn't redrill it. It's impossible to re-drill a hole with a chunk of tungsten-carbide buried in it.
I ended up cutting the whole journel off and replacing it with some Albion micro-tubing. That too took wayyyyy to long because I kept losing pieces as I was cutting them off using the razor blade. It was getting late. I was getting tired and hungry and the basement was getting cold.
I finally got that done and next session I'll get this blade finally mounted.
As you all know by following my work, I generally do not give up. I will keep trying until I get it. Meanwhile, the blades will need repainting due to all the messing around with them.
Spent a lot of time today fussing with getting the blades mounted and didn't finish. I did get the blade racks installed. i found that there was a pin on one end of the bottom member that could go into the holes in the fuselage if there were holes there. There were keyslot-shaped engravings at the correct locations on the strbrd-side. I measured the pin and drilled out those areas. Then I realized that I had put the mounting pins on the wrong end of this member and had all the paint schemes backwards.
I had to make new pin on the rear set using Evergreen round styrene of a very similar diameter. The front one's pin was intact and I was able to use this. I repainted all their bottoms to conform to the scheme on the rotor head. I also added all the blade clamps before painting. The red was air brushed. The rest was hand painted.
Then came the real fun. Getting the kit's plastic blades into the scale-like attachment points. I was able to use metal pins on all of them without further wrecking the plastic components. Getting these things in was approaching a horror show. At one point I over-torqued one of the hubs and broke it off. I reglued it.
The remaining blade was an hour's worth of work. Besides using another 3D printed knuckle after I wrecked the first one, I also had to fix where I destroyed the connection journel for the de-icing wiring. I broke the copper wire off from manhandling the knuckles to stay glued. So I re-drilled the tiny hole to reapply the copper. Then it happened again. This time I broke off the carbide tiny drill in the hole and couldn't get it out meaning I couldn't redrill it. It's impossible to re-drill a hole with a chunk of tungsten-carbide buried in it.
I ended up cutting the whole journel off and replacing it with some Albion micro-tubing. That too took wayyyyy to long because I kept losing pieces as I was cutting them off using the razor blade. It was getting late. I was getting tired and hungry and the basement was getting cold.
I finally got that done and next session I'll get this blade finally mounted.
As you all know by following my work, I generally do not give up. I will keep trying until I get it. Meanwhile, the blades will need repainting due to all the messing around with them.
- Thread starter
- #160
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
The problem with having your thread read by people who ACTUALLY know about the model you're building is sometimes they tell you things you're doing wrong and that you must fix. This happened with yesterday's post. I was told by words and pictures that I installed the blades in backwards. Ugh! They were awful to get in the first time. However; there is a silver lining... sort of.
By spending the time to pin the blades to the knuckles and not gluing them, I was able to pull the pins and remove the blades without breaking them.
While trying to get the blades back on I re-torqued the knuckle that I broke yesterday and rebroke it. This time, knowing that more CA wasn't going to do the trick, I drilled and inserted a 1/32" diameter phos-bronze pin. It was much more secure after regluing.
I got three of the four blades in again. The last one is the one with the 3D printed end. I just printed the mating half which I've also pre-prepared with hole positions to pin the parts together and to the end of the blade since I'm also cutting of the battered plastic end. This will give me two good eyes into which I will put the mounting pin.
Tomorrow, the blades will be on I promise. I'm still having trouble positioning them fully folded. The resin knuckles and the plastic blade ends do not conform well to each other. I've had to grind away little bits of the blade end to let it swing further towards the hub's center.
Meawhile, I'm continuing to draw like mad on the Iowa Turret Project. I got the gun loading apparatus finished. This was a very challegning SketchUp task. Here is the cradle in the loading position. The gun is held at 5° during the loading procedure. This gun can be reloaded in 30 seconds.
And here it is in the firing position. There's still more detail to add around this equipment which I will eventually get to.
Again, I'm fully describing this project elsewhere in the forum.
By spending the time to pin the blades to the knuckles and not gluing them, I was able to pull the pins and remove the blades without breaking them.
While trying to get the blades back on I re-torqued the knuckle that I broke yesterday and rebroke it. This time, knowing that more CA wasn't going to do the trick, I drilled and inserted a 1/32" diameter phos-bronze pin. It was much more secure after regluing.
I got three of the four blades in again. The last one is the one with the 3D printed end. I just printed the mating half which I've also pre-prepared with hole positions to pin the parts together and to the end of the blade since I'm also cutting of the battered plastic end. This will give me two good eyes into which I will put the mounting pin.
Tomorrow, the blades will be on I promise. I'm still having trouble positioning them fully folded. The resin knuckles and the plastic blade ends do not conform well to each other. I've had to grind away little bits of the blade end to let it swing further towards the hub's center.
Meawhile, I'm continuing to draw like mad on the Iowa Turret Project. I got the gun loading apparatus finished. This was a very challegning SketchUp task. Here is the cradle in the loading position. The gun is held at 5° during the loading procedure. This gun can be reloaded in 30 seconds.
And here it is in the firing position. There's still more detail to add around this equipment which I will eventually get to.
Again, I'm fully describing this project elsewhere in the forum.
