New CH-53E build

Started by grinding off the kit moulded panels.

The Eduard PE parts installed

Pass the popcorn!

assembling the cockpit 

Next I moved onto the side panels and interior cabin.

The soundproofing is a bluish gray vice the old gray from the early CH-53E.  As crewchiefs we would run 550 cord along the litter bracket mounting points, so we could hang our troop seat seat belts up.  The kit has the early troop seats with the stanchions clipping into the floor.  We went away from those seats after the first gulf war, zero crash worthiness!  We went to a new Isreali Aircraft Industries seat that were quick flip up type, dark green and had quick stow brackets, great seats, for troop lifts, then you needed to configure quickly for an external mission it would take seconds vice 20-30 minutes to put your seats up.  I tried to replicate the new soundproofing and the upgraded seats, seat bars.  In todays CH-53E's as well as the CH-53K, we have Lockheed Martin individual crash worth seats installed in the aircraft, they are excellent seats and provide 10g crash attenuation for the troops in the back!!

Got the fuselage halves together last night, and began the tail rotor pylon assembly.

Very nice.  The interior looks really good.

Thanks Gino your H-60 builds ar incredible . So I’m trying for that look. Appreciate the feedback!

it would be great if Kittyhawk did a 53 in 1/35th. Echo or Kilo. It would be awesome. I can dream.......

Dan

Gunny Dan

it would be great if Kittyhawk did a 53 in 1/35th. Echo or Kilo. It would be awesome. I can dream.......

It would be huge!!  But yes, awesome all the same.

I second the motion - a 1/35 CH-53 would rock.  While I'm making wishes, I'd love for Trumpeter (or Bronco) to put out a box of 1/350 CH-53K's.  It's a mean looking piece of equipment.

Here!  Here!

Update to the CH-53E build.  I have completed all the major assemblies.  The batwings are on, as well as the aux tanks are finished.  I completed the engines and have painted them seperately and will install once I finish the overall fuselage painting.

Dipped the canapoy in Future floor wax, and then began the finishing assembly

I searched around the forum for some building tips, and I am trying utilizing a white glue for my canapoy install.  The set up time was very long, but overall I am very happy with the way it turned out.  Smooth, and clear when dried.  Very little filler needed, and the Academy kit canapoy actually fits very well compared to the Revell kit for the CH-53D, it can be horrible if the fuselage halves are warped from being in the box for 30 years.....ugh!

Onto priming and working on adding details to the rotor head.

Gunny Dan

Working on the rotorhead now. ResKit and Blackdog makes several nice upgrades for this kit, as well as for the 1/72 CH-53E, MH-53E, MH-53J model kits.  Once I am a little more experianced I really want to try and add their resin kit details to one of my 53E builds.

Main Rotor Head assembly:

So the kit really lends itself to detailing the rotorhead, and I have seen a lot of outstanding modelers super detail this kit, I am going to try to put some detail into the rotorhead, as this is my first attempt, I am sure I will learn alot for the next model.

I wanted to add the bladefold lines in, as they are easily seen from the air and ground in almost all of the CH-53E pictures out there.  Each sleeve and spindle initself is a piece of art work.  I have built many of them up for installation on the helicopter.  They come bare from supply and you have to transfer all of the hydraulic lines as well as avionics harnesses over to the new sleeve and spindle prior to hanging it on the head.

So I built a mini blade fold manifold out of evergreen sprue and fastened it to the top of the spindle.  Next I add the press/return lines from the hydraulic spider manifoild that runs down the center of the MGB output shaft.  Then add the pitchlock hydraulic lines to the upper and lower pitchlocks that the kit parts were moleded with.  A nice touch as building those from scratch would have been a bummer!

Got the helicopter into the paintbooth last night.  Primer and some more sanding was completed. I have noticed that the white glue I used on the canopy has seperated after complete cure, even though I tried to tack it in place.  I guess I did not account for shrinkage of the material as it dried.  I will address this tonight with some filler and light sand, prior to my next color the dark gull gray.

I am trying a a technique I have watch a few videos on and also have seen here on the forums of pre-shading the panel lines.  I guess I am an old school guy when it comes to weathering, the pastel chalks, and using a thinned down black enamel are over.  There are so many great things out there now.  Tamiya panel line, AK weathering pencils, Tamiya powders, artists oils....on and on!

