1/48 Sea Knight ON DA BENCH phase one:

I have not been in a huey, so from working on 46's for the Navy, I'll just go on that. The tie down rings which we refered them as, is a round metal plate scewed to the floor. It has a bowl shape in the middle of the plate and that is where the ring attaches. So the ring is basically somewhat level with the floor. This refers to the ones that run along in the middle down through the aircraft. Now the ones that run on both sides that you would find under the troop seats, those are not flush with the floor. And it is a piece of round flat metal plate that is screwed down, with the ring attached in the middle. I see in the picture of the tie down areas. Are you thinking of scratchbuilding those areas too? Also I would love to add is.... your jig and the rollers scratchbuild idea. Just awesome!! Sure do miss working on the Seaknight.

Thanks James!

Hey gang.....Any more info on the Sea Knight cargo floor would help a lot!
I havn't had much time to do much since then.

Man you are a bad-ass!!! I am a bit jealous I didn't think of the idea first. I haven't started on my Phrog yet, I hope to finish a couple of other projects first. I worked on CH-53E's in the Marines, and everyonce in a while we would help out with the 46 guys (not to mention we flew on them every now and again). The rollers were slightly raised to allow pallets to run freely from one end to the other......it was a great idea, and was used in the 53's as well. It almost looks flush in your pics, so I thought you might want to know. Also from what I can remember James nailed the cargo tie-down rings. And not all floors had black non-skid....sometimes they were painted the same gray as the fuselage, however it seemed pretty rare (I have only seen two like that, and maybe 3 53's with the same painted non skid). Looking fantastic so far, and that jig is a brilliant idea!!

Thanks scratchy!

Its a good thing I made a copy of the deck floor before I cut everything up!

The rollers had to be the same length so I had to make a jig....all I did was start with a big piece a of flat plastic and used some scale 8X6 rails to use as guides for the aluminum tubing and set up a stop after I got the right length.

The jig that came with my exacto blade had too much play ( side to side ) in it.

Then I used Testors aluminum metalizer rattle can for the finish inside the roller pits.

Thanks all for the Tie down info!

I sized my aluminum rollers with the kits rollers and now that I look at more pics I think that the MRC rollers might be too fat for thier length? .....oh well.

Papa-Echo:

Great start! I'm trying to post a couple of pics I took yesterday of the floor of a Phrog. Hope they post.

Guess that didn't work. I'll try again...