Aaaand we have a winner!! *COMPLETED 11/7/13*

I've felt your pain! I built this kit many years ago, and you're right; it goes together poorly, and the roof fit begs the question of whether it was ever meant for this kit. It sounds like you're in the right mind-set though...patience and lots of filler & shims will bring it together.

In the end, the extra work paid off and I was pretty pleased with what ended up on the shelf.

Good luck with the challenge...the victory over poor design will be worth it.

Cheers,

I have seen some nice builds come from this kit... not that I expect mine to be anywhere near their quality. However I know this can be done - it's just going to be patience and persistence. Lots of plastic shavings and a new bottle of gap-filling superglue too, obviously 

This is what I am going to be dressing her up as:

That's awful!!  The kit engineering and fit, that is.  What you've done with it so far to make it acceptable is excellent.

Sometimes you have to wonder who designed these things.

Good luck with it.

I thought the old Revell F/A-18 kit from the early '80's was bad. Excellent work there!

mississippivol

I thought the old Revell F/A-18 kit from the early '80's was bad. Excellent work there!

Was that this one, marketed as "Hunt For Red October" around 1990?

I'm not sure, Tex. That was issued after the merger w/Monogram, so that may be Monogram's bird in the box. The one I had was this one:

I see.  Yeah, that's not the same one.  I didn't recall any issues with the HFRO Hornet.  Thanks for the info!

Gary

Revell and Monogram did seperate F/A-18s in the early 80s when the aircraft was being developed. Lets just say that the Monogram one was far more detailed, especially in the cockpit, gear wells, etc. Both companies modified the molds after the prototype aircraft changed into the production models. MV, that looks like the original Revell release.

DeafAviator

That is, for the worst fitting kit I have ever built!

Working on a 1/48 Revell Huey Hog for an army buddy of mine. Being done up in 18th MP Brigade colors. 

The entire forward half of this thing is atrocious... Huge shims and huge amounts of gap-filling superglue needed to close things up. Haven't even started on the roof yet, which is shaping up to be the devil-child of this whole build.

Well I enjoy defeating a good challenge... question is, can this one be defeated without making the kit look like a child's toy?? We shall see.

Going to enjoy the learning experience - some new experiences on this one, like first time using shims and first time using superglue to fill anything more than a very small gap.

Building this strictly out of the box. 

You can see below the shims and superglue that were needed to fill those massive gaps. Gone over with 220 sandpaper and took a quick shot before going on to some final sanding here

 

Heh you haven't done their Apache, yet, have you?

Gene Beaird,

Pearland, Texas

Yeah this build of that same kit has survived a couple earthquakes and 25+ years...

same with this Apache (except it is only about 20 years old...)

yeah and then there is there 1980's vintage Hornet...

What is stronger? Steel or the flesh that wields it?

I'm trying to remember but I built a 1/48 scale kit back in the early 1990s that required an entire tube of testors white gunk to fill all the holes in the fits. It was a USAF plane and about six months after i built it the seams I had spent time hiding started to become visible again. I thew it into a camp fire a few weeks later in disgust.

Oh I totally agree on the poor quality of the Hog! I have been in the process of "beating it into submition" for a few years now.

Every time I can't take it anymore I box it and try again a few months later.

Theuns

Thanks DA. I know that these kits are not "shake n bake", but with a little effort the will look very nice when completed.

I built that 1/48 Revell F/A-18 pictured above. I didn't have any trouble with it at all. I as a kid suspended all my models from a wire in my bed room ceiling, when the wire snapped that was the only plane survived the fall to the floor. That fall destroyed my B-52D 1/72. I was in a rotten mood for weeks after that.

Here's an update for y'all. Worked on the Huey today along with my Gee Bee. 

I did one thing and one thing only... and that was enough for me today 

The roof... 'nuff said. 

Coming up next on this thread: I'm gonna show you just how much a turd can really be polished... 

Might need to look into those Archer rivet sets... I have a feeling those things up there by the mountain ranges of superglue arent going to survive the beating-into-submission sessions. I know I know I probably used too much but really... you wanna build this for me? 

Yup...I remember that appalling fit. I used half a tube of Squadron Green putty, built-up over the course of several days to fill those gaps. Surprisingly, after almost 20 years it hasn't cracked or shrunk!

Stay the course...you've almost got her licked!

Cheers,

Any of us who have ever put this horse together know what you're going through, DeafAviator. We're all pulling for you! You'll win through in the end. (Excellent work so far, BTW.)

In defense of the Revell/Monogram Huey, it dates back to the early sixties when it was initially released as a Medivac chopper with stretchers and stretcher racks in the cabin. ( I built my first one fifty years ago in 1963.)  It was later retooled as the "Hog", but the basic kit is still the same.  

This kind of criticism comes up a lot with "vintage" kits, but I think you have to keep things in prespective and not compare them unfairly with modern kits.  

I know I'm biased because of my age, but I love these older kits and am glad to see that they are still being released. They represent an era when modeling was more focused around twelve year olds using  X-acto knives, & brush paints, as opposed to airbrushes & AM photoetch.  Somewhat different skills required, but still enjoyable to build.

