Building a fleet of 1/72 Italeri UH-34 Seahorse's

Keep on keeping on, John!

Fantastic!  Welcome back and I'm so looking forward to a fleet of H-34s!

IT'S ALIIIIVEEE!

Hi everyone 

I'm back building model kits again after a 8 year break .

I have a nice room set up at the back of the garage , so I wanted to continue on with my fleet of H-34's / wessex helicopters

Most of the kits I had started building about 8 years ago , so there not far from masking and painting 

I'm going with these finished colour schemes and markings

I hope its okay to resurrect an old post .

john

Hi, John.  Good to hear from you again.

Hi everyone ,

Sorry I haven't been on the forum pages very much these past couple of years .

I don't know why the images of the builds don't show through anymore , that's a bit disappointing .

Anyway I still have all the photo's I took of my H-34 builds and progress build pic's on a USB stick . I'm happy to upload any of the photos if anyone wants to view a particular image . 

I'm still collecting H-34 kits but just haven't built any for quite a while or finished some of the already started kits . 

I'll search through my file as to the USCG color scheme , I seem to recall I may have mixed two of the Gunze acrylic paints together . I will try and find out in the next day or so .

Also the V style landing gear that Italeri provide in some of their 1/72 kits are still hard to come by but back in July of this year , I saw a review of Italeri's 1/72 HSS-1 Seabat kit number 1417 . It has the V style landing gear . I purchased two for my collection

Thanks for keeping this topic active

John .

I just purchased two Italieri UH-34D kits (two because I'm a butterfingers who will inevitablybreak/lose/destroy some vital piece before I'm finished), and was disappointed to learn that they both have the bent landing gear. This thread isn't very active at this time, so before I go further I'd like to know if any additional information about the straight, three-leg landing gear has come about. Perhaps there are some after-market landing gears available?

Helo H-34

I just finished this HUS-1G USCG helicopter today

I know this is an old (6 years!) thread,  but I found it while researching for a build of an H-34 in USCG colors...   

I'm hoping John can fix the link to his image from back then......?

I always say the Wessex is so ugly it starts to be beautiful again...

But 18 builds at a time - that's a bit unhealthy, at least feels a bit like a full time job.

Anyhow - good luck with your project, glad to see you rolling again

Paweł

After searching around for a while , I finally found my Sikorsky /Wesetland S-58 fleet build Topic .

Anyway , I've started working on series two again and have a few ready for masking

I'm dry fitting the canopy's but leaving them off to mask and paint seperatly , hopfully these current 18 builds will look something like these reference pic's ;

I have one HU-5 Wessex painted and ready for decalling

So if everything goes to plan I should have at least another 4 builds painted over this weekend

Thank's for looking .

John .

Hello Helo

I need to ask you this...

... how many models...

... do you have going...

... at any one given time?

You've got a production line of Pahantoms...

... you did all of those Hueys...

... now you've got all these choppers...

... and god only knows what else you've got goin' on in the hangar.

OMFG that is insane.

This one's for you my friend.

P.S. I f you could kindly start a time management tutorial you will get great amounts of praise and gratitude no doubt. Not to mention help me and others pump out more builds. lol

Dear Sir, Do you have some more digitale photos of the Sikorsky S-58 helicopter. Like your nice one of Okanagan Group? Greeting Jack Gravemaker from Middelburg in The Netherlands     jackgrave@zeelandnet.nl

I'm not sure, as the immage pixelizes on me at around 200X zoom, which doesn't bring any luck with it. There is definately something there, but I can't get a good look at it.

All I can say is to try to find the same type of helicopter, in a museum, and ask the tour guide if you can go past the velvet rope. Tell him your trying to reproduce an accurate replica of the helicopter, and you need to know what's behind the fuel tank. I don't know if it would work, but it's worth a shot.

Your not immagining things, or we could both have our eyes playing tricks on us...

Thank's macattack80 and railfan 233 ;

I found another pic on the net of an Auxilary fuel tank on a LH-34D ;

I've been staring at this pic for so long , I'm not sure if my eye's are starting to play tricks on me ; there seems to be a bracket bolted close to the fuselage coming up on the inner side of the fuel tank that looks similar to what you would see on a Huey ? . Or am I just imagining this

                                        John .

