Search and Rescue Group Build 2011

LOL i think the same ! not first time, waiting for norse updetes !

I can call the Seabat finished for now, will add later some more pictures with the wessex hu5 and... when the buran and blizzard from the east will leave Italy will take some honest outdoor pictures actually two weeks without sun and the only weather avaible are cloud with wind or rain, or both mixed with lightings  

as i see after take pictures the right whell need some more retouch

I'm not sure but will try to get some yellow one copter to add here between some month .. probably a sea king

bsyamato,

Looking good into the tail stretch.

I am sure the missing part will appear after toiling for hours scratch building a replacement. Its how Murphy's law applys to model building.

I hope to post some progress WIP's this weekend.

Thanx for comments Helo

After posted last picture i remember that Paul boyer posted an h-34 and he replied me about the wrong tail rotor on italeri's h-34 too late.

The solution to reverse the whole rotor is good but not resolving the control shafts points, they are in correct way

Probably for now i leave it so. If will found the necessary references for the others missing details will fix it too.

I see your great collection when searched references for my hu-5 theres lots of great subject between ,really liked all . Will check on helicopter section for updates !

bsyamato your Seabat is really coming along well now .

Excellent work fixing the rotors and overall she is looking great .

It's no big deal but Italeri have the tail rotors going in the wrong direction ; I've never worried about it in the past when I built my H-34's , however a modeller over in the helicopter forum section back in 2010 built an awesome Vietnam H-34 and he explained that instead of cutting the four tail rotor blades and turning them over to face the other way an easier method is to just cut the pin off one side of the tail rotors and do the same with the small raised piece on the other side and swap them around . This is much better than cutting off the individual tail rotor blades and struggling to get them glued back into position facing the other way . Cutting the pin is definitly easier .

Embarrassingly I started a whole fleet of H-34 and Wessex builds but the whole project has stalled , I finished  7 kits and have another 20 builds glued toghether with  about  24 H-34 and Wessex kits in the stash with a ton of after market decals , resin and PE . Perhaps sometime this year I can finish off the 20 builds I have already started .

Any great on-going work on your Seabat my friend

John .

so... more updates and more wall head hitting this afternoon painted and added other details included the rescue hook. This night returned on the workbench after billiards session i picked the seabat and the hook was not here where i glued it! the only scientific explain is an alien abduction so tomorrow another scratched piece is needed

then pictures with wheels , rescue hook lifter and other details painted

At the end glued also the bottom tubes. Some italian seabat shows more details added on the fuselage but not found clear pictures to perfect complete these pieces, so i leave the copter withouth for the moment.

I hope this weekend to finish the good copter

I feel like want a third version in future of the 58 kits

thanx Chris

Suppression in this case the compass was better because needed the center of the disc , a punch see is also needed for litter discs but the two tools are complementary.

Punch set and the rivet (counter ) maker are two tools i'm considering to buy soon.

I'm surfing on web about the under details missing (antennas radar sensors and others things on the italian seabat but really few pictures are around

bsyamato,

compass cutter work`...

Agg! I remember the days before I purchased a punch set. Turning styrene in a drill for round bits and toiling with sanding sticks.

Trust me once you use a punch set you will never manually cut a round disc again!

One of the best modeling tool investments I made for $30.

Anyhow the rotors are looking great! Sometimes its the journey that is half the fun.

*My affliction scratch building puts the journey at 90% of the fun!

thats looking better and better all the time !

more updates here

compass cutter work

first fitting test

and the two rotors fixed!

just waiting the CA glue dry and refine after

Metal rods painted and fixed on fuselage

this is the bottom pieces from the kit someone knows where's the correct position to glue it? i found few and not clear picurer of this helicopter for a correct fix

just to show seabat with rotors

few pieces left to finish

some update

Then... i lost the finished blades control disc of main rotor  unexpected scratchbuild needed

tail rotor will also receive metal rods to replace original parts.

painting some missed detail from italeri as external tubes with brass rods and the tail light scratched from clear sprue

Hope not need to replace other parts

final laps

fixed the broken main rotor (newbee mistake i performed )

painting rotors and matt layer on the copter

tomorrow will finally glue the gear and minor parts

Thanx guys for comments  

Suppressionfire about colors no change was made between top page and last pictures, i only weatherend the grey (better i darkened the panel lines borders with drybrush) ,differences was made by different camerea manual setting.