I learned a lot when I did this.  I used a light gray primer, then I came in with my airbrush at around 20-25 psi with a thinned enamel model master black, and etched my panel lines.  However when I came back to my base color and tried for the effect I did not fair so well.  The light gray and the gull gray made it very difficult to accentuate the panel lines the way I have seen a few youtube videos. PRACTICE PRACTICE!!  I am going to re-watch the tutorials, and get this right, as I love the effect you guys get on weathering these gray/gray modern color schemes.

learning is the key here, I'd love some feedback from you all, on both my canopy faux pas, as well as the shading techniques you like.  A little look at the overall airplane as she sits on the bench awaiting some more attention.

r/Gunny Dan

Looking good. 

I tried the white glue on canopies a long time ago and gave up on it.  They were not that tight when dry, shrunk as you have experienced, and tend to pop off when you pull the masking tape off.  I sparingly use super glue on all my canopies.  If I get any frosting, rare, I lightly hit the area with gloss clear on and angled brush that I use to get into hard/tight areas.

I am not a fan of the pre/post shading of panel lines.  I have never seen a real vehicle or aircraft where the outsides of the panels are darker than the insides.  I stick to the tried and true washes, drybrushes, and pastels for weathering as well.  All the new-fangled fads don't look realistic at all to me.

Gino,

Excellent advice on the canopy situation.  I will go back to superglue, I too have not had a frost issue when I use it sparingly with a toothpick or needle.

Looking over your builds I admire your weathering very much.  I too "grew-up" with washes and pastels, and have had great success in creating that realistic appearance with that approach.  Being around military aviation as long as I have, and seeing the colorful paint jobs of the 70's & 80's and now onto the subdued paint jobs of today, I have seen all kinds of weathering, shading, mis-matched paint for sure!!  The CH-53E lends itself to heavy weathering, as the GE-416A's and -419's are sooty turbo-shaft engines, and the airplane itself leaks everywhere.  There's just not much we could do about it.  The subdued gray - camo paint "soaked" up all the grime, and oil stains.  

Thats why the last deployment of the CH-53D's to Afghanistan the aircraft were not flat gray any longer.  They were a semi-gloss, and sometimes gloss gray when they returned from the rework depot in Japan to Hawaii.  Easier to keep clean, and wiped down.

I guess weathering is a perspective of the model builder, and I am sure lots of opinions on the subject.  But, like you, I have been around some fairly dirty, weathered Army/USMC gear, and when the weathering is just right, the model really pops.

Thanks for the tips and feedback Gino!  Ohh Rah!

Gunny

Gunny Dan

...learning is the key here, I'd love some feedback from you all, on both my canopy faux pas, as well as the shading techniques you like.

Hey Gunny, your helo is looking great. I wish I had one. I built up Revell's HH-53C and would love to have a USMC Echo too. I just don't know if I have the space...or the cash!

Anyway, I wanted to share my two cents about painting modern USN and USMC grey schemes. By no means am I a pro, but I tried something on a Super Hornet I built and was happy with the way it came out. It's called "black-basing". There are a ton of "how-to" videos on the web about it, but here's how I did it in a nutshell.

As far as what I did, it was pretty basic. First, I primed everything in black. (Duh.) Then, I sprayed the lower color, the lighter LGG, first. I thinned the MM enamels to about 50/50 with some laquer thinner. I sprayed it at a low pressure, about 15 psi, with my airbrush pretty close to the surface. The paint was sprayed in a random pattern and the goal was inconsistent coverage. I shot one panel at a time, in a completely random, almost "squiggly" pattern. If I wanted a darker, dirtier, more mottled look, then the base color was sprayed more haphazardly and the coverage was more inconsistent. If I wanted a cleaner "greyer" look, then I made sure the coverage was more consistent and complete. The upper DGG surfaces were approached in the same fashion. Once I was happy with the overall coverage, then I sprayed some DGG "splotches" on the lower lower surfaces, and conversely, some LGG splotches on the upper surafaces. I didn't do any "lightening" of the base colors. It was all about coverage. Besides those two greys, I picked some random greys and shot them in random places and with random coverage to give that beat-up "touched-up" look to my airframe.

I avoided pre-shading the panel lines because, to my eye, I didn't see that "pattern" in reference pictures. If I had to do it again (and I will), I think I'll use thinner paint and a more random spraying to give the modern airframes a more "operational" look. Maybe even go back with a lightened base color and spray more splotches into the center area of some panels. The great thing that I noticed about this techinique is that, if you have to go back and fix any boo-boos, and/or do any spot touch-ups, all of that will add to the overall effect of the paint.  