It looks great, Helo 53.

I can't wait to see the finished version of the one with the door gunners with rocket-pods mounted on the side. Exelent work.

Mabe I could do something simaler, with some huey kits. Since the end of Vietnam, there have been some interesting schemes. Thanks for the insperation.

I am happy with series one as well .  Nice fleet.  Your scratchbuilding skills are top notch Helo.   Can't wait to see series 2.

Thank you for the kind comments on my builds guy's ;

I'm reasonably happy with series one of the H-34 fleet....

The U.S. Army CH-34C , the USCG HUS-1G and the German Navy H-34G are my pick of the bunch ;

I have a couple more H-34's in the works with the replacement scratch-build V-style landing gear ; A UH-34J for the Netherlands Navy and I'm going to have a try at building an armed UH-34D , a USMC "Stinger"...

                             John .

Sorry John, I've no reference on the pylon. It would surely look nice with your scratch building skills. I noticed your scratch on the spoke landing gear and they look great.

Your kit's in grey plastic. I like working with grey plastic rather than the dark green that I have.

Cheers,

Richard

I've been trying to figure out how to mount an external fuel tank to the side of a LH-34D build , I also want to fit one to another Air America S-58T ...

Len Lundh's book has a couple of great pic's of an external tank and I also came across some pic's on goole images from the New England Air Museum ...

Apart from the bracing that bolts to the fuselage above the cabin window , What type of bracket bolts between the fuselage and the inner side of the fuel tank ?????

                                      John

Great looking work!

A lot of Reserve bases were joint Navy and Marine, and the helos assigned to the base were marked to reflect that.

Len

Hi Pawel ,

I'm using Len Lundh's , Sikorsky H-34 An illustrated History book as my source of reference for different color schemes and markings ;

Some reserve H-34's were given " joint service " markings .

Kind regards

                       John .

Helo 53

Reserve Navy/Marine UH-34J

John,

Very nice builds. I have a question about the bird above - how come the inscription on the tail reads NAVY MARINE? Didn't see this one before. Could you explain? Thanks in advance, have a nice day

Pawel

Here's five finished H-34's

German Navy H-34G III

VNAF UH-34D Kingbee

Early JMSDF HSS-1

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

U.S.Navy HSS-1N

Reserve Navy/Marine UH-34J

Thanks for looking...

                               John .

I have almost got five more finished...

Tomorrow a couple of coats of clear flat , remove the mask and add the rotors .

There's not a lot of markings on these birds but decaling always seem to take a couple of evenings .

Anyway I'll post some outside pic's of the finished birds hopfully on tuesday ,

                                  John .

Black and White 

Helo 53

Thank's Pawel ;

I didn't realize you could change the original title , I will think up a more appropiate topic title .

I'm running behind my own schedule for getting the first batch finished off , I'm hoping to get some decaling done over the next couple of nights ...

I've put together another 15 H-34's , there just about ready for some putty and then sanding . I would like to get three USMC and one Army Medivac bird into the spray booth by the weekend .

                                                 John .

That is quite a collection there, looking forward to seeing some paint on them.

Thank's Pawel ;

I didn't realize you could change the original title , I will think up a more appropiate topic title .

I'm running behind my own schedule for getting the first batch finished off , I'm hoping to get some decaling done over the next couple of nights ...

I've put together another 15 H-34's , there just about ready for some putty and then sanding . I would like to get three USMC and one Army Medivac bird into the spray booth by the weekend .

                                                 John .

Howdy Helo53,

I admire your work, it's a gigantic enterprise you got yourself there...

For feedback, I's suggest changing the title of your original post, it got seroisly misleading over time, the more when you take into account that you got your V-style landing gear now!

I'd also suggest using some kind of "lacquer thinner" cement for scratchbuilding, when you glue styrene pieces together. It's IMO better for scratchbuilding, because it allows a lot of correction time before it dries, and when it dries it's much more stable over time. And it's cheap.

Keep 'em coming (you have no problem with that so far) and have a nice day

Pawel