Helo the nose number effectively was a nightmare, i did 3 or 4 attempt, used really hot water to dip and on last i attempt I risked spoiling the decals turnred too soft and elastic ,then with hands and the cutter removed totally and re-dip in the water, 2 layer of microsol perfected the adhesion.

The red looks so good because under i used 3 or 4 white layers these colors like yellow ,white and red are even a pain to paint.

waiting for more updates here

the two pellican (italian name of the hh-3) looks very domesticated from the raw kits they comes

Excellent progress Bsyamato

The red , yellow and gray colors have come out quite well . Nice job also on getting those nose numbers to contour around the nose engine doors , I struggled with a single number 3 on an early U.S. Navy SeaBat I built a while back , so I know how difficult it can be .

As for me , sadly not much progress on the Crazy Legs builds other than glueing the fuselage halves together ;

Hopfully I can some more done this weekend .

John .

bsyamato,

Difficult colors to pull off well, your helicopter is looking great!

The bottom photo looks a shade lighter than the rest, is this the lighting or a step you took in the painting process? Regardless the highlights and panel definition looks perfect.

more seabat updates

decals on , the sheet was poor but great quality

and panel lines washing, again to fix some other line

gears already painted, now remains rotors

Don't worry abour Rotorhead Just update the rooster when yuo have the opportunity

Again best wishes for the new come

too few updats about seabat, i planned bad this project and comes really slow even withouth significant mods on

Main colors on

the yellow stripe on and started to paint gears and minor pieces. Also cleared some paint mistake on clear parts with a toothpick

Corrected also the paint on the nose... i extended too much the red area

Agreed excellent work improving the kits!

Anyone see our host around? Seems he is MIA and not stopping in to update the entry page.

Looking forward to getting some work done and posted, hope to set up on the kitchen table a few times...

The famous "rivet counter" LOL!

(need one again )

Great updates Helo and good mods on the fuselage  

I'm making slow but steady progress on the CH-3E "Crazy Legs" builds ; yeah now I'm doin' two .

After swapping and changing my mind so many times , I decided to build the Lindberg kit as well as the Starfix kit side by side .

The Lindberg build will be finished in the same paint scheme of the Alaskan Air Command HH-3E and the Starfix build will have the SEA camouflage from the Vietnam War .

Anyway the starfix kit doesn't have an APU unit molded to the left upper rotor housing , so I copied some pic's into the computer that a fellow FSM member , jeaton , posted a while back in the helicopter section of some walk around pic's he took of a USAF HH-3E ; http://yolo.net/~jeaton/Helicopters/hh3/hh3.htm

Working froma couple of pic's I printed out ;

I had a go at trying to scratch build something similar by laminating some 6.5mm x 1.5mm plastic strip together

Then I tried to file the little piece to a similar contour and shape ;

I guess it looks kinda okay , so after that I had a go at using the Trumpeter rivet maker and followed some pencil lines I drew on the Starfix smooth fuselage ;

This worked out okay too , so then it was onto painting the cockpit pieces and the masking tape / plastic strip seat backs and UH-1D Huey seat bases , glue the fuselage windows in place and then glue the interior pieces in place as well ;

Close up of the cabin seats and cockpit ;

Back to the APU unit , you can see in the next pic hoe different the fuselage pieces are on the Lindberg kit with the molded in APU and the Starfix kit ;

Quite a bit of difference between the two kits , which made it a little difficult making the APU for the Starfix fuselage as it is not as rounded at the top of the cabin roof section as it blends into the rotor housing like on Lindbergs kit .

Next I'll glue the fuselage halves together and I'll make another set of fixed landing gear struts for the Starfix kit .

John .

