CH-46- "Doing it, Phroggy Style" Finished

 Progressing slowly.

 I added a bit more detail and wiring to busy things up a bit.

 Painted, clear coated, decaled, washed, and dull coated the cargo area.

 1 of 2 scratched fire extinguishers. The tank is a piece of sprue, sanded to shape, the handle is just thin plastic folded over a fine wire pull ring and the rest is from stretched sprue.

 On to the floor and bulkhead!

 Thank you sir, and will do!!

   FERMIS

Hello!

Great job! It's always best to build from the real thing. Keep it up and have a nice day

Pawel

 Thanks Pawel & roughseas!

 A bit more prog. The floor is almost finished, just a bit more weathering. I started by drilling out the tiedowns and adding a bit of stretched sprue. Then cut out the molded in detail for the trough tiedowns/rollers? Replaced with sheet styrene on the bottom and little, tiny bits of stretched sprue for the rungs finished off by cutting thin strips (from a blister pack) and CAed them along the sides for raised detail. Some rattlecan flat black, and a raw umber overall wash is where I'm at right now. I'll add a bit of scratches and chips here and there.

 If anyone has any cockpit pics, I would be greatful. I can't find anything other than exterior and rear areas.

    FERMIS

Your interior detail is OUTSTANDING so far.

I have a similar build to do for a good friend that also served in 266.  I plan on using some squadron photos to print my own decals.  The black fighting griffen insignia on the sail should be fairly straightforward printing onto decal paper.

Andy

http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/bill_spidle3/ch-47d_92-0309/

Fermis, see if that link helps you out with cockpit pictures. Don't know if its exactly what you're looking for but I thought it may be useful.

Jon

Edit: I found this as well. And Good work so far!

http://www.primeportal.net/aircraft2/ch_47.htm

Awesome job so far, man! In 2003 my rifle company served as security at a lot of FOBs, mainly for Phrogs and CH-53s. We were with HMM-268 a lot.

Awesome little scratchbuilt details. The fire extinguishers are especially good.

It's a shame that there are so many ejector pin marks... I have the Academy CH-53 kit and it's the same story. Well over a hundred pin marks on the interior walls, which are molded with a quilted fabric texture, so it's downright impossible to sand. One huge shortcoming on an otherwise very nice kit.

Cool nose, er, door art on this one. Gotta love ol' Michigan J. Frog!

Kevin

 Thanks for the compliments guys, helps keep me from slacking off!!!

 So Andy, when do you plan on making those decals????

 Anytime in the next couple of weeks???

 Any chance of an extra set???$$$

Oddman- excellent link, I found everthing I needed...and then some. Now I almost want to completely open this thing up.....ALMOST!!!!

 And Kev, if you've got any students on Monday morn, swing on by OZW, a Huey will be around for filming the new RED DAWN movie. If it is not out flying, it'll be on the west ramp, just south of ONE-THREE, (also U of M survival flight hanger)

      Thanks again

              FERMIS

Fermis, You're welcome! www.primeportal.net has helped me through a lot of projects. I don't know how much you looked over the whole site but it has reference photos of a myriad of planes, armor, helicopters, ships. Good stuff. And I'm glad I could help you out! Continue the fine work and I'm excited to see the finished product. And give your friend a big thanks for me for his service over seas!

Jon

Fermis, great thread. Jessie had a good one last year. I'm up and running today on my 46. I finished another GB; one up/one down.

Here's the scene of the crime:

Here's my very significant transfer of Shekels for a Cobra Co. set of goodies:

Rotors:

Academy has the top of the blades olive drab. Is that correct? The machine is Marine Green.

I'm in, and want to do this right.

It's all for a Marine I knew. I am interested in any photo -46 resources.

Bill

 Hey Bondo,

 I can't really answer your ? on the rotors for the green machine. I know, the one I'm doing is all black. I also have the Cobra co. resin. Kinda got mixed feelings about it, some bits look great, some are a bit sloppy. Also waiting on some Eduard bits to show up before I delve into the pit. I don't normally go with all the AM stuff for myself, but this one is for my buddy, who has intimate knowledge of this craft. I wanna get as much in there as possible! Looking forward to seeing your progress!

   If you haven't checked out the link from above, it's great  www.primeportal.net. Click on "airstrip" and a list of craft will come up, pick your craft and get full walkaround shots. I think the 46s on there are all E models?

     FERMIS

 Here is the bulkhead between the pit and cargo bay. It is Cobra co. resin, but still needed a bit extra, so I scratched the crewchiefs fold down jumpseat out of wire and masking tape, and added a few more wires here and there. The piece isn't completely correct, the area above the jumpseat on the real thing is open with all kinds of mess crammed in there, I'm just too lazy to cut that out and restuff it. The resin had a bunch of tiny bubbles there so I just covered it with a piece of styrene. Hopefully my Eduard goodies will show up tomorrow.

 I counted up all the extra bits I've put in so far......276 individual bits!!!