I hope this helps. Good luck with the rest of your build. I'm looking forward to seeing this monster all wrapped up.

Cheers!
-O

I can't say I trust superglue not to fog the canopy, and it's hard to fix if it's on the inside. I think the most important thing is to work at the fit for a while, and use Future.

Then use either styrene cement or CA very sparingly.

Gino, second you on panel shading.

O has excellent, high level advice. I suggest yoiu not try this first time out on your Stallion, but on some trash model.1/32 53? Well, I built five of them for my Tarawa, at 1/700 and they were sizable.

Bill

Bill

O, 

Great advice, and I will try it out.  I have some thick card stock in 11x17 sheets, I am going to practice on that with my airbrush and just try and get the muscle memory back.  I finally sprung for an iwata airbrush, time to put the Aztek/Model master out to pasture. I still have my tried and true pasche and it is good for large areas. So onto the garage for practice.

Bill, I agree, I will follow along with Gino here and weather the Stallion with the methods I am comfortable with now, as I want to box it up and get it to my Marine Buddy.

But, you have to admit a 1/35th scale CH-53K.....would be kinda fun.  But, I also have talked with a lot of the manufacturers when I would go to the shows in California.  Namely TamiyaCon, IPMS Orange County, Bob Keller show, and folks would always flood them with quesitons on why they didn't make X subject in X, Y, Z scale.  Its dollars and cents period.  We (Helicopter enthusiasts) are sort of at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to modeling subjects other than 1/72.  With the new releases in 1/35th and keeping step with armor releases its fantastic the H-60's, AH-6's even a 1/35th CH-47, that have graced our local hobby shop shelves.  Look at the models Gino has done, fantastic!  Kittyhawk is for sure putting out product and their price point is not that bad for all that plastic, so consumers are getting the subjects they want to build.

I am hoping that the kit manufacturers will continue this line of thought and expand their lines out to other type/model/series helos.  With the continous evolution of 3D modeling, to direct additive manufacturing ( i.e. 3D printing) making the molds and injection production has completely changed since the early days of Aurora and Monogram (to name only a few) would engineer the dye, then manufacture the dye then stamp out the product, and if the kit was a success, retool the dye and make another run.  CNC maching with computers, laser cutters etc, make quick business of desiging dyes and tooling to run these plastic kits.  But, as I once was told by a wise Marine general when I was in the pentagon, "It's not all about the money, it's ALL, about the money".  

So we helicopter lovers are slaves to the P-51's and the F-35's of the world.  Because thats what folks like to build......and well, I am a plastiholic.....so I do to!

Rant officially over......!

OBTW- - - I did just buy a Kittyhawk UH-1N in 1/35th scale for one of my HMLA-369 bubbas!!  Never built 1/35th scale other than armor, I am super excited to get in on the bench!

Gy Dan

Oh imagine what we civil aircraft and ship modelers have to put up with. The old "if it doesn't have guns, it doesn't sell" routine.

Bill

OBTW- - - I did just buy a Kittyhawk UH-1N in 1/35th scale for one of my HMLA-369 bubbas!!  Never built 1/35th scale other than armor, I am super excited to get in on the bench!

Gunny, are you sure it isn't 1/48?  If it is Kitty Hawk, theirs is in 1/48.  If it is 1/35, it is either by Dragon or Panda.  They are the same kit, just reboxed by Dragon with different decals, weapons, and PE.

Crap Sir, you are right, it is Panda, my bust!!

Still a scale I have never tackled.  And, I am excited to give her a whirl.

Gunny

The Panda kit isn't horrible, just not up to today's standards.  It can be made into a very nice model with a bit of work.  The biggest thing is the oversized rivets.  Give it a light sanding overall to knock them down a bit.  

You might find some pointers here: http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/16/t/164152.aspx?page=1

Results.

Gino,

Great build log.  I surfed over there this morning.  When the kit arrives I will certainly post my progress for help and advice.

My buddy wants the GAU-21 on the DAS mount, vice the GAU-16, and a GAU-17 on the other side vice the M240D/M60. So I will be on the look out for those. The mini gun is out there I have seen it on many a model, H-60, UH-1Y, but the GAU-21 may be a little harder to find.

r/Gy

PM sent on the above weapons.

PM sent.

r/Gy

I use 5 minute epoxy on glass.

good thought....I will look into that!!

r/Gy