Hi guy's ;

I've made a little more progress on Crazy Legs ; Starfix don't offer any type of front landing gear boxing or wheel well , just a slight recess in the underside fuselage halves ;

 I found an old H-53 Front landing gear boxing in the spares box and decided to use that , so I cut a notch in both fuselage halves to accommadate the landing gear boxing ;

It looked a little too long at first , so I shortened it and filled in the gap with some plastic strip .

The I extended the cockpit floor and glued the bulkhead in place , then I filed out  the equipment rack bulkhead and added some plastic strip for shelves ;

Everything seems to dry fit okay ;

Tomorrow I'll try and get some interior painting done on the fuselage halves and cockpit pieces ;

So I'm going along nicely .

John .

Never hear about starfix you're buildin half of the gb kits LOL

If i found where's my lindberg copy could try to use for an italian hh-3F conversion but not found where i suppose was i fear  thrashed it 

Bsyamato , your H-34 Seabat build is coming along nicely 

As for me , I decided to buy a couple of those inexpensive  1/72 Starfix HH-3E kits to use some of the cockpit pieces in the Lindberg CH-3E build as Starfix supply some nice cyclic sticks , foot pedals , seats and pilots .

One of the main reason for purchasing these two kits is that they come with a nice under fuselage hoist for external sling loads ;

The Carzy Legs CH-3E is fiited with one of those hoists , so my thinking was to add it to my Lindberg 2nd build .

However last night I was eyeballing the Starfix kit and started thinking about what I would need to do to fix some of the main inaccuracies and perhaps use the Starfix HH-3E as the base kit for my CH-3E Crazy Legs build .

The Starfix HH-3E main rotor housing is much nicer than Lindbergs kit but there is no bulge on the left side of the rotor housing to depict the APU unit . This could be fixed with a little Tamiya putty and sanded to shape ;

One of the biggest issue's is the size of the two overhead cockpit tinted window's , Starfix made theirs too narrow in width . So I two spare Lindberg canopies and decided to have a go at carefully cutting out the overhead canopy window's and file the opening bigger on the Starfix fuselage ;

 This seemed to work out okay ;

So now I have decided to use the Starfix HH-3E kit as my CH-3E Crazy Legs build ;

Next I cut open the side fuselage door and then glued some plastic strip to the opening to make up for the saw cut and filing . I also decided to cut open the pilots side cockpit window's to pose them open  ;

While doing this I suddenly discovered that I made a mistake on my first Alaskan HH-3E build in that Lindberg didn't mold a frame line down the middle of the pilots side window's , so I'll have to go back and re-mask those side window's and airbrush for a center frame line .

Anyway I continued on with the Starfix kit and cut open the rear ramp and I made some cockpit bulkheads for the interior ; One behind the pilots ( Starfix didn't supply one ) and the other I'll file some openings for shelves to depict the equipment rack . The one I had made already for the Lindberg fuselage is 2mm too wide for the Starfix kit , so I'll just make another .

That's about it so far , my apologies for swapping and changing things so much but hopfully it should all work out .

John .

my occasionally ridiculous update compared to the great Helo finished HH-3E

A red was used on another kit and take advantage to paint the relative seabat red parts .... enamels costs

not founf actually a correct color for the high visible red but i have the impression that another thinned layer on the same red (under color was white) can approach to the definitive acceptable color

heres the real from airliners.net

Nice, clean (and quick)  build of an unusual subject. Bravo Zulu!

Helo H-34

Another impressive build! Excellent results and considering the simplicity of the kit good use of scratch building.

Progress is slow on CF-SAM yet looking forward to getting more time to build. Aside from monthly 'build nights' at our club I have been requesting more to get extra build time in.

Jason

Here's some pic's of my completed HH-3E Alaskan Air Command SAR Helicopter .

I enjoyed the build , in fact it's the first time in a long time that I actually finished a build just several weeks after starting it . All my other on-going builds seem to drag on for months , so I'm quite pleased with my efforts and I hope build (2) "Crazy Legs" goes as good as this one .

                            John .

Great progress helo the scratched landing on the second looks good

Decals are on the HH-3E first build ;

Tomorrow I'll give her a couple of coats of clear flat , then glue on the last bits and post finish pic's .

              John .