After picking away at this old 1/72 scale Airfix C130K (very old Series 8 kit) for about 3 years, I have finally finished it! This kit was rife with problems and thus the long build time – I used to have to put it away so I wouldn’t throw it away. The fit was terrible, raised panel lines, fuselage repeatedly popped apart on the seams (my own fault for not adding styrene tabs during assembly to keep the halves joined), twisted fuselage causing misalignment of main and tail wings, major tail sitter even though there is about 40g of weight in the nose and I used almost all my putty on the bugger! Although the photos of the finished kit look pretty good, the fit problems and repeated repairs on the fuselage halves resulted in some undesirable blemishes. It is a fairly big finished subject measuring 17” long with a 22" wingspan. Challenging kit to say the least.
I finished the kit in the livery of a USCG International Ice Patrol C130K using the decal set from Hawkeye Models (set #CGDS-07) from Australia. Decals look OK but are somewhat transparent and sometime change in color intensity especially on the full color decals. I think I would have masked and painted if I had my time back. I modeled this particular Hercules as #1347 which was stationed at Argentia Naval Base in Newfoundland Canada back in the 1960’s. The decals for the USCG aircraft number and air station, I custom made. Propeller warning strips were drawn in CAD and printed on peel and stick white vinyl. The props were not the best and I had hoped to get a set of aftermarket ones but had no luck. Antenna wire is EZ Line (fine).
All in all, I am glad it is finished and would probably do another one finished in the same livery, but with a better kit such as Italeri. Finished photos below.
Thanks for looking.
RODC
