1:72 AH-1F Cold Warrior Cobra - Finished!

Thanks a lot for your kind words, Glenn!

Looks great as always. Also love how you posed those Loaches on the map. Nice touch.

Thanks a lot, lurch!

Great job on the detailing. Great job overall. I like it.

Pawel

...I understand you mean the blade pitch, as if they had some collective on them - am I right?...

Yep, that's exactly what I meant. Interesting to learn Hasegawa molded it that way. I've seen a lot of helo photos with some pitch in their blades. Like I said, I want to try that on one of my builds. Some day...

Anyway, the snake looks great. Nice work!

Cheers,

-O

Thanks a lot for your kind words, John!

Nicely done!  So much detail in 1/72 - amazing.  Really nice finish as well.

Hello O!

Thanks a lot for your kind words - they mean a lot to me!

You probably will be disapointed, but I didn't do much beside painting the rotor - I understand you mean the blade pitch, as if they had some collective on them - am I right? I guess the Hasegawa just molded it nicely... Or did you mean something else?

Now that you mention it, it might be a cool idea doing it in other Bell choppers, too. If I was to do it on a "flat" rotor, I'd cut the blades off and glue them to the hub at an angle using some wire to reinforce the joint and liquid glue. I'd put the rotor in a jig and wait at least two days for the joints to dry completely. I did something like that on a cobra 20 years ago and the rotor is still in one piece, so I got a proof it works.

Thanks for looking and have a nice day

Paweł

Pawel, that looks great. I love the color, the intakes, and the "twist" in the rotor. Can you tell me how you did that? I've always wanted to add that to my rotors but never have. I'd love to know your process.

Thanks and killer snake!

-O

Thanks a lot!

Nice work pawel -- looks real good

Hello Mike!

Thanks a lot for your kind words - they mean a lot to me!

Have a nice day

Paweł

You've managed to make this build look like a 1/48. That's always an impressive trick in my book.

Very well done!

I love the attention to the gun and TOW launchers that made it look just that much more impressive. 

Hello everybody!

In the meantime this baby is FINISHED! I fitted all of the subassemblies, touched the paint up here and there and I have added a scratchbuilt reflector under the left skid strut. I painted up the lights, too. So here's how she looks like:

Thanks a lot for lookin' and I hope you liked it - have a nice day!

Paweł

Gino - thanks a lot!

Now I'm done fighting with the silvering (it's hard to see when the decals are gloss) and I have put on a flat coat. Here's what it looks like:

While I had my airbrush out, I also added some exhaust soot...

Now I can take off the masks and start putting on the subassemblies...

Thanks for looking and have a nice day

Paweł

Looks like it is coming along nicely.  Good job so far.

Hello!

It's been a long time - this build kinda stalled because people that printed the decals for me took their time. Now the decals are on, but I'm waiting for an opportunity to spray on the flat coat - and this is always stress since one time the flat clear turned white on me on some carefully painted figs... (I was able to save it with some diluted clear from Gunze - the ofender was Humbrol by the way).

Now the build looks a little obnoxsious because of the gloss:

And I have also been working on the gatling gun. Right out of the box it isn't very impressive:

I don't like those half-round deails much, so I tried to fix it:

A little plastic bits and wire help the gun look more realistic:

Once I spray that flat clear there will only be a small bit of work left...

Thanks for looking and have a nice day

Paweł

I don't hang out in this section much, So no I haven't seen those beautiful builds til now, my friend.

I still have my Apache to finish lol.

And I'm going to use the references I'm seeing here. I had a brief moment in an Apache Bay one day and I noticed how dark the paint really is. It looks almost black and the panel fading is accurate. Whatever paint they use actually fades more in the panel centers, just not consistently overall.

They are tough looking machines up close and you can barely see any of the markings because of the low contrast.

Hello Mike!

Neither can I wait! It's good to hear from you. Nice Hughes - Model 500 is an incredible machine. Did you see me building those babies some years ago?:

I have to get the tail serial number from somewhere, as the one I got printed is wrong due to one CorelDRAW! caveat...

In the meantime I'm working on the 20mm gun.

Thanks for lookin' and have a nice day

Paweł

Hey, Pawel! This is a sweet looking Helo you have here. I've always loved the Cobra and eventually I'll build one of those Sea cobras! Now that's a wicked looking Cobra.

I've taken a fancy with 1/72 helicopters but I've only completed one so far. I have to admit, detailing is quite fun for the scale. Almost like Armor lol.

I can't wait to see your finished build! 

Thanks a lot for your kind words! This is going to change further, as I have to apply some clear under and over the decals - hopefully for the better!

Hello everybody!

Thanks a lot for your comments - they mean a lot to me! I thought I'd write this comment a lot earlier, but I waited for my custom decals. Now they arrived at last!

Let's see how they are going to go down on this difficult surface - I've already futured the whole model quite heavily, but it's still pretty flat...

I have also decided to redo the "disco light" - the ALQ-141 jammer. This time I applied all the paint by airbrush. The prismatic paint (from the art shop) was applied over a red/blue background:

Now I'm more happy with it - I'll just paint the top Helo drab and I'll call it done.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

Tows are looking fine! Great idea on using the decal paper to make colored stripes. I'm going to try that!  Thanks, Pawel!

Russ

Quite an improvement on the TOW launchers!

Looking great.  Good job on the rotor blades and TOW launchers.

Hello everybody!

While waiting for the decals to arrive I'm working on the subassemblies... I painted up the main rotor:

I'va also had a try at the ALQ-144 disco light:

But most of the time I spent detailing and painting the TOW launchers:

BTW, you can see my method of making stripes here - I take a piece of clear decal sheet, paint it the colour I like and wait for the paint to dry. Then I cut it up with a sharp knive, and then I have the stripes.

There are still some subassemblies to do like the 20mm gun or the unguided rocket pods...

Thanks for lookin' and have a nice day

Paweł

Hello Gino!

Thanks a lot for your comment and for your kind words!

Have a nice day

Paweł

Looking good.  I really like the color and finish of the MM Helo Drab.