Mark

All that in mind, it is debatably the best Huey kit in 1/48. Certainly, of the short cabin variants. And that is a shame for such an important piece of avaition history.

RedCorvette

In defense of the Revell/Monogram Huey, it dates back to the early sixties when it was initially released as a Medivac chopper with stretchers and stretcher racks in the cabin. ( I built my first one fifty years ago in 1963.)  It was later retooled as the "Hog", but the basic kit is still the same.  

This kind of criticism comes up a lot with "vintage" kits, but I think you have to keep things in prespective and not compare them unfairly with modern kits.  

I know I'm biased because of my age, but I love these older kits and am glad to see that they are still being released. They represent an era when modeling was more focused around twelve year olds using  X-acto knives, & brush paints, as opposed to airbrushes & AM photoetch.  Somewhat different skills required, but still enjoyable to build.

Mark

I'm of similar vintage and experience, and heartily agree with the sentiment re those old kits! (Although, apparently being behind the curve for twelve-year-olds back then, I was still using single-edged razor blades rather than X-acto. Didn't discover those until I started reading IPMS issues a few years later.)

Man you are doing wonders with this kit Todd! You know Marks got a good point. Stikpusher and I discovered that we are both  building a Monogram SBD Dauntless (you know the one where the molds for these also date back to 1960). We are both in the process of "updating" the kit using pieces of other brands of kits to do so and I have to say its a blast. The exterior rivet detail is second to none and so is the fit of the major components. I think its pretty admirable to find folks still building these vintage kits amidst all the new kits coming out. Granted the new kits are really cool but there are a lot of things that can be done with the oldies but goodies!

Some of those oldies are just "diamonds in the rough", just needing more effort (and not necessarily a big wallet). I enjoy a new release, new tooled kit as much as the next guy. But sometimes some of those have fallen victim to current modeling trends (raised vs recessed detail) and are not always superior in every aspect to an older kit of the same subject.

The way I look at kits is just - how well can I build this, regardless of it's age. I have both old and new mold kits and they all are the same to me, just varying levels of difficulty. I guess I should say that the Huey isnt necessarily that HARD; just has a lot of pretty big "speed bumps" in the build process. I am probably going to work on her some more today and see if I can get that roof looking decent. I think I am going to get a set of Archer rivets when I have the money to spare for them.

DeafAviator

The way I look at kits is just - how well can I build this, regardless of it's age. I have both old and new mold kits and they all are the same to me, just varying levels of difficulty. I guess I should say that the Huey isnt necessarily that HARD; just has a lot of pretty big "speed bumps" in the build process. I am probably going to work on her some more today and see if I can get that roof looking decent. I think I am going to get a set of Archer rivets when I have the money to spare for them.

And you are doing a great job of that.  As I progressed with my Apache, I initially-accepted that challenge, but updating details is one thing, but fixing poor fit and molding issues is quite another.  I spent more time than I'd like to count applying and removing body putty, just to make the thing look decent.  I then went to work improving the details, but the ratio of fixing:modding was orders of magnitude to one.  At one point I was ready to give up, but then just thought I should finish it no matter how it looked, so I pounded through it to the end.  It turned out very nice, considering everything:

My wife likes it, and it resides on top of a cabinet in her hobby room, so the details don't get 'rivet-counted' much. 

Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas

Thanks Gene! That Apache looks sharp. Hope I can get this Huey looking that good.

Got a little bit done on this thing... chopped, filed, and sanded my way down to something reasonable. 

Still needs a lot of work but I slathered on a bunch of Mr. Surfacer 500 thinned 50/50 with Mr. Leveling Thinner to see just how it really looks since that dark olive plastic is not very conductive to seeing very well the damage that's done. It actually turns out that it's really not bad at all - the area around the forward/upper corners of the cabin were very tricky and I will probably be spending a little more time with my knife in this area. Need to clean up the windows and a few other spots too. Also need to fill in gaps and steps on the intake portion - completely missed that until I actually started putting the Surfacer on so that will get fixed as well. 

So overall I am actually somewhat pleased with how this is turning out - looks like I just need to get the above-mentioned issues addressed along with anything else I come across, finish prepping all the other bits and pieces, and start shooting everything up with some Surfacer 1200 followed with the Olive Drab base coat! 

The side windows are bugging more and more as I work around them - I didn't get them in 100% flush. Wondering if I should pop 'em out and order new ones from Revell or try to clean them up and reinstall them... hmmm 

You guys see anything else that needs attention?

That looks good to me and I used to be a Huey crewchief! Nice job!! On the side windows a nice feature you could do if you wanted would be to use some really thin plastic like hard plastic from like a clear plastic toy wrapping/ electronics wrap (good grief I'm at a loss for what you call this stuff! ) that you can get from any Walmart and cut to fit the window opening and display the window halfway down. Theres a small lip at the top of the window that you could replicate with baremetal foil. Just an idea. I am tempted to build one of these except mine would have to be an H model. I crewed/ worked on those things for 8+ years.