Nice work. You ought to do a cutaway. You're a more patient man than me, after an hour of sanding the pour block of that part, I was totally into goodenough.

I'm getting more from your build than pics online!

 After looking at that pic, I could see things needed to be cleaned up a bit, I think this is a little better!

 and here's the front side. All the pics I've seen show that the office is pretty much, all black.

bondoman wrote:

Nice work. You ought to do a cutaway. You're a more patient man than me, after an hour of sanding the pour block of that part, I was totally into goodenough. I'm getting more from your build than pics online!

 Awe man, now the pressure is on!!! I just used my razor saw and put a shim in between, to hell with all that sanding!!! I think a cutaway might be a bit difficult because of the way the interior and exterior are seperate pieces. The side and back doors will be open!!! I've been going through all my refs trying to help find an answer to your rotor color ?, no joy yet.

 After going through a few more pics, I could see that my jumpseat was all wrong(Ididn't really like it anyway). The pic shows it as a weave or web pattern, so I scratched a new one. I just bent a piece of wire into shape and weaved thin strips of Tamiya tape, and decided to show it off in the down position.

fermis wrote:

After going through a few more pics, I could see that my jumpseat was all wrong(Ididn't really like it anyway). The pic shows it as a weave or web pattern, so I scratched a new one. I just bent a piece of wire into shape and weaved thin strips of Tamiya tape, and decided to show it off in the down position.

Actually the one on the right, except for the color, is correct for the aircraft that I crewed in the 70s.

The seats were normally the same fabric as the troop seats...red nylon stretched across aluminum tubing. We didn't have any seat belts installed on them

Fermis....can I have the other one?...Are you going to replace the stretchers, or sustitute troop seats?

 Thanks for the input J.H., but lookig at the pic in my initial post, the one where my buddy is standing next to it, I can see that on his bird, it's weaved or webbed. I missed that initially. That's the only pic that I can actually see somewhat of whats going on there.

 Bondo- That seat has been religated to the round filing cabinet under the bench, nowhere to be found now. It really is quite simple to make, even the weave was pretty easy. I'm gonna go with crew seats, probably scratched also. A couple down and a couple stowed.

fermis wrote:

Thanks for the input J.H., but lookig at the pic in my initial post, the one where my buddy is standing next to it, I can see that on his bird, it's weaved or webbed. I missed that initially. That's the only pic that I can actually see somewhat of whats going on there.  Bondo- That seat has been religated to the round filing cabinet under the bench, nowhere to be found now. It really is quite simple to make, even the weave was pretty easy. I'm gonna go with crew seats, probably scratched also. A couple down and a couple stowed.

Fermis;

I understand completely, At some point, the set up changed. I got out in 1980, about a year and half after the "E" s started reaching the squadrons and of course they have gone through a bunch of changes since then.

I can remember thinking that one of the D models I crewed was "old" because it had been in service ten years...

Good progress and impressive detail work.

bondoman wrote:

Fermis, great thread. Jessie had a good one last year. I'm up and running today on my 46. I finished another GB; one up/one down.   Here's the scene of the crime: Here's my very significant transfer of Shekels for a Cobra Co. set of goodies:   Rotors: Academy has the top of the blades olive drab. Is that correct? The machine is Marine Green. I'm in, and want to do this right. It's all for a Marine I knew. I am interested in any photo -46 resources. Bill

Bill 

I can confirm that it was OD on top and black on the bottom with yellow tips. Also, the blade data markings should be on the underside of the blades so it could be read from the ground instead of having to climb on top to read it. This was information such as serial number, blade weight, trim tab angle, etc...

HTH

J Primm

Thanks J, and Ferm. It's your thread so I'll do my own build WIP in the Helicopter GB, but rest assured this advice goes onto the plastic tonight.

By way of a return favor here's a Vietnam thread with pics I found incredibly valuable.

http://www.popasmoke.com/visions/index.php?page=view&category=19

 Got my Eduard goods yesterday, so I started on the front office. I opted out of the resin for the Eduard color IP and added a bunch of wires and crap to the forward area that, I think, will be visible through the canopy.

Really great work!  Is that the Eduard color PE for the instrument panel?  Also, do you paint on the bundlers on the wire yourself, or is it pre-colored comm wire?

Again, great job.  I check this thread about twice a day just for updates on your bird.

 Thanks V-man & Heloguy.

 Yes, the IP is Eduard color, the wire is all me though. I took the wire from an old guitar cable, about 6/7 strands and just twisted it together. Some of the other wires are single strands of wire and some stretshed sprue.

 Will try to get the seats done tonight after hunting!!!

   THANKS AGAIN

        FERMIS

 The hunt was a success and some progress has been made. The front seats are from the resin set, and I threw on just the buckles from the PE set.

For the rear seats, I just added some bent stretched sprue to the bottom for framing, still have to add seat belts and stow straps.

 and from the hunt!!!!!

 He came in, hot on the tail of a doe. He was very, large bodied, but had this little rack. Not very good genetics. Not the type of deer we want to be breeding out there.